M1 Mac owners who have more than base storage... why?

[pshufd]

I got 1TB and I'm very happy. 256GB is just far too small for my uses. I have two DAWs and lots of sample libraries installed and developer tools for working with large codebases. I've had my machine for a month and already have only 512GB free. The internal storage is fast and there's nothing extra to carry around too.

If you're just doing web browsing and light office work then given how much lives in the cloud these days 256GB could be fine for a lot of people. It's a good rule of thumb however that you'll always want more storage than you think in the end.

One other reason would be longevity. I have a Late 2009 iMac that I still use from time to time. I also have a 2008 Dell XPS Studio that I use as a backup system. More storage gives you flexibility as you could use it as a NAS in the future or repurpose it for work which requires a lot of space.

I think that you can have a mix of storage levels for systems. My direction on mobile devices is less storage in the future as I'm doing more in the cloud. But there are some cases where I want a lot of storage, typically to serve other systems. My solution is to do that with a Windows system as I can easily add storage cheaply.

 

[Novius89]

I have an 256gb model.
Installed my apps and some steam games on the internal.
Most of the time the Mac is on my desk, plugged in a 5 tb external hdd and hooked to my tv for watching movies.

When I wanne use it outside or watch my movie someplace elsewhere, I put the files in a folder on the mac internal.
Or just drag the external with me

 

[ImaginaryNerve]

I have 256GB on my MBP and 512GB on my Mini. I found the 256GB to be almost too small for me, specifically because I have two user accounts on the device. I went with the 512GB on the Mini just could I could have some more breathing room with multiple user accounts even though I've always offloaded the majority of my data to various cloud and storage solutions.

I haven't decided exactly how I want to set up the M1s though. On my Windows PCs, I have a 6TB HDD holding some data backups and data for a server I host. Networking between them worked fairly well though a bit slowly. I'm thinking of doing a similar setup between the MBP and the Mini. Just haven't decided on what kind of storage solution I want to do. HDDs are still remarkably cheap and leaving one attached to the Mini to work as a "consolidation" drive really wouldn't be much of a hardship--even with a sacrifice in speed--but I'll admit I've had my eye on an SSD enclosure...

Decisions suck.

 

[Tagbert]

I have a work 13" MBP Intel with 256GB SSD and it is plenty for that purpose. I keep work applications and data consisting of docs, spreadsheets, slide decks, and pdfs. I keep minimal images and videos. I've still got about 90GB free. If I were to get an M1 to replace it, the 256GB would probably still be enough. (I do prefer 16GB RAM to help multi-tasking).

For my personal computer, I got an M1 Air with 16GB/1TB but I also got an external 1TB T5 SSD for secondary files. (Backup is to a wifi networked time machine and to backblaze) I have more applications but also more media. in particular, I have about 300GB of photos in a couple of libraries. It's inconvenient to have those on an external drive. I prefer to have them with me on the go and the ongoing processing that photolibraryd does makes it clumsy to eject an external drive. I keep videos and secondary files on the external drive. I would have preferred to get the 2TB internal but could not justify the extra $400 for that incremental step up. When I'm juggling drives and ports, I sometimes think I might make that decision differently next time.

If you are doing basic things and don't need frequent access to all of your files, then a 256GB SSD can work for you. For those of us who hoard media files, an upgrade is definitely worth it.

 

[Taco1933]

My wife has a 128gb MBP that I bricked while trying to upgrade to Big Sur. There just wasn't enough space to do it. Lesson learned there. I also had a 16gb iPad that I thought would be sufficient for my basic purposes, and it wasn't. That was the only two times I've bought base storage on an apple product. Admittedly, those were particularly tiny. But I've just decided to spend a bit more up front and not worry about it.

If I had an iMac instead of a MacBook, I might be okay with external. I have an external for my PS5. But I carry my MacBook all over the house. I don't really want to deal with it.

 

[pshufd]

My wife has a 128gb MBP that I bricked while trying to upgrade to Big Sur. There just wasn't enough space to do it. Lesson learned there. I also had a 16gb iPad that I thought would be sufficient for my basic purposes, and it wasn't. That was the only two times I've bought base storage on an apple product. Admittedly, those were particularly tiny. But I've just decided to spend a bit more up front and not worry about it.

If I had an iMac instead of a MacBook, I might be okay with external. I have an external for my PS5. But I carry my MacBook all over the house. I don't really want to deal with it.

A lot of people had trouble with Big Sur because of space problems. Apple should have done a better job on the installation checking for space - I think that the initial expected amount wasn't enough. I used to clean up my machines every 6-12 months but I had 500 GB on them so I could be careless with space most of the time.

I've put a ton of stuff on a Home NAS that I built last fall and I'd guess that I could get away with 256 GB on mobile devices now that are used mainly at home. When I do get mobile someday, it would be nice to have an SD-card slot for cheap storage that's flush with the laptop. I assume that Transcend or the other company will make these products. They aren't fast but good enough if you want to bring some movies or TV shoes on a trip.

Many Windows laptops have NVMe SSD and have a second slot if you want to add your own. I'd love it if Apple did this.

 

[jcepiano]

I got my M1 mini with 2TB because I do video editing and sadly, the read/write speeds for video editing off of an external SSD just isn't fast enough in comparison to doing it off of the internal drives. I'm happy with my investment for productivity and speed.

 

[Taco1933]

A lot of people had trouble with Big Sur because of space problems. Apple should have done a better job on the installation checking for space - I think that the initial expected amount wasn't enough. I used to clean up my machines every 6-12 months but I had 500 GB on them so I could be careless with space most of the time.

I've put a ton of stuff on a Home NAS that I built last fall and I'd guess that I could get away with 256 GB on mobile devices now that are used mainly at home. When I do get mobile someday, it would be nice to have an SD-card slot for cheap storage that's flush with the laptop. I assume that Transcend or the other company will make these products. They aren't fast but good enough if you want to bring some movies or TV shoes on a trip.

Many Windows laptops have NVMe SSD and have a second slot if you want to add your own. I'd love it if Apple did this.

I was dumb enough to try to squeeze under the minimum requirement thinking that it would be a conservative estimate. Wrong.

 

[pshufd]

I was dumb enough to try to squeeze under the minimum requirement thinking that it would be a conservative estimate. Wrong.

I ran into the same problem trying to upgrade a virtual machine. I think that I wound up creating a new Virtual Machine to test Big Sur. I wasn't able to expand the size of the virtual drive from Mojave for some reason.

 

[ader42]

I’ve been running my iMacs from 1TB external SSD drives for a couple of years and even that can be tight for my type of usage - I still have plenty of external drives additionally. So I see 1TB as the minimum inside a machine.

 

[ohbrilliance]

One consideration is backups. It’s more straightforward to have all of your files on the machine and then backup with one external drive, than it is to have an external drive with core files and another to backup both that drive and the internal drive.

 

[pshufd]

One consideration is backups. It’s more straightforward to have all of your files on the machine and then backup with one external drive, than it is to have an external drive with core files and another to backup both that drive and the internal drive.

I have multiple systems with multiple operating systems. It’s pretty easy to wind up with a complicated backup structure.

 

[JamesTheMac]

As well as the inconvenience of having an extra drive hooked up to a laptop, the other reason for me is longevity.
1. I'm less likely to outgrow the device so quickly.
2. Now SSDs aren't replaceable items on Apple devices, having a larger capacity SSD, with more free space, means the same spots on the SSD are getting hammered less, rather than all the data writes being used over the same smaller area, shortening its life quicker.

 

[ctjack]

I just happen to find only 512Gb Air on BestBuy open box sale near me. Not regretting and think 512gb is the best spot, but not sure that i would have paid $200 premium for that in case of buying full price.

 

[ssmed]

The simple reply to this is that with two ports and the need for backup, you would have to buy a dock to be able to do quite a few things, and have your external, a frequently attached backup and use a range of other accessories.

 

[quynhtrang]

I have determined that my next laptop will have a 2TB HD. I‘m just so sick of external drives and I have a 1.5TB music library. That was the good thing about my 2011 MBP- 512GB SSD and 2TB hard drive. Currently have a 2016 MBP (2 ports) and Samsung 2TB and 1TB T7 SSDs. HDDs are just so redundant.

It’s a moot point though, as I’m broke and it looks like I’ll be staying broke for the foreseeable future.