[Rather than getting lost in the other thread…]
Just buying my eldest a laptop, she’s a student and will be using it for essays, powerpoint, email, web, watching videos, etc.
Would we regret getting a 128Gb ssd model or would it be OK and just use a USB stick for extra storage if required?

Sod, it….. 256 it is. 🙂

128 should be sufficient for normal purposes for a while – when she runs low then £64 gets you another 128gb using one of these- Transcend Jet Drive.

128 should be sufficient for normal purposes for a while – when she runs low then £64 gets you another 128gb using one of these- Transcend Jet Drive.

Assuming the MBP has an SD slot :p

I bought the 256Gb MBA 4 years ago and glad I got the larger SSD. I can offload a fair bit of stuff to the cloud but a few virtual machines, xcode etc installed plus a few gopro video files and the spaces disappears rather quickly….

256GB. 128GB gets filled pretty quickly IF you’re storing any music or photos.

If you can tolerate it, you can fill one of the USB slots with a 128GB thumb drive for <£30. Samsung and Sandisk ones are cheap, fast enough, and don’t stick out much. Handy for holding your Photos library off the main drive. And you can make sure that TimeMachine and BackBlaze will also back up the external drive too.

I’d still go for the bigger drive.

256Gb

256 would be my call. If she only kept Uni Work on it then 128 would be fine but she is bound to add media. External storage is cheap £50 for 1tb plus and then various cloud options. Would make sure she keeps copies of uni work in the cloud and keep an eye on the machine inc where it’s kept in her digs – very nickable.

One final point it is a bummer the price rises but as a student she’ll get the best discount of anyone

The 256 in mine is nearly full & I don’t even know what is using 100Gb of it.

Kiwi there are some good utilities (will dig out name) – do you backup your phone/ipad to it ?

I’ve got a 128g MB air and regret not getting a bigger HD.

1tb

The 256 in mine is nearly full & I don’t even know what is using 100Gb of it.

Click the ? in the top left > About This Mac > Storage > Manage. That’ll give an indication of what’s what. I’d recommend DaisyDisk for more comprehensive disk analysis.

One of the favoured journos wrote about choosing his new one and the by the time he had finished the bill was over £4.4k!!

256.

One of the favoured journos wrote about choosing his new one and the by the time he had finished the bill was over £4.4k!!

Or, by the time he had upgraded everything to the maximum possible… If I’m buying a car I don’t complain at the price if I add all the extras.

256 would be easily used under anything less than Sierra. Sierra brings in some additional cloud syncing and optimisation.

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT206996

Thanks guys. Went with a new 256gb 2015 MBP in the end from John Lewis with a 3 year warranty as even with the student discount the basic 2016 model was going to be £1300.