M1 MacBook Air has 115.44 gigabytes of total storage

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Level 1

28 points

M1 MacBook Air has 115.44 gigabytes of total storage

My school gave me an M1 MacBook Air (but over the course of me being there my parents pay it off, so when I graduate it will be mine to own). It is the sub-base model, as it has 8 gigs of ram and 7-core gpu, but instead of 256 gigs of storage, it only has exactly 115.44. Under the hard disk icon in the storage section of "About This Mac" it says it as 121 GB of Flash Storage. First, why is there this discrepancy, and then also why do I have such little storage? It's very annoying, and I know that the SSDs are not upgradable, but I still want to know. How do you even get a MacBook with that little storage? I heard that schools can get half storage for 100 dollars less (so each MacBook is $900 instead of $1000, but I'm not sure). I'll include a picture for clarity. Is there any way (and I'm half-joking) I could just solder an SD card into the computer to get more storage? I really don't like having to sort through my storage every few days to make sure this little teeny tiny SSD doesn't fill up. Thanks for any help anyone can give (I also thought that MacBooks contained 2 128 gig NAND chips, so how does it make sense that I have a 121-gig chip in mine?)

MacBook Air Apple Silicon

Posted on Sep 13, 2022 02:35 PM

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Answer 1

DasBubb Author

Level 1

28 points

Sep 17, 2022 08:29 AM in response to Jeff_W.

Thank you. I didn't think of checking disk utility. I just did now, and it shows no partitions, and it shows 115.44 gigabytes shared by 5 volumes. I think I will ask the tech people at my school, since I wanted to know if Apple sold a hardware configuration or anything like that with this amount of storage. I'll check with them to see if they did anything.

Thank you for your help!

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Answer 2

karina184

Community Specialist

Sep 17, 2022 07:05 AM in response to DasBubb

Hey DasBubb,

We'll be happy to answer these storage questions that you have.

Just to confirm, this is a new Mac that was not previously used? We want to make sure that the storage concerns you have are related to data that you've placed yourself on the Mac, as opposed to it having previously been placed by a previous owner.

If the Mac was new when you received it, you can utilize these steps to optimize the storage space that you have: Optimize storage space on your Mac.

You also mentioned an SD card. You can purchase an SD adapter and use an SD card to store specific files: USB-C to SD Card Reader.

Cheers!

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Answer 3

Jeff_W.

Community Specialist

Sep 17, 2022 08:18 AM in response to DasBubb

Hey there DasBubb,

It may be helpful for you to take a look at the disk configuration using Disk Utility. The User Guide linked below should help get you familiar with how to use Disk Utility.

Disk Utility User Guide for Mac

If the storage your school set up has been partitioned, you'll see it here.

Additionally, if you have questions regarding the configuration your school purchased, or if they made modifications, you'd want to speak directly to someone at your school.

Have a good one!

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Answer 4

DasBubb Author

Level 1

28 points

Sep 17, 2022 07:52 AM in response to karina184

Thank you for the information. This Mac was first set up in June 2021, I'm pretty sure. My school "owns" it, since they have remote management software on it. It was brand new when they got it. Besides the school setting it up, I'm the only person who has owned this MacBook. I do want to know how the hardware itself is available in this configuration, since if you go and try to buy an M1 MacBook Air from Apple directly, the lowest storage you can get is 256 gigabytes of storage, and somehow my maximum storage capacity is 115 gigabytes. Do you know how my school got such a small storage configuration?

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Answer 5

Chris_C1

Community Specialist

Sep 17, 2022 08:34 AM in response to DasBubb

DasBubb,

Sounds like a plan! Feel free to reach out again, if the community can offer additional assistance.

Have a great day!

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M1 MacBook Air has 115.44 gigabytes of total storage

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