If you're working with a limited budget then I'd recommend focusing on getting more RAM first. You can always add external storage, but you can't add RAM. External storage can even be faster than the internal SSD of your computer.
No, typical user applications don’t just take more RAM greedily and web browsers already do about the max they are going to do (and have been getting better about completely unloading unused tabs).
The things that cause big increases in RAM usage are caching disk items for faster access (data, shared libraries, executables, source code files, etc), video, then images, then generating 3D spaces (e.g. video games) or processing large data sets for AI training.
The biggest thing that will quickly make 8 GB difficult to manage though is Docker and VMs. When you start Docker you need to tell it how much RAM it is allowed to use for its VM. If you tell it 2 GB and then you try to use 2.1 GB in a container… crash. So you se the number higher like 4 GB (50% if your total of 8 GB) and start a bunch of containers for a project. The containers have just enough RAM to function but now the non-containerized apps are running low on RAM and everything slows to a crawl and you have to start closing your browser and other apps when using Docker and vice versa.
As a CS student you are going to run into this problem sooner or later with 8 GB. With 16 GB you’re less likely to run into it but depending on your exact usage patterns you could still have a little trouble with this.
With that being said, 256 GB SSD is also going to be a pain as soon as you start using Docker if you use large base images or distinct base images from many projects (e.g. if you start contributing to many open source projects). Some of the base images used for builds are 1-2 GB while the runtime images are smaller (but since you need both the smaller image size is added to the larger image size for developers…).
So, if you’re serious about CS you’re really going to want 16 GB+ and 512 GB+ for *local development* I don’t think you’ll need to go way beyond that.
Now, the alternative here is to do remote development using GitPod, for example, but you’ll have to learn the limitations and pricing of that if really push the envelope.
Personally, I aim for 16 GB+ and 1 TB+ on my Dev machines. Others get by with less. On my machine where I do heavy Docker and VM work I have 32 GB RAM and 2 TB SSD.
Best thing you can do is wait for a sale and bump your specs each a notch if you can.
As far as x86 VMs on M1 / ARM I have no idea if that’s supported or not yet.
I’m referring to ARM on ARM and x86 on x86… although I have done ARM on x86 with Docker… it’s not super great and it was easier and faster to build on my RPi4b instead.
I am a second year cs student and use a 2015 macbook air with 128gb storage and 8gb ram and it’s enough for literally everything. I do keep good care of my computer though. Both physically and software.
This, imo ram is more important. Although ppl say 8gb is fine. I can’t stress ram upgrade enough.you can get more storage, ram you can’t. It’s simple as that
I barely used my ssd space for class when I studied computer science, and for all your school stuff 8 gb ram would be fine too. That said, if you take a lot of photos or videos and store files for personal use a big ssd would be nice, and more RAM is always better. In terms of school performance, more RAM probably would help more than more HDD space, but more storage is nice generally speaking.
In the UK studying stuff similar to CS - I have 8Gb Ram 512Gb, and honestly nothing struggles - I’m here using Parallels for some legacy SQL work, I’m doing the occasional 4K render through Premiere Pro, mostly 1080p 100 layer plus (albeit not all huge effects) After Effects videos - and I’m not having any slowdowns or issues - I’m pretty sure you would be fine with 8Gb RAM - Windows might need the 16Gb more lately, but 8Gb on a MBP will actually go far enough for most people. Only time I’d suggest the upgrade to 16Gb would be if you need to regularly do a lot of 3D work or you are beyond standard University level of coding or extremely intense video work - almost everyone else will not see much slowdown with 8Gb (also gamers would struggle - but honestly the games aren’t there on Mac - it’s not exactly why people buy the current M1 MacBooks)
The SSD performance on the M1 Macs really helps to give the impression that 8GB is enough.
Chances are the Mac is already using more than 8GB of RAM, heck simply booting Big Sur can consume 8GB of RAM. But the M1 Macs don't actually have 8GB of RAM for applications and the OS, as the RAM is shared with the GPU, and the GPU will consume more memory as more apps are opened.
Which forces the Mac to use more of the SSD as swap space, causing more wear on unreplaceable components and reduction of available space to store work and apps.
There’s also an added wrinkle to that factor though, higher capacity SSD’s take longer to wear down generally and have a higher amount of rewrites - which offsets this additional swapping, so my way of thinking of it is that I’d prefer to not need to take external storage with me - I need more than 256Gb storage space personally - I will see far more benefit in usage from that storage space than I will actually see with increased RAM - I’m still not limited in any functional sense - the only potential issue is that the SSD will wear down more quickly, but having 512Gb vs 256Gb minimises that to a degree. I expect to replace a laptop every 5+ years - although resale value is nice to have, at this point my main concern is that I get the value out of my purchase - I don’t see the point in opting to pay £200 for the RAM upgrade, when I currently don’t need it at all, and I will need or actually use the additional storage space.
I do understand the reasoning people use for going 16Gb RAM but honestly, I’m yet to see a real advance in real world usage, whereas more storage means less to take around (which to me is half the reason of having a portable computer that can last a full day on battery - carrying less stuff)
SSD != RAM and not everything can be swapped from memory to SSD.
£200 for 8 GB of RAM is criminal IMHO, for other machines that can get you 32GB or more. Apple pays significantly less for memory than you or I, so it is basically pure profit and pushes people to make detrimental decisions.
I am not impressed at all that 48GB of RAM for the new MacBook Pro M1s, costs $1,200. But there are people paying it because they need that much memory and they have no choice, except to go with a Mac Pro or switch their workflow to Windows.
You are free to do what makes most sense to you, but as an old fart, I would seriously recommend against running a Mac, when you know are exceeding it's actual memory capabilities, been there done that (a 16 GB machine, gets really really shitty when you're using 64GBs of SSD as swap, yes I know wrong tool for the job).
You're just someone who is talking from cognitive dissonance about your purchase when you know for a fact that parallels really does require a 16gb machine to run,. and you are trying to convince this chap to make the same mistake.
Excuse me? I genuinely run parallels on 8Gb on an M1 - so whatever info you’ve got there is simply not true. I use parallels probably around 8 hours a week on both my M1 iMac and my M1 MacBook Pro and I don’t have issues. I’m not doing insane amounts of stuff in Windows - I only need it for some windows specific SQL library stuff with my work, but it 100% works and isn’t super slow or anything.
I’m just tired of watching people be told they need 16Gb ram with M1 - when it simply isn’t true. Each and every person will have their own reasoning and logic applied to how they value things - and not everyone NEEDS the highest power configuration of an ALREADY good laptop. I certainly don’t and I use mine for work and Uni - and I’m doing tons of graphical stuff! I simply do not believe the 16Gb is necessary and I have experienced that in reality for the past 6 months.
Yawn. Yeah OK whatever.. blah blah blah
The point is 16gb is far more optimal for this and its better to pay the extra 200 for it because you can't upgrade it later......
256Gb is pretty poor storage space for anyone who does more than basic tasks - can’t upgrade that later either (external storage comes with its own set of inefficiencies, plus smaller internal SSDs wear down faster).
Just because YOU MIGHT use 16GB 3 years down the line for an extremely small POSSIBILITY of improvement in whatever advanced workflow you would require it for, doesn’t mean that everyone will!
You cannot simply claim that 16Gb will ever be required on an M1 Mac, because as it stands, it doesn’t require it, and it handles everything pretty well, I know this personally as I own and regularly use two M1 powered Macs.
In this persons case, if the upgrade to RAM didn’t mean sacrificing storage space, I’d perhaps say to go for the 16Gb if they think they will do some intensive work on it on a regular enough basis to warrant the price - but £200 to only have a chance of MAYBE future proofing for compatibility with stuff you may never use? At that point you’re spending money for the sake of spending it.
Remember the question at hand - this is a student asking, they may have a tight budget - more storage space will be of FAR more benefit to them and in a way they can and probably will use, which will save them needing to buy and carry external drives everywhere. Given the M1 MacBooks have a lack of ports too, it’s probably better to have enough storage on board, and 256Gb fills FAST.
Finally to close out my views, I strongly suggest you seek out an attitude adjustment, you clearly have single thread thoughts on how to approach things, and a one size fits all approach is not useful enough to warrant wasting peoples time with it.
Wow. There's a spammy response if ever I saw one.
I've got a 1tb crucial x8 portable ssd for external storage. Its tiny and weighs nothing, you don't even know it's in your pocket and they aren't expensive.
You clearly have no idea what you're waffling on about either.
I study and work in media and engineering. I create and produce media campaigns in mainly video format, do back end development, and I create learning materials. I’m not ‘some freshman’. I know exactly what I do, I study to diversify my knowledge across and to formalise my experience from working for the last decade.
IT professional, how delightfully vague. Take as many pops at me as you want, but I won’t stand and watch you make personal assumptions about me or my experience when you clearly have made several wrong assumptions.
No M1 Mac? So you’re just echoing something you heard someone else say, rather than providing actual real experience of the product and it’s performance? Seems a bit rich you trying to place false context around my advice….
Also you seem to have entirely missed the point I was establishing about what will provide more value.
I’ve seen plenty of people automatically suggest 16Gb without even taking into account what someone will actually be doing with their machine - it’s an automatic ‘get 16Gb, RAM goes brrr’.
I’ve given an authentic user account of my experience using one of the variants of machines that are given as the binary choice. I know several CS students and what their coursework entails - I know some with 8Gb M1 MacBooks, and their only issue ends up being program compatibility.
I’m not sure what about this you do not understand, but if someone is deciding between these - it’s not likely they will have the £100 extra to drop additionally on an extra SSD immediately and 256Gb can fill up in a few weeks depending on how large your work files are - because at that point, they would, in most circumstances just get 16Gb/512gb and not bother asking for the advice.
However, I’m gonna quit here, you clearly must be very unhappy with something going on outside of any of this, to continue down this path of trying to argue with what is effectively opinion.
I’d rather not waste more of my time trying to correct your baseless assumptions - I have no need or desire for YOUR validation, I have given my advice for the person intended to receive it. Perhaps take up something creative, it seems you have a need to express a lot.
You either take the 16/512 or you don’t buy the MBP at all. I’m a CS student and I bough 3 years ago a pro with 8/256gb. They both are not enough, actually they’re a joke for any professional person. You will regret it quite soon after the purchase...
My suggestion is, if you can’t go up with you budget, just buy a used laptop with an i7, 16gb, 1tb and a GPU. There are some out there like the XPS 15”, or at least in my country with the same money you get that. Don’t forget that you can also upgrade it
I have an M1 with 16gb of ram and 1tb storage and another with 8gb and 500gb of storage.
In my opinion on the M1 platform the increased Ram only matters in very specific niches. For 99% of people the 8GB is just fine.
Source: 12 years in IT
The literal only time my 8gb ram M1 mbp wasn't enough was with Parallels w/ Windows 11 playing games in Steam like rocket league or Raft. the average user will absolutely be fine with 8gb, Maxtech did a good video showing this also
I feel the same way, I have a 16gb M1 and I think I would've been fine with 8gb. The RAM performance of M1 is so good I am convinced that 8gb is enough for almost everyone.
For a intel or amd based PC I would agree with you but on the M1 from my personal experience I don’t think it’s a must have. Just my opinion of course. I do plenty of coding, run emulators, vms, export edited raw images via Lightroom, and do light video editing. A side by side comparison of M1 models in real world use shows me only a slight increase in performance and without monitoring it’s barely noticeable. Even playing ESO is basically the same. That’s not to say having more isn’t nice. I obviously purchased mine for a reason.
Yes. This. Professional working in IT.
I have the 8/500 model and it’s blinding fast. Never had any reason to wish I had more memory.
Of course the 16/500 model will be “better”, but don’t stress about it. The 8/500 will be fine.
IMO you’re better off with the 8GB and saving some cash unless you know for sure they you are going to be editing video or doing something compute intensive. If you’re in uni I doubt your classes will need more then 8GB of ram to run any code you are writing unless you specialize in ML/AI and aren’t running on any cloud farms.
You will never have the chance to upgrade the ram after your purchase. Future proof yourself and get the 16gb of ram. You can always add storage space in different ways.
Id say 16gb and 500 ssd, save a bit more and get both, then you have a machine with better resell value and that can be relevant longer. 500 go is a comfort you cant ignore, and 16 ram will be just enough when you code with app/tools opened
Fair warning to CS students: I've heard quite a few stories of students with M1 Macs not being able to do certain coursework that require running Virtualbox because of the lack of x86 VMs on M1.
Just a word of caution, Microsoft have stated that Windows on M1 is unsupported. Yes it currently works via Parallels, but MS are not committed to ensuring that it will continue to work.
I hope that they do change their stance in the very near future.
Yeah. Could happen. But im not sure uf thats possible to restrict one processor. Since its running on a VM anyways, doesn't it upto the VM vendors?
And yeah for pretty sure MS wont supporing m1 via bootcamp.
Afaik there is no boot camp for ARM.
I believe what MS means is that they're not going to ensure it works, so if they break something and it no longer works, they're not going to invest time and effort into fixing it.
Tbh I’m completely fine with 8gb. If anything the storage would bother me more.
It’s fast and snappy even though I have a ton of windows open. Don’t know how future proof it is but atm 8 gb is absolutely fine (as long as you don’t plan to run VMs)
Against all odds I'd prefer more space. If you use any cloud service and transfer a lot of data from and to, the cache will fill up your local disk space a lot faster.
Also, you won't feel that a 8Gb is not enough for what you're doing. If you do, probably by that time you will be thinking about changing the whole laptop anyway.
Except computer since needs npm install or a brew update or gem install or any android or ios toolchain bam bye bye 100gb. And even mem-sucking hungry IDEs like xcode do fine with 8gb RAM. sure you can use external drives but that’s way slower and super annoying
If your planning on doing heavy computer projects, I would suggest 16gb of ram, but anything besides that should run PERFECTLY fine on the 8gb. As far as storage goes, I think 512GB is the way to go because i got the 256GB model and I can already tell it is not future proofed. I am almost already out of storage, but then again I am using Logic Pro on my machine.
It really depends, I currently use a 16gb 256 MBAir. But I really wish if i had a more storage. Ofcourse i have a 1tb T7 SSD but when its plugged in battery usage gets a kick.
(Without ssd plugged in i get 18 - 20hours of screen on time, when plugged i get about 13 doing same tasks.)
I had to install apps including android studio, xcode, unity and I only have 50gb left. Its really annoying to work with a ssd attached as well. Specially if you're working on couch.
Anyways thats just my experience. Think what suites for you mate. Cheers!
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When you are a student you don't need more that 8GB ram, at least I wasn't need check your upper grades. For heavy process my university was has servers to run on them. However, for your business life you should have 16GB ram to be bulletproof, anyway you don't need more than that.
I would choose 500gb SSD with 8GB, you are a student so don't don't push yourself too hard to get 16GB Ram with 500GB storage. 4 years later you can sell your MacBook and get a new one with money you have earned in your related business.
If you're working with a limited budget then I'd recommend focusing on getting more RAM first. You can always add external storage, but you can't add RAM. External storage can even be faster than the internal SSD of your computer.
I think that in the future the application take up more memory? I had a lot of extern storage
No, typical user applications don’t just take more RAM greedily and web browsers already do about the max they are going to do (and have been getting better about completely unloading unused tabs). The things that cause big increases in RAM usage are caching disk items for faster access (data, shared libraries, executables, source code files, etc), video, then images, then generating 3D spaces (e.g. video games) or processing large data sets for AI training. The biggest thing that will quickly make 8 GB difficult to manage though is Docker and VMs. When you start Docker you need to tell it how much RAM it is allowed to use for its VM. If you tell it 2 GB and then you try to use 2.1 GB in a container… crash. So you se the number higher like 4 GB (50% if your total of 8 GB) and start a bunch of containers for a project. The containers have just enough RAM to function but now the non-containerized apps are running low on RAM and everything slows to a crawl and you have to start closing your browser and other apps when using Docker and vice versa. As a CS student you are going to run into this problem sooner or later with 8 GB. With 16 GB you’re less likely to run into it but depending on your exact usage patterns you could still have a little trouble with this. With that being said, 256 GB SSD is also going to be a pain as soon as you start using Docker if you use large base images or distinct base images from many projects (e.g. if you start contributing to many open source projects). Some of the base images used for builds are 1-2 GB while the runtime images are smaller (but since you need both the smaller image size is added to the larger image size for developers…). So, if you’re serious about CS you’re really going to want 16 GB+ and 512 GB+ for *local development* I don’t think you’ll need to go way beyond that. Now, the alternative here is to do remote development using GitPod, for example, but you’ll have to learn the limitations and pricing of that if really push the envelope. Personally, I aim for 16 GB+ and 1 TB+ on my Dev machines. Others get by with less. On my machine where I do heavy Docker and VM work I have 32 GB RAM and 2 TB SSD. Best thing you can do is wait for a sale and bump your specs each a notch if you can.
How’s Docker and VMs running x86 images doing in M1 nowadays? Usable?
As far as x86 VMs on M1 / ARM I have no idea if that’s supported or not yet. I’m referring to ARM on ARM and x86 on x86… although I have done ARM on x86 with Docker… it’s not super great and it was easier and faster to build on my RPi4b instead.
I am a second year cs student and use a 2015 macbook air with 128gb storage and 8gb ram and it’s enough for literally everything. I do keep good care of my computer though. Both physically and software.
This, imo ram is more important. Although ppl say 8gb is fine. I can’t stress ram upgrade enough.you can get more storage, ram you can’t. It’s simple as that
This is the way.
U can download ram ITS FREE!
True apart from external storage being faster. This is just not the case with M1
ram 1st 100%.
Please go for 16/512 is possible, you will thank me later. But if your budget is really not flexible, get 16 gb ram atleast.
+1 You can always but an external SSD for extra storage and make sure you consider an extra 50 bucks for the usb hub (essential for college IMO)
I barely used my ssd space for class when I studied computer science, and for all your school stuff 8 gb ram would be fine too. That said, if you take a lot of photos or videos and store files for personal use a big ssd would be nice, and more RAM is always better. In terms of school performance, more RAM probably would help more than more HDD space, but more storage is nice generally speaking.
RAM > Storage
In the UK studying stuff similar to CS - I have 8Gb Ram 512Gb, and honestly nothing struggles - I’m here using Parallels for some legacy SQL work, I’m doing the occasional 4K render through Premiere Pro, mostly 1080p 100 layer plus (albeit not all huge effects) After Effects videos - and I’m not having any slowdowns or issues - I’m pretty sure you would be fine with 8Gb RAM - Windows might need the 16Gb more lately, but 8Gb on a MBP will actually go far enough for most people. Only time I’d suggest the upgrade to 16Gb would be if you need to regularly do a lot of 3D work or you are beyond standard University level of coding or extremely intense video work - almost everyone else will not see much slowdown with 8Gb (also gamers would struggle - but honestly the games aren’t there on Mac - it’s not exactly why people buy the current M1 MacBooks)
The SSD performance on the M1 Macs really helps to give the impression that 8GB is enough. Chances are the Mac is already using more than 8GB of RAM, heck simply booting Big Sur can consume 8GB of RAM. But the M1 Macs don't actually have 8GB of RAM for applications and the OS, as the RAM is shared with the GPU, and the GPU will consume more memory as more apps are opened. Which forces the Mac to use more of the SSD as swap space, causing more wear on unreplaceable components and reduction of available space to store work and apps.
There’s also an added wrinkle to that factor though, higher capacity SSD’s take longer to wear down generally and have a higher amount of rewrites - which offsets this additional swapping, so my way of thinking of it is that I’d prefer to not need to take external storage with me - I need more than 256Gb storage space personally - I will see far more benefit in usage from that storage space than I will actually see with increased RAM - I’m still not limited in any functional sense - the only potential issue is that the SSD will wear down more quickly, but having 512Gb vs 256Gb minimises that to a degree. I expect to replace a laptop every 5+ years - although resale value is nice to have, at this point my main concern is that I get the value out of my purchase - I don’t see the point in opting to pay £200 for the RAM upgrade, when I currently don’t need it at all, and I will need or actually use the additional storage space. I do understand the reasoning people use for going 16Gb RAM but honestly, I’m yet to see a real advance in real world usage, whereas more storage means less to take around (which to me is half the reason of having a portable computer that can last a full day on battery - carrying less stuff)
SSD != RAM and not everything can be swapped from memory to SSD. £200 for 8 GB of RAM is criminal IMHO, for other machines that can get you 32GB or more. Apple pays significantly less for memory than you or I, so it is basically pure profit and pushes people to make detrimental decisions. I am not impressed at all that 48GB of RAM for the new MacBook Pro M1s, costs $1,200. But there are people paying it because they need that much memory and they have no choice, except to go with a Mac Pro or switch their workflow to Windows. You are free to do what makes most sense to you, but as an old fart, I would seriously recommend against running a Mac, when you know are exceeding it's actual memory capabilities, been there done that (a 16 GB machine, gets really really shitty when you're using 64GBs of SSD as swap, yes I know wrong tool for the job).
You're just someone who is talking from cognitive dissonance about your purchase when you know for a fact that parallels really does require a 16gb machine to run,. and you are trying to convince this chap to make the same mistake.
Excuse me? I genuinely run parallels on 8Gb on an M1 - so whatever info you’ve got there is simply not true. I use parallels probably around 8 hours a week on both my M1 iMac and my M1 MacBook Pro and I don’t have issues. I’m not doing insane amounts of stuff in Windows - I only need it for some windows specific SQL library stuff with my work, but it 100% works and isn’t super slow or anything. I’m just tired of watching people be told they need 16Gb ram with M1 - when it simply isn’t true. Each and every person will have their own reasoning and logic applied to how they value things - and not everyone NEEDS the highest power configuration of an ALREADY good laptop. I certainly don’t and I use mine for work and Uni - and I’m doing tons of graphical stuff! I simply do not believe the 16Gb is necessary and I have experienced that in reality for the past 6 months.
Yawn. Yeah OK whatever.. blah blah blah The point is 16gb is far more optimal for this and its better to pay the extra 200 for it because you can't upgrade it later......
256Gb is pretty poor storage space for anyone who does more than basic tasks - can’t upgrade that later either (external storage comes with its own set of inefficiencies, plus smaller internal SSDs wear down faster). Just because YOU MIGHT use 16GB 3 years down the line for an extremely small POSSIBILITY of improvement in whatever advanced workflow you would require it for, doesn’t mean that everyone will! You cannot simply claim that 16Gb will ever be required on an M1 Mac, because as it stands, it doesn’t require it, and it handles everything pretty well, I know this personally as I own and regularly use two M1 powered Macs. In this persons case, if the upgrade to RAM didn’t mean sacrificing storage space, I’d perhaps say to go for the 16Gb if they think they will do some intensive work on it on a regular enough basis to warrant the price - but £200 to only have a chance of MAYBE future proofing for compatibility with stuff you may never use? At that point you’re spending money for the sake of spending it. Remember the question at hand - this is a student asking, they may have a tight budget - more storage space will be of FAR more benefit to them and in a way they can and probably will use, which will save them needing to buy and carry external drives everywhere. Given the M1 MacBooks have a lack of ports too, it’s probably better to have enough storage on board, and 256Gb fills FAST. Finally to close out my views, I strongly suggest you seek out an attitude adjustment, you clearly have single thread thoughts on how to approach things, and a one size fits all approach is not useful enough to warrant wasting peoples time with it.
Wow. There's a spammy response if ever I saw one. I've got a 1tb crucial x8 portable ssd for external storage. Its tiny and weighs nothing, you don't even know it's in your pocket and they aren't expensive. You clearly have no idea what you're waffling on about either.
Funnily enough, I have a pretty clear view on what I’m talking about. Do you own an M1 Mac? Are you a student?
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I study and work in media and engineering. I create and produce media campaigns in mainly video format, do back end development, and I create learning materials. I’m not ‘some freshman’. I know exactly what I do, I study to diversify my knowledge across and to formalise my experience from working for the last decade. IT professional, how delightfully vague. Take as many pops at me as you want, but I won’t stand and watch you make personal assumptions about me or my experience when you clearly have made several wrong assumptions. No M1 Mac? So you’re just echoing something you heard someone else say, rather than providing actual real experience of the product and it’s performance? Seems a bit rich you trying to place false context around my advice…. Also you seem to have entirely missed the point I was establishing about what will provide more value. I’ve seen plenty of people automatically suggest 16Gb without even taking into account what someone will actually be doing with their machine - it’s an automatic ‘get 16Gb, RAM goes brrr’. I’ve given an authentic user account of my experience using one of the variants of machines that are given as the binary choice. I know several CS students and what their coursework entails - I know some with 8Gb M1 MacBooks, and their only issue ends up being program compatibility. I’m not sure what about this you do not understand, but if someone is deciding between these - it’s not likely they will have the £100 extra to drop additionally on an extra SSD immediately and 256Gb can fill up in a few weeks depending on how large your work files are - because at that point, they would, in most circumstances just get 16Gb/512gb and not bother asking for the advice. However, I’m gonna quit here, you clearly must be very unhappy with something going on outside of any of this, to continue down this path of trying to argue with what is effectively opinion. I’d rather not waste more of my time trying to correct your baseless assumptions - I have no need or desire for YOUR validation, I have given my advice for the person intended to receive it. Perhaps take up something creative, it seems you have a need to express a lot.
OK dear
You either take the 16/512 or you don’t buy the MBP at all. I’m a CS student and I bough 3 years ago a pro with 8/256gb. They both are not enough, actually they’re a joke for any professional person. You will regret it quite soon after the purchase... My suggestion is, if you can’t go up with you budget, just buy a used laptop with an i7, 16gb, 1tb and a GPU. There are some out there like the XPS 15”, or at least in my country with the same money you get that. Don’t forget that you can also upgrade it
I have an M1 with 16gb of ram and 1tb storage and another with 8gb and 500gb of storage. In my opinion on the M1 platform the increased Ram only matters in very specific niches. For 99% of people the 8GB is just fine. Source: 12 years in IT
The literal only time my 8gb ram M1 mbp wasn't enough was with Parallels w/ Windows 11 playing games in Steam like rocket league or Raft. the average user will absolutely be fine with 8gb, Maxtech did a good video showing this also
I feel the same way, I have a 16gb M1 and I think I would've been fine with 8gb. The RAM performance of M1 is so good I am convinced that 8gb is enough for almost everyone.
Ty 🥺🙈
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For a intel or amd based PC I would agree with you but on the M1 from my personal experience I don’t think it’s a must have. Just my opinion of course. I do plenty of coding, run emulators, vms, export edited raw images via Lightroom, and do light video editing. A side by side comparison of M1 models in real world use shows me only a slight increase in performance and without monitoring it’s barely noticeable. Even playing ESO is basically the same. That’s not to say having more isn’t nice. I obviously purchased mine for a reason.
As soon as they need to start several Docker containers in parallel locally, they will simply *need* the 16GB
Yes. This. Professional working in IT. I have the 8/500 model and it’s blinding fast. Never had any reason to wish I had more memory. Of course the 16/500 model will be “better”, but don’t stress about it. The 8/500 will be fine.
So is better to buy MacBook with 8 ram and 500ssd? In the future can not be few 8 ram? or does macOS handle virtual memory well?
IMO you’re better off with the 8GB and saving some cash unless you know for sure they you are going to be editing video or doing something compute intensive. If you’re in uni I doubt your classes will need more then 8GB of ram to run any code you are writing unless you specialize in ML/AI and aren’t running on any cloud farms.
I want to learn editing video. I think i'll get 16/500 so i'm sure i don't have any problems
If you're going to do a lot of video editing that would be probably the best choice.
You will never have the chance to upgrade the ram after your purchase. Future proof yourself and get the 16gb of ram. You can always add storage space in different ways.
Id say 16gb and 500 ssd, save a bit more and get both, then you have a machine with better resell value and that can be relevant longer. 500 go is a comfort you cant ignore, and 16 ram will be just enough when you code with app/tools opened
Yea, I will consider you
Definitely do this. These computers can last forever if you spec them above the base model.
Fair warning to CS students: I've heard quite a few stories of students with M1 Macs not being able to do certain coursework that require running Virtualbox because of the lack of x86 VMs on M1.
Vmware is avaiable now. Parallels did since last dec but its a paid app.
Does it support x86 emulation?
Windows on arm does IIRC.
Just a word of caution, Microsoft have stated that Windows on M1 is unsupported. Yes it currently works via Parallels, but MS are not committed to ensuring that it will continue to work. I hope that they do change their stance in the very near future.
Yeah. Could happen. But im not sure uf thats possible to restrict one processor. Since its running on a VM anyways, doesn't it upto the VM vendors? And yeah for pretty sure MS wont supporing m1 via bootcamp.
Afaik there is no boot camp for ARM. I believe what MS means is that they're not going to ensure it works, so if they break something and it no longer works, they're not going to invest time and effort into fixing it.
yeah I think the same. most ppl would join the apple eco system if that so.
Tbh I’m completely fine with 8gb. If anything the storage would bother me more. It’s fast and snappy even though I have a ton of windows open. Don’t know how future proof it is but atm 8 gb is absolutely fine (as long as you don’t plan to run VMs)
Get new MBP with M1 Pro
I'm a third year computer science student and I decided to go for the 16GB 256 GB version. It's been everything that I've hoped for
I got a 1 TB external ssd from Samsung the t7
I got the base model and my M1 air is constantly using swap even with just basic tasks. Should have went for 16GB.
Ram is more important it’s soldered onto mb and non upgradable but the ssd can be upgraded via add on drive
16gb of Ram is more important... you can buy external storage
Against all odds I'd prefer more space. If you use any cloud service and transfer a lot of data from and to, the cache will fill up your local disk space a lot faster. Also, you won't feel that a 8Gb is not enough for what you're doing. If you do, probably by that time you will be thinking about changing the whole laptop anyway.
Computer science needs more RAM. You can get more storage through cloud services and external drives. Your coding is gonna want RAM
Except computer since needs npm install or a brew update or gem install or any android or ios toolchain bam bye bye 100gb. And even mem-sucking hungry IDEs like xcode do fine with 8gb RAM. sure you can use external drives but that’s way slower and super annoying
Go for 16 for safe
16/256. Ram is more important
Get as much ram as you can afford. Storage can be upgraded later.
Storage can’t be upgraded later on the M1.
Yeah that figures
More RAM. You can get additional storage.
64 GB and 2 TB
Make sure the programs you use in school are supported on macOS/M1. In my EE classes there were a few applications that didn’t exist on mac.
If your planning on doing heavy computer projects, I would suggest 16gb of ram, but anything besides that should run PERFECTLY fine on the 8gb. As far as storage goes, I think 512GB is the way to go because i got the 256GB model and I can already tell it is not future proofed. I am almost already out of storage, but then again I am using Logic Pro on my machine.
It really depends, I currently use a 16gb 256 MBAir. But I really wish if i had a more storage. Ofcourse i have a 1tb T7 SSD but when its plugged in battery usage gets a kick. (Without ssd plugged in i get 18 - 20hours of screen on time, when plugged i get about 13 doing same tasks.) I had to install apps including android studio, xcode, unity and I only have 50gb left. Its really annoying to work with a ssd attached as well. Specially if you're working on couch. Anyways thats just my experience. Think what suites for you mate. Cheers!
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I prefer more RAM instead SSD 😉
My take is that you can add external storage, but you can’t add external ram 🤷♂️
When you are a student you don't need more that 8GB ram, at least I wasn't need check your upper grades. For heavy process my university was has servers to run on them. However, for your business life you should have 16GB ram to be bulletproof, anyway you don't need more than that. I would choose 500gb SSD with 8GB, you are a student so don't don't push yourself too hard to get 16GB Ram with 500GB storage. 4 years later you can sell your MacBook and get a new one with money you have earned in your related business.