Memory Usage

[ESPiha]

How much memory does the split of windows take up
I want to buy a macbook with 80 GB is that enough to support both the operating systems
-ty for the help

[sjrowe]

Hello

It appears you are confusing two different areas - memory and hard disk capacity. I will explain both below which I hope is helpful :)

A MacBook can have a maximum of 2Gb of memory - otherwise called RAM (Random Access Memory). The default/standard memory supplied by Apple is 512Mb (or half a Gb). The more RAM or memory you add to your MacBook the more efficiently it will be able to run. This is because it can read programs from the hard disk and remember them by using your memory capacity. The less memory you have the more frequently MacOSX (or any operating system) will need to forget information it has read from the hard disk, and replace it with new information from the hard disk - this happens frequently as you run different programs and generally use you computer. When you turn your computer off, everything in the memory is lost. So basically - the more memory, the better, faster and more efficiently you computer will run.

The hard disk holds information your MacBook store when it is turned off. This includes the MacOSX operating system and all you files programs etc. These are read from the hard disk into memory when the computer is being used on an as required basis. The bigger the hard disk the more files, programs, movies, applications etc etc it can store for you.

The MacBook hard disk capacity specified by Apple as 60Gb (80Gb in the Black MacBook model). The real world capacity turns out to be about 55Gb roughly on the White MacBooks.

Without checking, I think a standard MacOSX installation would use about 20Gb of the hard disk - someone else will no doubt confirm the actual figures. This therefore gives you about 35Gb of free space for you own additional applications and you data files, picture, movies etc.

More specification can be found on the Apple Store for the MacBook. You have the option at order time to increase your memory (up to max of 2Gb) and you hard disk (up to max of 120Gb) by the looks of it.

Simon