Resolved Am I going to reget getting only 512 GB on my new Mac?

[xRem]

First time Mac owner here. I decided to make the jump from Win to Mac recently and I have now gotten my MBP 14" M1 Max with 64 GB RAM and... well... 512 GB SSD. It was a deal and I am confident that I will eventually need the RAM down the line (since I will have to run a Windows VM for the time being in Parallels and the specific software I need tends to hog RAM, so I want to give Parallels at least 24 or 32 GB to work with). But now I am starting to wonder about my SSD. Will it last me?

My use cases are:
- Running Windows in Parallels for work (VM won't need to be massive, my actual space requirements for my job are fairly small since I just need one specific piece of software)
- Lightroom Classic (storing pictures on a NAS, so I only need my catalogue locally)
- Premiere Pro (this one might be tough since I do edit 4k videos...)
- Browsing and other casual stuff

So what can I do about the space? I am considering getting one of these external drives, like the Samsung T7, but will that make sense? From my understanding my internal SSD in my Mac is blazing fast, so the T7 might be comparably slow... but is this slowness something I will notice in day to day life or is the speed difference only going to be notable when I am moving large files from A to B?

 

[GrumpyCoder]

It was a deal and I am confident that I will eventually need the RAM down the line (since I will have to run a Windows VM for the time being in Parallels and the specific software I need tends to hog RAM, so I want to give Parallels at least 24 or 32 GB to work with).

You want to run the ARM Version of Windows, right?

I am considering getting one of these external drives, like the Samsung T7, but will that make sense? From my understanding my internal SSD in my Mac is blazing fast, so the T7 might be comparably slow...

Only you know how much space you need. However, an external drive is your only choice. Get the fastest one you can get your hands on. About the blazing fast drives in Macs... https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1494213855387734019.html

 

[xRem]

You want to run the ARM Version of Windows, right?

Yup, all I need ... thankfully.

As for space requirements - my previous daily driver had 512 GB (+ my NAS) and that worked out fine. Checking the old machine now, I got around 100 GB free despite using it for 4 years or so. I guess I was more worried if there are Mac specific things that might happen (like how old Win versions would just keep building up trash piles in the background forcing you to periodically do a drive clean-up) which might affect user experience.

 

[Wando64]

Will you regret not having more space? Probably yes (sorry).

Will you be able to make do without the additional space? Also probably yes.

My MBP (2015) is also 512GB and by having my data on iCloud drive I am able to bring all of the data with me, as long as I have an internet connection available (which I usually do through tethering to my phone).
External SSDs are also good. Perfectly fine when you are at home but fiddly when you are on the go (not my preference).

 

[James_C]

Personally the benefit of going from 32GB to 64GB of Ram is marginal unless you are spending most of your time editing 8k video. 32GB is fine for a VM running business apps for windows. I would be tempted to return it if you can as you are more likely to get a benefit from additional SSD space than RAM. That being said if you can’t return it then I would not sweat it as you can add fast external storage, but it will not be anything like the speed of internal SSD.

 

[Hunter5117]

Get an icloud account and you may never run into any storage issues. Even though it is not practical for storing large files that you use a lot, it is great at freeing up space that lets you import large files or libraries from an external drive, work on them and then return them to the external storage. I do that as a matter of course on my editing machine. And just as an FYI, I also have nightly carbon copy cloner (a backup utility) set to update my main external storage from the libraries that I had moved to the internal SSD just to keep everything in sync.

 

[glenthompson]

I think it's a mistake for one reason, having to carry around an external drive to use with a laptop is a pain in the butt.

 

[GrumpyCoder]

I guess I was more worried if there are Mac specific things that might happen (like how old Win versions would just keep building up trash piles in the background forcing you to periodically do a drive clean-up) which might affect user experience.

No such thing on the Mac, if trash piles up that's on you (I can speak from experience and I'm on 2TB ). So if you're fine with 512GB now that's unlikely to change unless you install a ton of new software. If you want to carry around an external drive is a decision you have to make as well. I carry an additional 2TB of external storage with me as well, but I'm not using it that often. I guess if I had to constantly plug it in it would bother me.

 

[MBAir2010]

they do makes this external drives and chords......

which are like freezers for foods
but without the defrosting!

 

[BellSystem]

First time Mac owner here. I decided to make the jump from Win to Mac recently and I have now gotten my MBP 14" M1 Max with 64 GB RAM and... well... 512 GB SSD. It was a deal and I am confident that I will eventually need the RAM down the line (since I will have to run a Windows VM for the time being in Parallels and the specific software I need tends to hog RAM, so I want to give Parallels at least 24 or 32 GB to work with). But now I am starting to wonder about my SSD. Will it last me?

My use cases are:
- Running Windows in Parallels for work (VM won't need to be massive, my actual space requirements for my job are fairly small since I just need one specific piece of software)
- Lightroom Classic (storing pictures on a NAS, so I only need my catalogue locally)
- Premiere Pro (this one might be tough since I do edit 4k videos...)
- Browsing and other casual stuff

So what can I do about the space? I am considering getting one of these external drives, like the Samsung T7, but will that make sense? From my understanding my internal SSD in my Mac is blazing fast, so the T7 might be comparably slow... but is this slowness something I will notice in day to day life or is the speed difference only going to be notable when I am moving large files from A to B?

You will regret it. Anything under 1TB today is just not going to cut it. Relying on iCloud to supplement the storage is also not ideal. I did it in my last MacBook and it was the worst thing I could have done.

 

[nastysailboat]

I think you can make it work but it’s gonna be tight, Especially if you wanna edit 4K. I have the 1tb and it’s just barley enough to edit the videos I do usually up to 3 minute videos in 4K HDR. And I can only work on one video at a time. You could use an external. I do. If I were to buy another Mac today it would have at least 2tb.

 

[phrehdd]

There is nothing wrong with carrying additional drives and they are not that cumbersome. I don't know what your finances are but you may want to check out the Sabrent TB/USB3.2 SSD. They come in varying capacities and are fairly popular. There are other makers as well with similar specs. Alternatively, you could make your own external drive with a good case and select the drive to put in (M2 etc.).

The drive when used as Thunderbolt is plenty fast and a good choice for media work and storage. Like all drives of this sort, it can get hot but remains an effective tool. I have the two terabyte version with my Mac Mini 512/16. It was originally paired with a Mac Book Pro.

 

[chikorita157]

I have 512 GB on my M1 Pro Macbook Pro and Mac Studio M1 Max. I find Apple SSDs are overpriced per GB. Unless to really need the fast internal speeds, as others suggest, get a thunderbolt 3 SSD. It’s still plenty fast. I use a OWC Envoy Express with a Samsung 970 Evo Plug 2 TB NVMe SSD on my M1 Macbook Pro. I don’t recommend USB-C SSDs (doesn’t effect Thunderbolt 3/4 SSDs for some reason) as those seems to disconnect for some reason due to a bug in macOS and the workaround is disabling drive sleep.

 

[Freeangel1]

I would get at least, at least 1TB
for me even better.....2TB

only 512GB if you go cheap and get the M1 Mac mini and you wanna just browse the internet or read email.

 

[Toutou]

only 512GB if you go cheap and get the M1 Mac mini and you wanna just browse the internet or read email

I daily drive a 256GB Air. I have to admit that I do browse the internet and read email on the machine.

It's also my only non-toy computer, the source of 100 % of my income as a software developer, it contains my whole digital life (accounting, documents, etc), copies of Euro Truck Simulator 2 and Disco Elysium and a few gigabytes of recent downloads.
70 GB free.

Not everyone is a hoarder or works with multimedia.
The Apple premium on storage space is very steep and no one should be shamed into spending more money than necessary by these drive-by pseudo-truths.

 

[Hunter5117]

No such thing on the Mac, if trash piles up that's on you (I can speak from experience and I'm on 2TB ). So if you're fine with 512GB now that's unlikely to change unless you install a ton of new software. If you want to carry around an external drive is a decision you have to make as well. I carry an additional 2TB of external storage with me as well, but I'm not using it that often. I guess if I had to constantly plug it in it would bother me.

Yes, 100% agree. I generally have bought minimum of 1TB internal storage but last black friday I got a deal on a 512gb 13" M1 MBP. A clean install rather than migrating from an existing machine, I got all my apps and iCloud documents in 100gb. That is with using optimized storage for photos, etc which I am ok with on this machine. So, I have 400gb available to temporarily load any working files I need for what I am doing. My external SSD stays in the bag unless I need to swap working files.

On one hand it is a bit of a pain to need to swap files occasionally, but on the other hand, as GrumpyCoder has said, it does force good housekeeping and stops you building up a lot of trash files that should be removed.

 

[kschendel]

If you're OK on your existing 512 GB machine, you'll be fine with the Mac. From what you describe, the only space hog will be the 4K videos. Obviously you can't fit more than a couple hour-long raw videos, but presumably you aren't doing that now. If you're a pack-rat you'll have trouble. If you are disciplined and can keep inactive stuff on an outboard drive or NAS if necessary, you'll be fine.

I have a 256GB rMBP that has all my office-y stuff (email, documents) along with 1500 photos, a few dozen gig of music, and 9 years of piled-up cruft hiding in dark corners, and it's only 80% full.

 

[bluespark]

You do not need 64 GB of RAM to run Parallels and edit 4K video. You can do those things with 16 GB, and 32 would be plenty of headroom in your most demanding moments. Mac is quite efficient with memory management.

I do think you will find your lack of storage space annoying. You might have to keep your photo library or video library on a removable drive. Personally, I would suggest returning for a system with less RAM and more storage.

 

[nastysailboat]

I have 512 GB on my M1 Pro Macbook Pro and Mac Studio M1 Max. I find Apple SSDs are overpriced per GB. Unless to really need the fast internal speeds, as others suggest, get a thunderbolt 3 SSD. It’s still plenty fast. I use a OWC Envoy Express with a Samsung 970 Evo Plug 2 TB NVMe SSD on my M1 Macbook Pro. I don’t recommend USB-C SSDs (doesn’t effect Thunderbolt 3/4 SSDs for some reason) as those seems to disconnect for some reason due to a bug in macOS and the workaround is disabling drive sleep.

I have 512 GB on my M1 Pro Macbook Pro and Mac Studio M1 Max. I find Apple SSDs are overpriced per GB. Unless to really need the fast internal speeds, as others suggest, get a thunderbolt 3 SSD. It’s still plenty fast. I use a OWC Envoy Express with a Samsung 970 Evo Plug 2 TB NVMe SSD on my M1 Macbook Pro. I don’t recommend USB-C SSDs (doesn’t effect Thunderbolt 3/4 SSDs for some reason) as those seems to disconnect for some reason due to a bug in macOS and the workaround is disabling drive sleep.

I dunno for an apple ssd on the MacBook Pro you can get 7.4 gbps read speeds. I’ve never seen a cheaper external that even comes close to touching that for a better price. I’ve got a 2tb external that does about 2gbps read/write and that was about $400.

 

[bigfatipod]

I personally wouldn't do anything less than 1tb these days. you could probably get away with 512gb if you take advantage of cloud services and/or an external drive, but I'd be more comfortable with 1tb AND having those as additional options.

 

[Rich2Putt]

I edit FCPX on an external Samsung T7 2tb drive. Most of my videos are 30 mins or less at 4k. It's been working great for me and the speed is decent.

 

[xRem]

Thanks everyone for the feedback. I have now set up everything as I need it and so far I got around 350 GB left. I am willing to risk it, so keep your fingers crossed for me. I have ordered an external SSD to store my videos and I will check out how it performs but what I've read so far seems to indicate that with a reasonably fast drive Thunderbolt is going to give me some good speeds!

 

[mreg376]

You do not need 64 GB of RAM to run Parallels and edit 4K video. You can do those things with 16 GB, and 32 would be plenty of headroom in your most demanding moments. Mac is quite efficient with memory management.

I do think you will find your lack of storage space annoying. You might have to keep your photo library or video library on a removable drive. Personally, I would suggest returning for a system with less RAM and more storage.

Agreed. The OP has an odd configuration. I don't know what kind of "deal" he got, but the 64GB is a waste of money and the 512GB SSD will eventually bite him in the a**.

 

[BellSystem]

Thanks everyone for the feedback. I have now set up everything as I need it and so far I got around 350 GB left. I am willing to risk it, so keep your fingers crossed for me. I have ordered an external SSD to store my videos and I will check out how it performs but what I've read so far seems to indicate that with a reasonably fast drive Thunderbolt is going to give me some good speeds!

Oooof 350. Thats 68% at capacity. It’s gonna creep up. I don’t even get why Apple sells such a small drive in 2022. I would have traded half the RAM for more storage. At 32GB you’d have a hard time filling that with most tasks. I went 512 once and it sucked having to constantly deal with space creep.

 

[phrehdd]

Given the choice, I would opt for the 512 and the extra RAM. It is pretty clear that RAM cannot be upgraded later yet one can get fairly fast communication to external drives and RAID setups. The latter is nothing new for those that engage various media files whether video, music or still. I am using an M1 Mac Mini with 512/16. The 16 gigs is often getting "filled up" and it can be as simple as MacRumor's web pages taking 1-2 gigs alone. Get a 1tb internal with 32 gigs and you may be happy now but in the future, again NO RAM upgrades.