Help - Advice On 512 GB enough on M3 MacBook Pro as Internal Drive space costly

[Melbourne Park]

Hi guys!!

With MacBook Pro 16" notebooks, I can get an m1 Max with 2 TB of disk, or an M1 plane jane with 1 TB and save lots, or an M3 Pro with 1 TB and that is the most expensive. Can I get away with 512 GB of disk space, and use external drives? It seems to me that Apple overcharges for its internal drives - one saves a lot with a 512 GB drive. And for 2 TB, the cost seems disproportionate to what it should be IMO.

I have a raid card in my Mac Classic 2010 with 4TB of NVME cards using two cards ... I could buy an external Thunmberbolt case in use its capacity (but I don't think the RAID would work doing so off an M architecture). It's my video work I am doing, I am not a Pro, IA'm retired now and my mid 2017 MacBook Pro 15" is getting flakey, I often have to reboot it. Can I use external drives for FCP editing on an M MacBook Pro?

Thanks for the advise ...

 

[JustAnExpat]

> Can I use external drives for FCP editing on an M MacBook Pro?

Yes you can. It will be slower then using your internal drive though.

 

[Melbourne Park]

> Can I use external drives for FCP editing on an M MacBook Pro?

Yes you can. It will be slower then using your internal drive though.

Yes - 40 GB/Sec is the maximum I presume. I am worried that is not a workable solution. If I move all my photos folder (which has videos in it) by dragging it onto an external drive, and then designate that folder as my photos default, that would work. But then while travelling I'd make the default the internal drive. Then when I came back, I'd have to export the contents to the external, and then do an import of the exported videos and stills. With a bigger drive, I would not have to worry about that.

Some say use time machine and delete photos on the mac. But I have found time machine slow, and at times, not at all reliable. For photo backups (and video) I prefer having the files on a physical drive. Or several drives. The idea of importing exported photos and videos seems a lengthy process.

 

[gigapocket1]

Yes - 40 GB/Sec is the maximum I presume. I am worried that is not a workable solution. If I move all my photos folder (which has videos in it) by dragging it onto an external drive, and then designate that folder as my photos default, that would work. But then while travelling I'd make the default the internal drive. Then when I came back, I'd have to export the contents to the external, and then do an import of the exported videos and stills. With a bigger drive, I would not have to worry about that.

Some say use time machine and delete photos on the mac. But I have found time machine slow, and at times, not at all reliable. For photo backups (and video) I prefer having the files on a physical drive. Or several drives. The idea of importing exported photos and videos seems a lengthy process.

I’m kinda in the same bout/ thought process… im working on my workflow, as I want to get out of iCloud Photos. Also, I have a Synology NAS.

Don’t use Time Machine to backup photos because eventually that Time Machine snapshot will get deleted.