Debating between 1TB or 2TB for Macbook Pro M4 Max 48 or 64GB [unbinned]

[UnifiedMelody]

Debating between 1TB base or kick it up to 2TB for MBP M4 Max. on the basis of convenience.

I'm going to use the education system as i'm still studying but happy to invest a bit of money to this system.
also edu system help to cut off some price so that'll help to a certain extent.
Looking at 540AUD diff between 1TB to 2TB

Currently I have 3x 2TB separate drives which can be connected by USB 3.0 10Gbps [not the fastest but i don't mind as this is holding photo and video content] and I can possibly make another 4TB external drive DIY for more video stuff.

With the current geekbench results of M4 Max, and some real life testing [iPhoneDo] of M4 Max, it looks like that chip variant is stupidly fast I'm happy to make the full on plunge into Apple Silicon. initially i tried out some M3 stuff but was kind of expensive and not as signifciant... now apple has cut down prices of M4 range whilst showing bigger incrase YoY so im interested.

Budget wise I don't have too much of an issue, if the cohort tells me to spend more then I'll just do it if it's justifiable/worth.

4/8TB is out of scope personally as the increases are too high. That's a common sense fact.

Looking at 48 or 64GB ram, 128GB is beyond scope. So essentially there's 4 options in total.
As above its the obvious unbinned chip since the base M4 Max is stuck at 36GB only.
Most likely getting it in the 16" variant [even though yes it's expensive, i wont take laptop out frequently maybe once or twice a fortnight at worst case scenario or longer].
48GB 1TB
48GB 2TB
64GB 1TB
64GB 2TB

what i intend to use this machine for
Davinci Resolve 4K and [some] 8K footage, downscaling 8K to 4K if approrpriate, can edit up to 8K 60p footage. Mostly ProRes/N-RAW video
Photo Editing [30-40%] - LR/PS [or another program if better]
Video Editing [30-40%] - [above program]
3D simple work [nothing too overtly complex] - [20%]
Web Browsing stuff as required. [minor]
Word Document Processing [minor]

also my pc is dying and geekbench is semi laughable on my pc [1500 single 6000 multi] so it is a massive leap from windows to mac

 

[Macintosh IIcx]

I struggle a bit with the exact same question. 1 TB is a bit tight for me on my current M1 Max, but I guess I can get by. It also has 64GB ram, and I’m not sure I want to downgrade to 48Gb, although again I could get by with it.

 

[Andrey84]

I struggle a bit with the exact same question. 1 TB is a bit tight for me on my current M1 Max, but I guess I can get by. It also has 64GB ram, and I’m not sure I want to downgrade to 48Gb, although again I could get by with it.

64GB/2TB

My reasoning:

64GB of unified memory. I'm using my wife's iMac as an example. She has 128GB of RAM and it's all being used. This is not to say that she would've noticed the difference with 64GB, as the memory pressure is green, but she might've noticed being bumped down to 48GB. She normally has ~50 applications, including 1-2 Adobe apps, and ~100 browser tabs open on 3 screens.

2TB SSD. If you're a creative who constantly creates new files, your 1 TB drive will get full. Consider that you need to clean up your drive every 6 months. It takes around 1 hour to clean up, especially if moving things to external drives is involved. Over 5 years, it's 10 hours. Is saving 10 hours of your time, plus saving on context switching in potentially important moments, worth 540 AUD?

 

[UnifiedMelody]

64GB/2TB

My reasoning:

64GB of unified memory. I'm using my wife's iMac as an example. She has 128GB of RAM and it's all being used. This is not to say that she would've noticed the difference with 64GB, as the memory pressure is green, but she might've noticed being bumped down to 48GB. She normally has ~50 applications, including 1-2 Adobe apps, and ~100 browser tabs open on 3 screens.

2TB SSD. If you're a creative who constantly creates new files, your 1 TB drive will get full. Consider that you need to clean up your drive every 6 months. It takes around 1 hour to clean up, especially if moving things to external drives is involved. Over 5 years, it's 10 hours. Is saving 10 hours of your time, plus saving on context switching in potentially important moments, worth 540 AUD?

Yeah that's what I thought also. Plus I am opting for NanoTexture so I'll have to wait anyways longer for that seeing it in person is far superb over the glossy/standard screen [but it probably doesn't help that my 27" monitor is also matte so I've gotten used to it easily. Most of the time the MBP 16" won't be moving around as much. Maybe once a fortnight or month it'll 'go outside the house'.

Laptop will last very long afaik; I managed to survive on this PC from 2017 to 2024. Just started getting noisier with rendering and exporting around 2022-23 :s

 

[UnifiedMelody]

I struggle a bit with the exact same question. 1 TB is a bit tight for me on my current M1 Max, but I guess I can get by. It also has 64GB ram, and I’m not sure I want to downgrade to 48Gb, although again I could get by with it.

If it was tight then yes, bump up to next tier. Depending on what you normally do for work. Mine is just as written above. I know I have to wait for my macbook pro because 'i put nanotexture all over it' - but worth it after seeing it in person, and it's accessible on all configs, not like the iPad Pro [yuck].

 

[Beau10]

now apple has cut down prices of M4 range whilst showing bigger incrase YoY so im interested.

This is couldn't be further from the truth. M2 Max -> M3 Max was a far more significant jump than M3 Max -> M4 Max. This is more llke a healthy bump.

M3 Pro -> M4 Pro, absolutely. But you're not looking at that.

 

[blufrog]

2 Tb.

I had a look at disk usage of various Macs in an Apple store today, and they were showing around 360 Gb free on 512 Gb drives. These are supposed to be vanilla devices with only the OS and bundled apps installed, so macOS seems to have got a bit heavier in the last decade.

Based on that, you will want 2 Tb. I'm now in fact debating if 1 Tb is enough, as that only gives 800 Gb of storage to play with out of the box, and I will want stuff to be usable while on the road without external disks.

 

[raythompsontn]

I'm now in fact debating if 1 Tb is enough, as that only gives 800 Gb of storage to play with out of the box, and I will want stuff to be usable while on the road without external disks.

Unless you are doing some really big projects on the road, 800 Gb should be a lot of space. I store thousands of pictures and a couple dozen movies with 1 TB. 1TB is really quire a lot of space. I would just as soon carry an external drive to easily transport data files from system to system.

 

[UnifiedMelody]

This is couldn't be further from the truth. M2 Max -> M3 Max was a far more significant jump than M3 Max -> M4 Max. This is more llke a healthy bump.

M3 Pro -> M4 Pro, absolutely. But you're not looking at that.

Overall I mean most of it got a healthy jump in performance... Because I did just write M4 which was generalized not specific [to a chip]. Like M4 was okay, M4 Pro was a lot [considering it was crippled in the M3 Pro] and Max is okay/healthy also

That said M4 Pro is a decent alternative, just wish it had 64GB on MBP... lol [like the M4 Mac Pro Mini was able to configure that?!] ideally that would have been nice i'm still in selection phase anyway, waiting for a few creative benchmarks and some stress test to make my final call... as they increased p core which will help it in most work-related tasks [i dont need more E cores fwiw]

 

[UnifiedMelody]

2 Tb.

I had a look at disk usage of various Macs in an Apple store today, and they were showing around 360 Gb free on 512 Gb drives. These are supposed to be vanilla devices with only the OS and bundled apps installed, so macOS seems to have got a bit heavier in the last decade.

Based on that, you will want 2 Tb. I'm now in fact debating if 1 Tb is enough, as that only gives 800 Gb of storage to play with out of the box, and I will want stuff to be usable while on the road without external disks.

Yeah I was debating that'd be the sweet spot most likely without blowing it. In no way is this MBP getting sold off to second hand market, just like my PC which is 7 years old and still [working] for game/browsing, but crippled/gets too loud/noisy in productivity - no chance of ever reselling, I just pass on to my family who will use it.

fwiw still runs a 1080Ti, 64GB ram and 3900x and around 8tb ssd's and 12tb hdd's. that's how old it is.
man M4 is really tempting me badly with its efficiency, low fan/no fan noise and extremely high performance

i will definitely find a workaround, i just cant justify an extra 2TB from 2TB [to 4TB] for 900$... for that I can get 2x Samsung T9 4TB's for 450$ each which run at 2000/1950 RW which is plenty for photo and video.

 

[UnifiedMelody]

Unless you are doing some really big projects on the road, 800 Gb should be a lot of space. I store thousands of pictures and a couple dozen movies with 1 TB. 1TB is really quire a lot of space. I would just as soon carry an external drive to easily transport data files from system to system.

These days even the external drives are so tiny and light esp in SSD format. HDD seems dated now for portability... I would be okay still with my 3.5" HDD externals for home use, but for outdoor on the go use it's 100% T7/T9 SSD's from Samsung. They weigh like 75g, barely noticeable... portable HDD's are like 3-4x the weight and bulky[yet slow]

 

[raythompsontn]

portable HDD's are like 3-4x the weight and bulky[yet slow]

I have no portable spinning rust.

 

[blufrog]

I have external SSDs and a NAS so no shortage of off-board storage.

@UnifiedMelody I was suggesting 2 Tb total; not 2 Tb extra (making 4 Tb). The additional cost isn't worth going that far. I can put 4 Tb in an external for $200 but to me it's always good to be able to work self-contained with a notebook.

1 Tb might be adequate, but 2 Tb is in the "don't need to think about it" category.

 

[Andrey84]

Yeah that's what I thought also. Plus I am opting for NanoTexture so I'll have to wait anyways longer for that seeing it in person is far superb over the glossy/standard screen [but it probably doesn't help that my 27" monitor is also matte so I've gotten used to it easily. Most of the time the MBP 16" won't be moving around as much. Maybe once a fortnight or month it'll 'go outside the house'.

Laptop will last very long afaik; I managed to survive on this PC from 2017 to 2024. Just started getting noisier with rendering and exporting around 2022-23 :s

Absolutely, go for the nano as well, my wife also has it and it’s fantastic. Had it for a year now.

 

[Melbourne Park]

I ordered a 2 TB M4 Pro, but cancelled (mostly due to unknown benefits of the M4 when upscaling 480 to 4K videos using Topaz). I bought on an Apple return option, an M3 Max unbanned 40 core with 64 GB RAM, 1 TB.

But the 1 TB is a big restriction, because using an external drive - even my RAID NVME drive - it's bottlenecked by thunderbolt 3 to around 3,000M/bs. Which is the speed of many M Mac's internal drives.

But Thunderbolt 5 is different - twice the transfer speed. So around 6,000 M/bs, available on several drives soon. An OWC 2 TB T-5 (and the drive is ruggedised and even waterproof) is $US400. The 4 TB version is $US600. Why buy an Apple internal if you can use the external?

However, a 2 TB'life is estimated at two times that of the 1 TB. But with more RAM, the drive will work a lot less hard.

With a Max, get the RAM. And you cannot get 64 GB Ram in a Mac notebook unless you buy a Max ...you can get 2 TB in lots of other Macs though. Also the RAM is much less of a rip off than Apple's drives are.

 

[UnifiedMelody]

I have no portable spinning rust.

I still have mine, I just re-purpose them as backup/archiving drives for RAW files [archived] - since I'm not accessing them frequently now they get reused. Reselling is a pita, they'll nickle and dime you like crazy so I just keep them.

I have external SSDs and a NAS so no shortage of off-board storage.

@UnifiedMelody I was suggesting 2 Tb total; not 2 Tb extra (making 4 Tb). The additional cost isn't worth going that far. I can put 4 Tb in an external for $200 but to me it's always good to be able to work self-contained with a notebook.

1 Tb might be adequate, but 2 Tb is in the "don't need to think about it" category.

Yeah I was thinking 2TB is the absolute maximum for peace of mind. I can't fathom 4/8TB lol, might as well purchase a few T9 4TB's from Samsung at 450$ each, which still has 2000/1950MBs R/W which is around half of TB4.0 capability potential

-

That said a friend has borrowed me their M4 Pro [12/16] 24GB/512GB 14" Pro today so I'm trying that out now. While it's no M4 Max contender I thought I just try.

High Power mode on battery only one test, So far 1:1 lightroom render previews of 684 Nikon Zf files (24.5MP) took 4 minutes. Fans spin loud for about 2 minutes out of the 4, but dropped very quick. Files were around 30GB, that test was done on my external SSD [a T7 2TB Samsung] not on the internal drive which is insane.

That's already 7% of my storage taken lol, hence why I don't feel as comfortable with a 512GB spec internally if that were the case, because I did it on an external SSD [T7 500/500] it seemed to blow my mind.

Gotta say I'm impressed even with just the base M4 Pro spec, smokes my current PC slam dunk, the same task on my PC would have fans blazing top end for 20-32+ minutes..

Found the 14" screen a bit tiny for me, I have been staring at a 27" monitor for 8 years, so the high chances I'll contend for a 16" screen is certainly.

 

[UnifiedMelody]

I ordered a 2 TB M4 Pro, but cancelled (mostly due to unknown benefits of the M4 when upscaling 480 to 4K videos using Topaz). I bought on an Apple return option, an M3 Max unbanned 40 core with 64 GB RAM, 1 TB.

But the 1 TB is a big restriction, because using an external drive - even my RAID NVME drive - it's bottlenecked by thunderbolt 3 to around 3,000M/bs. Which is the speed of many M Mac's internal drives.

But Thunderbolt 5 is different - twice the transfer speed. So around 6,000 M/bs, available on several drives soon. An OWC 2 TB T-5 (and the drive is ruggedised and even waterproof) is $US400. The 4 TB version is $US600. Why buy an Apple internal if you can use the external?

However, a 2 TB'life is estimated at two times that of the 1 TB. But with more RAM, the drive will work a lot less hard.

With a Max, get the RAM. And you cannot get 64 GB Ram in a Mac notebook unless you buy a Max ...you can get 2 TB in lots of other Macs though. Also the RAM is much less of a rip off than Apple's drives are.

That's the funny thing... With TB5 being faster in terms of R/W than Apple's internal, it's like Apple's encouraging us to buy external drives lol without actually saying it.

I am test-driving my friend's M4 Pro [base spec, not 14/20] , paltry 24/512GB atm... for a week or so which should hopefully sway me to either a M4 Pro or M4 Max. But so far on first few tests, M4 Pro is actually flexing really hard for what it is... I'm just waiting for stress test reviews on M4 Max by others before I finally cash out my gift cards and go all-in on this purchase.

Route is if the M4 Pro can hit more than I can imagine, I might just do 16" do pick a M4 Pro i can spec it to 48/2TB and call it a day.

But then a part of me is still itching for 64GB RAM. Knowing my PC I've been on 64GB Ram for 8 years...

If i have to pony extra money for a piece of mind ill just suck it up and take a blow. Least I know if I do buy the M4 Max [if it happens] I will never resell it, and even by the time that comes it would be close to residual/little or no value if I tried to trade it in. I tend to keep my devices forever and cbf reselling/trading in.

For now since my friend lent me his M4 Pro [binned] 24/512, ill experiment with this and keep tab of the memory pressure. i have external ssd which i will load all photos and videos.

Edit: yes you brought up a good point with RAM. as from my understanding unified memory means gpu cpu are all sharing the ram synonymously...] so that means technically by default more ram is desirable to put less pressure on the ssd in terms of memory swap.

i will listen to the voters and stick with 64gb