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Did future-proofing pay off for you?
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fatTribble
macrumors 68030
In 2018 I bought my first MacBook. I got the 4TB storage option which was a lot more than I needed. Glad I did. I don’t do much of anything that needs large amounts of RAM or processing power. I do take a lot of photos and 4K video. So right now I’m getting by with 4TB but my next will be 8TB.
I'm on 2TB but wish I bought 4TB but at same time the cost is hard to stomach out of principle and money!
Have you not considered just buying base and then external? everyone seems to do that but I can never get my head round it.. I think it would annoy me in time.
danpass
macrumors 68030
Mac mini M1 16/1tb. Still running strong.
Mac Photos is the one program giving it issues, mainly with Apples own RAW photos, such as from the 16 Pro.
If 32gb, or even 24gb, was available at the time I would have spec’d that.
Always get the most ram you’re willing to pay for and a minimum of 1tb drive. The 1tb and up tend to be the fast drives and leaves room for the OS to move data around as it accommodates worn out sectors. The speed of 1tb has helped immensely with memory pressure as the mini has been using swap a lot this past year (based on Activity Monitor)
I was about to future proof again with a mini M4 Pro 48/2tb but the price change put a stop to that.
We’ll see what next year brings to the mini.
Mac Photos is the one program giving it issues, mainly with Apples own RAW photos, such as from the 16 Pro.
If 32gb, or even 24gb, was available at the time I would have spec’d that.
Always get the most ram you’re willing to pay for and a minimum of 1tb drive. The 1tb and up tend to be the fast drives and leaves room for the OS to move data around as it accommodates worn out sectors. The speed of 1tb has helped immensely with memory pressure as the mini has been using swap a lot this past year (based on Activity Monitor)
I was about to future proof again with a mini M4 Pro 48/2tb but the price change put a stop to that.
We’ll see what next year brings to the mini.
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fatTribble
macrumors 68030
That’s what I’m doing now basically. I have everything in Photos local and in iCloud then do Time Machine backups. For my Files data it’s all in iCloud then I have a number of disk backups. It’s doable, but more time and effort than just having the larger storage on the MacBook.
Everyone has their priorities. When my data is organized and backed up I sleep better.
anthony13
macrumors 65816
I don’t really understand the concept of future proofing. Like if you need a multi core max chip in the first place, it means you have tasks that will benefit from more cores from day one. But those performance gains will not buy you years over a few less cores. Conversely, if you don’t require max chips, you won’t really benefit from them in the future either. These machines really are built for the various tiers of requirements that exist (pro, pro-sumers and hobbyists, gen ed students, casual). If you don’t need the spec bumps don’t pay for them cause the added price yields almost no bump in the re-sale).
The expensive pricing on RAM and SSD storage in Macs makes future-proofing a difficult proposition.
If you plan to keep your Apple device for more than 5 years, it is important to do some research and spec comparison - to use an analogy, Intel kept its processors artificially limited to 4 cores from about 2011 to 2018 (Sandy Bridge to Kaby Lake) for profit and market segmentation, until AMD succeeded with their new Zen architecture, and Apple was with both Intel and AMD in that period. RAM capacities also stagnated during that Intel period, sticking to 8-16GB for most mainstream configurations, and not upgradable in most Macs.
Applications were built in both macOS and Windows for those processors - if you wanted more, you'd have to pay for expensive Xeon (i.e., Mac Pro) or Threadripper products. Now, Apple makes M5 processors that blow those old systems away, even in the base configurations, with excellent battery life.
The runaway success of the MacBook Neo shows that a lot of users are buying computers for today, not tomorrow. The AI and RAM cartel-induced shortages of memory, SSD, and hard drives are forcing people to do more with less, probably for the next few years, whether or not the AI bubble bursts.
M5 Pro and the base M5 (particularly their full-spec 4 and 6 S-core configurations) are great value products, too. You get diminishing returns with the M5 Max - only extreme use cases need that much power, justifying the high price. No doubt the M6 will build on that capability - to me, one of the major "future-proof" features in upcoming Apple Silicon will be native AV1 video encode, as companies like YouTube have already switched over to the more efficient codec.
Buy the device you can afford that meets your application needs - it's pretty difficult to predict the future. I think the AI capabilities are inconsequential, but that's just my opinion.
If you plan to keep your Apple device for more than 5 years, it is important to do some research and spec comparison - to use an analogy, Intel kept its processors artificially limited to 4 cores from about 2011 to 2018 (Sandy Bridge to Kaby Lake) for profit and market segmentation, until AMD succeeded with their new Zen architecture, and Apple was with both Intel and AMD in that period. RAM capacities also stagnated during that Intel period, sticking to 8-16GB for most mainstream configurations, and not upgradable in most Macs.
Applications were built in both macOS and Windows for those processors - if you wanted more, you'd have to pay for expensive Xeon (i.e., Mac Pro) or Threadripper products. Now, Apple makes M5 processors that blow those old systems away, even in the base configurations, with excellent battery life.
The runaway success of the MacBook Neo shows that a lot of users are buying computers for today, not tomorrow. The AI and RAM cartel-induced shortages of memory, SSD, and hard drives are forcing people to do more with less, probably for the next few years, whether or not the AI bubble bursts.
M5 Pro and the base M5 (particularly their full-spec 4 and 6 S-core configurations) are great value products, too. You get diminishing returns with the M5 Max - only extreme use cases need that much power, justifying the high price. No doubt the M6 will build on that capability - to me, one of the major "future-proof" features in upcoming Apple Silicon will be native AV1 video encode, as companies like YouTube have already switched over to the more efficient codec.
Buy the device you can afford that meets your application needs - it's pretty difficult to predict the future. I think the AI capabilities are inconsequential, but that's just my opinion.
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I bought an M3 Max 14" MBP with 64 GB of RAM and 1 TB of SSD in November 2023 and I'm very happy that I specced as aggressively as I did. I obviously had no idea that agentic software engineering would be such a big thing two years later and the RAM has been lovely. My work machine has 24 GB of RAM and I get the "Your computer has run out of memory" popup a few times a week. I haven't needed the GPU as much as I expected because running local models has been less of a thing as the LLM picture has exploded but it's nice to have the grunt when I want it.
Populus
macrumors 604
Interesting thread!
In my case, I’d say I fall into the “others” category. Many years ago I purchased my 2014 Mac mini, but I didn’t get to choose the specs because it was a used machine (although like new). But it happened to be the specced up version, with 8GB of RAM (instead of the 4GB that came by defect), and the i5 Intel processor at 2,6GHz and the more powerful Iris Graphics. Despite being a dual core (4 threads) CPU, its performance was way better than the base model.
That machine is still my main Mac, running Monterey, the last supported macOS version, flawlessly. The specs and the upgraded drive (I replaced the spinning hard drive for an SSD) have definitely made this machine capable of still running in 2026, 12 years after its release, which is amazing.
I really think getting one step above of what you intend to buy, especially in RAM, pays off in the long term. Also, in some current Mac configurations, just buy upgrading the RAM you get a chip with 10 GPU cores instead of the binned chip with just 8 GPU cores.
So yes, I think it pays off, and it’s worth it, if you don’t replace your devices every 2 or 3 years. If you do that, then the base spec is usually the way to go. But if you intend to keep the machine for a decade, then every cent invested is gonna be appreciated later on.
I think the sweet spot right now for a base machine is the upgrade to 24GB and 1TB of storage.
In my case, I’d say I fall into the “others” category. Many years ago I purchased my 2014 Mac mini, but I didn’t get to choose the specs because it was a used machine (although like new). But it happened to be the specced up version, with 8GB of RAM (instead of the 4GB that came by defect), and the i5 Intel processor at 2,6GHz and the more powerful Iris Graphics. Despite being a dual core (4 threads) CPU, its performance was way better than the base model.
That machine is still my main Mac, running Monterey, the last supported macOS version, flawlessly. The specs and the upgraded drive (I replaced the spinning hard drive for an SSD) have definitely made this machine capable of still running in 2026, 12 years after its release, which is amazing.
I really think getting one step above of what you intend to buy, especially in RAM, pays off in the long term. Also, in some current Mac configurations, just buy upgrading the RAM you get a chip with 10 GPU cores instead of the binned chip with just 8 GPU cores.
So yes, I think it pays off, and it’s worth it, if you don’t replace your devices every 2 or 3 years. If you do that, then the base spec is usually the way to go. But if you intend to keep the machine for a decade, then every cent invested is gonna be appreciated later on.
I think the sweet spot right now for a base machine is the upgrade to 24GB and 1TB of storage.
I don't plan on future proofing technology. I buy for what I need now and just be realistic about when I actually need to upgrade. I would say the majority of people don't use their computers as long as they would actually be useful for. I bought a M1 Max with 32 gigs of RAM. This machine is perfect for graphic work and will be for a long time still. What it will really come down to is Adobe supporting it and the OS that will eventually cap out at because of Apple and them no longer supporting it. That happened with my previous work machine which was a maxed out 5K iMac, it was the first generation and I think that came out in 2014 if memory serves me. Had a 1tb flash drive and everything maxed. It still works great but because I cannot update the OS I can no longer run the latest versions of Adobe CC. So the real limit of a computers life potential is Apple.
I didn't overly future-proof my 14" M4 Pro 18 months ago. It is specced rather modestly at 24GB RAM and 1TB storage. I probably would've been fine with a base M4 MacBook Pro, but I wanted TB5 "just in case".
I learned from my experience trying to future proof with an M3 Max MBP. And no amount of future-proofing will make up for a lighter chassis in the upcoming MBP redesign. That said, anyone that spent more on upgrades a year ago is probably glad they did after all the recent price increases.
I learned from my experience trying to future proof with an M3 Max MBP. And no amount of future-proofing will make up for a lighter chassis in the upcoming MBP redesign. That said, anyone that spent more on upgrades a year ago is probably glad they did after all the recent price increases.
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