So....CAN one really use a 64GB (SSDD) MBA?

p0rn?

I was kidding. Anyways let's get down to business, shall we?

64 GB, as has been advertised by Apple and Steve, isn't really what you're getting.

64 GB divided by 1.024 is 62.5 GBs, which is the actual capacity. Then we need to allocate, for say, some more 10 GB for formatting purposes. That brings it down to 52.5 GBs. Take into consideration that Leopard and ilife 08 are going to take up some more 20 GB of space obviously. For hibernating, Leopard is going to allocate 2 GBs or more for sure. so, 52.5-22 = 30.5 GBs. I don't really know what data to put into this free space. Keep a mp3 or two, some small movie clips, word/excel files etc may be?

Yeah that's why I chose to get the 80 Gb HD.... So much bigger... but don't worry I can afford the price of the extra 16 Gb's..... lol :P

You can really shrink Leopard if you want to.

Reloaded Leopard without extra languages and Garageband.
Removed all printer drivers except HB, Canon and Brother (all I need).

Have installed:
iWork 08
MS office 2008 (Excel, Powerpoint, Entourage, Word)
SuperDuper
Toast 8 Titanium

VMware Fusion with 15 GB Windows VM including: (MS Office Windows, Acrobat 8.0 Pro (complete install), AutoCAD 2008, ACT 2008, Streets & Trips 2007 (complete install of map data disk), Novell GroupWise with remote mailbox, plus numerous small apps.

Some misc MAC apps like Candybar, Hazel and Cocktail
1.4GB msic (425 songs)

Have everything I use on a regular basis and I have 22GB available.

I carry an encrypted 16GB flash drive with some videos and data files that I plug in 3 or 4 times per week.

Would not expect to edit video on the thing, but I edit video twice a month (on iMac) and carry my laptop around with me every day.

I have the external drive and have plugged it in 2 times in 4 weeks.

After 4 weeks I still love my MacBook Air SSD!

Mick

In theory, 64GB should be a useful size. I have a default Leopard install + XCode + OpenOffice, Eclipse, Thunderbird, and a bunch of other necessary opensource tools AND the past 20 years of my professional (software development) life (except one book I edited) AND an acct. for my wife to browse the internet and email in 54GB on my iMac:

/dev/disk0s2 243862672 53748040 189858632 23% /

My current laptop and the computer I replaced with the iMac had 40GB drives, though they were getting tight. I suspect one problem is folks fill up their drives with music and movies and **** they will never look at again. I saw someone complain of storage limitations for more music than they could listen to in an average lifetime. External drives are your friend.

That said, I will be going with the 80GB drive when I purchase this summer. Cost is a consideration.

My $0.02

If I didn't have a Windows VM installed (thus tying up 8GB just to run Outlook), I'd have heaps of space. I like to keep 10GB unused and I have all of my current Excel & Word documents onboard plus Office Mac, Papers, Osirix (and their large databases) and I still have a little room to spare.

However, I don't have my iTunes collection (32GB) or most of the iLife apps, so I had more space available for my stuff.

Oh yeah, that reminds me. I also have VMWARE Fusion with Windows XP and CentOS vms in my 54GB. -LS

I use mine all the time, every day. The applications I use on it are Photoshop Cs3, DreamWeaver Cs3, Illustrator Cs3, vlc player, MS Word, Excel, Power point, ITunes, IM software, most of the time its used for development but when I am developing I am also using it to listen to music, and or look at a web site. So yes very useable.

Mick,
I am glad you are pleased with yours.
I recently received my second and believe I have heat issues with this one also. Apple support gets high marks but the machine is falling short of expectations. As I type this I see on my activity monitor I just had a core drop out, my fan is loudly running at 6200 rpm and the temp on the machine is running between 66 and 82. I am running a computer vs. computer game of chess. This is something a genius did to stress the processor when I brought my first one in to be checked. I have that opened, safari, and word. Earlier I tried to open parallels and got kernel crash/freeze. I had run parallels yesterday and today with no issue until when trying to boot it up with the cheese game going on.
So, my request: on your machine, open chess, select new game and pick computer v. computer. Add on a couple you tube videos and report to us what temp your machine is at. The game ended in a draw and now the temp dropped to 50. New game and the temp is back up to 67. Now 71. Can this be right? 73 and climbing that fast with the fan blowing loud. And I have the vents open and clear. 77 degrees now and a core shut down should be along any minute. 80 degrees.
HELP???