First, I appreciate that it's not 128gb, it's 121. When I bought it earlier this month and before I had installed or downloaded anything, it had 93gb. Is this normal?
If you mean 93GB free of 121GB then yes, that is normal. New macs generally come with iLife and iWork applications such as iMove, GarageBand, Pages, Numbers, etc preinstalled.
Thank you for your reply.
In addition to the applications, I notice about 17GB of 'Other', which I've read a bit about, but which seems a little excessive for a new computer.
Thanks, yes, I've read that. I can appreciate why it might get large, but not quite why it would start out that way…
I should add, this is my second Air, a replacement for a faulty one bought a few months ago. The first one started with about 98GB free, adding to my confusion why the second started with so much less.
Given the propensity for macOS versions to update and add security content
throughout the system version life span, one has to plan on a growing portion
of the device storage (where the system lives) to grow fuller; the most recent
as-shipped Mac OS X (soon to be macOS sierra) appears to continue to gain.
Unless you want to try setting up a virtual treadmill for the OS to work off some
recent update content, a 'pre-buyer consideration' is that these will need more.
And since the newer SSD type of storage is unlike old hard disk drives, a higher
percentage of 'free' or unused storage capacity should be available for system to
use as swap or temp files. The OS & apps use extra space they want, on demand.
Used to be when a drive had gotten almost full of user & system content, one was
said to be OK with as little as 10-20% of total capacity, left as 'free' or unused. Not
so, with a solid-state-drive; there needs to be more free space; not by percentages.
A larger than expected storage capacity drive should always be considered as part
of the configuration going into the purchase; and also an external device or drive to
allow overflow of important files or copies; so your originals may safely be deleted
from the device internal storage. Before removing, be sure to have at least 2 copies.
Good luck! 🙂
How much usable storage should a new 128gb MacBook Air start with
