Buying MBP 15" need help deciding about SSD size

[farmkittie]

I am going to buy a new MacBook Pro 15" touchbar with highest specs but I'm undecided about the SSD size. How important would it be to have 1 or 2 TB SSD (rather than the base 512GB) as opposed to getting an external hard drive? The price premium for a student is 1K for the 2TB and about $400 for the 1TB. I plan on keeping the laptop for 4 years at least. I will be doing video editing (Adobe) and programming.

Can anyone recommend a good external SSD drive ? Would I end up spending almost as much for it as the larger Mac hard drive. I know Apple hard drives are more expensive than other alternatives, right?

 

[Wowereit]

When you need fast external storage: Samsung T3, alternative: any SATA SSD + USB 3 enclosure
For archiving get the cheapest HDD you can find.

512 GB are a good amount of storage and should be plenty space for a programmer.
For video editing you will have to put your finished projects to external drives regularly, but that's unavoidable anyway.

I don't think a student should spend 400-1000$ on more internal storage just for convenience.

 

[SteveJUAE]

Part of the issue is also if the LB fails the replacement will equally be more expensive

Samsung T3 or even Sandisk have some nice options with the bonus can be used in other situations

 

[New_Mac_Smell]

For video work, I'd strongly recommend getting enough storage on the base machine for the kind of work you're doing. Bare in mind that these things always increase in size, so maybe 1TB IF you can afford it.

The reason for this is I strongly recommend backing up video files, and only ever use the machine as a working rig. So having external drives as backups, then transferring them to the machine to work on, then back. Helps maintain the backup and redundancy.

Another option you could consider, depending on your use. Is to have a NAS as an archive storage, transfer files from that to an external SSD, then work from that. The cost would be less than the price of the higher storage and give you a lot more options/backup for the future.

Of course if you're flush with cash, then go ahead and get the 2TB. More storage is always better but think if you're on a budget where that money is best spent!

 

[farmkittie]

When you need fast external storage: Samsung T3, alternative: any SATA SSD + USB 3 enclosure
For archiving get the cheapest HDD you can find.

512 GB are a good amount of storage and should be plenty space for a programmer.
For video editing you will have to put your finished projects to external drives regularly, but that's unavoidable anyway.

I don't think a student should spend 400-1000$ on more internal storage just for convenience.

Thanks Wowereit, I like the Samsung T3 recommendation. It would be less expensive and I could buy it later. In the meantime I could back up to my old TimeCapsule.
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Part of the issue is also if the LB fails the replacement will equally be more expensive

Samsung T3 or even Sandisk have some nice options with the bonus can be used in other situations

Thanks SteveJUAE. I'll get the AppleCare but after it expires I would be hurting if the logic board fails. If it did and Apple repaired it, do you think they'd charge me for a new HD too because it's soldered on? That would be bad. I hadn't thought of that. I had a logic board go bad on my MacBook air in 2013 (I think I bought it in 2013 the day it was released) within three months but it was covered of course.
[doublepost=1486252308][/doublepost]

For video work, I'd strongly recommend getting enough storage on the base machine for the kind of work you're doing. Bare in mind that these things always increase in size, so maybe 1TB IF you can afford it.

The reason for this is I strongly recommend backing up video files, and only ever use the machine as a working rig. So having external drives as backups, then transferring them to the machine to work on, then back. Helps maintain the backup and redundancy.

Another option you could consider, depending on your use. Is to have a NAS as an archive storage, transfer files from that to an external SSD, then work from that. The cost would be less than the price of the higher storage and give you a lot more options/backup for the future.

Of course if you're flush with cash, then go ahead and get the 2TB. More storage is always better but think if you're on a budget where that money is best spent!

Thanks New_Mac_Smell, what NAS would you recommend?

 

[New_Mac_Smell]

Any NAS would do the job, I use an old PC as one myself, but for a simpler solution an off the shelf product is easier to deal with. Depending on budget and use, 4 bays give you most flexibility, 2 bays is fine for a time. Consider RAID-1 arrays if you want ultimate redundancy (So sacrifice 1 or 2 bays to give you that), in practice as long as you buy decent HDDs you'll be okay. Get one with a fast IO port for transferring data directly to an external drive if needed, even the fastest NASs can be slow to transfer a large file over the network. That's about it really, probably get set up with a 2TB RAID-1 for around $200-300 if you shop around.

 

[ZapNZs]

The Crucial MX-300 has become a very popular TLC SSD that has a solid reputation, very good performance, and outstanding pricing. It could be argued that the ultimate SATA SSD, from a performance, reliability, warranty, and endurance stance, is the (MLC) Samsung 850 PRO (which might be the SSD used with the T3???) However, for someone needing stupid fast transfer speeds, the Samsung 960 PRO via a Thunderbolt 3 enclosure might be the ultimate fix; but, the price on this is still prohibitively high, as the 960 PRO is comparable to the internal SSD used in the MacBook Pro. In the future, 3d-XPoint, and Z-NAND may bring even faster (internal and external) storage systems to the market at more competitive pricing.

With HDDs, I like HGST as a brand, and really like the UltraStar 7k4. Synology's home/home office products are extremely popular and well-regarded.

 

[Jyby]

Science Rules!