And the other "local" wallets takes the same GBs from your hard drive?
- snip -
No. Only the full node reference wallet, Bitcoin-Qt, stores the entire blockchain (over 6 gigabytes and growing larger every ten minutes or so). The other wallets are considered "lightweight" wallets and use a variety of methods to keep track of your transactions without storing the entire blockchain.
Consider looking into using one of the following:
Electrum
MultiBit
https://blockchain.info/wallet