Need advice - iMac 24" 256 GB/16GB or 512 GB/16GB

[rosegoldoli]

So I actually placed two orders for the new iMac because I am divided on which storage option to get. I ordered a 256 GB SSD with 16 GB ram as well as 512 GB SSD with 16 GB ram.

I am having a hard time deciding if 256GB SSD will be enough for my use;

I am a business professional and college grad student so I deal with the usual apps; Microsoft Word, Excel, Keynote, light Photoshop work that can sometimes be mid, sometimes I use iMovie for my work's social media ads, Zoom

For fun I have Logic to do light music editing, 2 emulators which I rarely use now

this would be mainly a work/school machine at home and I will still be using my laptop on the go or mobile.

Now right now on my 2018 Macbook Air I have 124.55 GB left of 250.69 GB and I just got myself a 1TB Samsung T5 Portable SSD so i wonder if 512 GB is overkill for my use

P.S. Sorry for the long post I just need help ?

 

[cardfan]

For a desktop the more storage the better. Unless you plan on using an external drive. Sounds like the 256 would work though as your needs for storage seem minimal plus you have an external drive. Save the money.

 

[nothingtoseehere]

The 16 GB RAM are indeed the priority, good decision.

256 GB might be sufficient, especially as you already have an external SSD. But if you are not on a tight budget, I would suggest the 512 GB just in case. It is $200 more? I think so. If you use the iMac for five years, this is $40 a year.

Yes, this is maybe not "necessary". But "nice to have"

 

[4sallypat]

Depends on what you expect to store on your iMac.

I ordered the base 256GB because I don't store much on my iMac - I use Google Drive (unlimited) and my work NAS server storage (almost unlimited).

If my wife gets it, she will have a 1TB SSD velcro in the back stand for her crafting photos & videos.

 

[Cyprusian]

Multiple comments on various threads have suggested that smaller SSDs may suffer greater wear and thus have a shorter lifespan than the larger capacity options.

 

[rosegoldoli]

Depends on what you expect to store on your iMac.

Well i store huge files i won't be needing in a hard drive or google drive until it needs to be access again. that's how ve managed to survive 3 years on 256 with my MacBook air (also has 8 GB ram so having space is important till this is upgraded later)

Multiple comments on various threads have suggested that smaller SSDs may suffer greater wear and thus have a shorter lifespan than the larger capacity options.

which brings me to another question. How much storage should one be using to give space for any swap memory that might happen

 

[Cyprusian]

which brings me to another question. How much storage should one be using to give space for any swap memory that might happen

My preference would be 512GB, or ideally 1TB budget permitting.

 

[FilmIndustryGuy]

So I actually placed two orders for the new iMac because I am divided on which storage option to get. I ordered a 256 GB SSD with 16 GB ram as well as 512 GB SSD with 16 GB ram.

I am having a hard time deciding if 256GB SSD will be enough for my use;

I am a business professional and college grad student so I deal with the usual apps; Microsoft Word, Excel, Keynote, light Photoshop work that can sometimes be mid, sometimes I use iMovie for my work's social media ads, Zoom

For fun I have Logic to do light music editing, 2 emulators which I rarely use now

this would be mainly a work/school machine at home and I will still be using my laptop on the go or mobile.

Now right now on my 2018 Macbook Air I have 124.55 GB left of 250.69 GB and I just got myself a 1TB Samsung T5 Portable SSD so i wonder if 512 GB is overkill for my use

P.S. Sorry for the long post I just need help ?

for your use I would rather get the base iMac and use the storage money for iCloud 2TB for $10 a month. if you find that you need more storage at 2500 mps for intense software, just get a TB3 or USB4 drive with a 2TB NVME in it. I may jsut get the base iMac wiht 8gb ram. I have a 2TB TB3 external drive I put together that runs as fast as apples internal for under $400. Its overkill honestly unless you are transferring over a lot of data. even for 4k video editing its overkill. I also find I dont need more than 250gb internal all these years. I rather have th e cloud and these days you can even hold storage on the cloud and share large files wiht other people.

 

[FilmIndustryGuy]

Well i store huge files i won't be needing in a hard drive or google drive until it needs to be access again. that's how ve managed to survive 3 years on 256 with my MacBook air (also has 8 GB ram so having space is important till this is upgraded later)



which brings me to another question. How much storage should one be using to give space for any swap memory that might happen

dude I tested the M1 and I think people are overblowing this whole swap idea. unless your primary goal is to edit large videos or do 3d stuff, I wouldn't worry about it. even with 16gb ram Mac will swap. personally I would wait until some youtubers do some tests on this but im thinking for most people the base iMac will be enough. if its for a business jsut get what you want instead of messing with worries about issues down the road.

 

[4sallypat]

dude I tested the M1 and I think people are overblowing this whole swap idea. unless your primary goal is to edit large videos or do 3d stuff, I wouldn't worry about it. even with 16gb ram Mac will swap. personally I would wait until some youtubers do some tests on this but im thinking for most people the base iMac will be enough. if its for a business jsut get what you want instead of messing with worries about issues down the road.

Agree!

My M1 Mini base (8GB) is unlike any previous Mac (Intel) - runs so efficient, it beats out 16GB, 32GB, and 64GB Intel Macs!

8GB Unified memory in M1 machines are TOTALLY DIFFERENT than DDR RAM found in Intel machines.

You all are comparing apples to oranges !

 

[pmiles]

To the OP,

I find that if you have to ask the question, you already know your answer. Several things to remember here, your computer IS going to get slower over time. It's inevitable. The programs you use, the OS that you use, get less and less efficient for your particular computer as time passes. Perfect example of this was the switch from MacOS Extended to APFS... literally turned mechanical drive computers into slugs overnight. Great for SSD drives however. If you think Big Sur is going to get leaner over time, I have some swamp land for sale.

So knowing that your computer is a sealed computer with zero chance of upgradeability, do you want to go with the lesser model, thereby hastening the downward spiral that is to come, or, do you go with the one that boosts performance to the maximum this machine will ever see?

Sure, you may not need X amount of RAM, but you can't add it later. Sure, you may not need X amount of disk space, but you can't add it later (internally). Any disk space on an external drive will not be optimized for speed compared to on-board. Remember, the whole point of an SoC is to house everything together so that they maximize throughput. Anything external to that is not optimized and will be slower.

Reality is, most computers are overkill in that we don't really tap their full potential before we toss it aside for the next new gadget that comes along. We may apply pressure to it, but most people never actually kill their machine with a single process. I said most. Anyone can break anything.

If you're looking to get something on the cheap... cheap is easy. But don't complain if it doesn't hold up over time. That's the whole point of cheap... getting away with the least because you'd rather save a buck then have something more.

 

[ucfgrad93]

Since neither the storage nor the RAM is user upgradable, I would recommend getting as much as you can afford for both.

 

[trip1ex]

Doesn't really matter. You can always add an external. And you're spending $1700 already I take it? So $200 more is nothing as well.

 

[iDave]

A good Thunderbolt external SSD is about as fast as Apple's expensive internal storage. (Even a USB-C SSD can be very fast.) So I keep the system and all my apps on the minimum internal drive and all the user files on an external. Saves money and seems like a no-brainer to me. Today I saw a nice 480GB Thunderbolt SSD on Amazon for $99.

 

[rosegoldoli]

Update: So I did a SMART analysis on my current MBA (late-2018) 256GB/8GB and apparently im degrading my SSD at a fast rate because I am more of a power user than I thought. so ill be sticking with 512GB SSD for the imac

 

[itsmeaustend]

and 64GB Intel Macs!

Doubtful.

 

[nambuccaheadsau]

If you are going to use the iMac for business and get a depreciation allowance from the IRS, go BIG!

I am now retired but when in marketing would have gone 1TBSSD/16GB.

 

[brookter1]

It depends what the bulk of your data consists of. If it's mostly media (music, video, photos etc) for consumption, then a standard USB external HDD is more than fast enough to cope, so spending £200 or a bigger internal SSD could be overkill. Spend it on a couple of external 5TB HDDs instead (one as backup).

Obviously this depends on your specific use case — if you use large Virtual Machines, then you need the speed and space — but otherwise, external HDDs can be a lot larger and more than fast enough for many needs.

 

[DanTSX]

Max it out as much as you can. It’s not like you can add anything internally later.

 

[JuicelessMango]

Always go with the most storage you can afford

 

[ADGrant]

So I actually placed two orders for the new iMac because I am divided on which storage option to get. I ordered a 256 GB SSD with 16 GB ram as well as 512 GB SSD with 16 GB ram.

I am having a hard time deciding if 256GB SSD will be enough for my use;

I am a business professional and college grad student so I deal with the usual apps; Microsoft Word, Excel, Keynote, light Photoshop work that can sometimes be mid, sometimes I use iMovie for my work's social media ads, Zoom

For fun I have Logic to do light music editing, 2 emulators which I rarely use now

this would be mainly a work/school machine at home and I will still be using my laptop on the go or mobile.

Now right now on my 2018 Macbook Air I have 124.55 GB left of 250.69 GB and I just got myself a 1TB Samsung T5 Portable SSD so i wonder if 512 GB is overkill for my use

P.S. Sorry for the long post I just need help ?

If you are using half of your 256 GB internal SSD you should order the next size up, 512. Its always better to have too much SSD than too little.

That external SSD will be very slow compared to the internal one but would make a great backup drive. What do you use for backups now?

 

[rosegoldoli]

If you are using half of your 256 GB internal SSD you should order the next size up, 512. Its always better to have too much SSD than too little.

That external SSD will be very slow compared to the internal one but would make a great backup drive. What do you use for backups now?

thats was i figured and for some reason my “other storage” is over 90 GB..which i dont get

but as for back ups i use a WD hard drive which i will periodically plug in to back up

 

[Eso]

If you're rocking the 256 GB and using half, I would just go with the 256. Install all your apps to the internal drive, and save all of your user files to the external. Just keep an eye out for the ridiculous settings in library-type apps like music which "copy files to media folder when adding to library". This absurd and outdated setting will needlessly duplicate files to some default folder (which would likely be on the internal drive). Just think of the kinds of apps where you drag and drop files.

Yeah, an upgrade is "only" $200, but $200 here, $200 there, and pretty soon your computer costs twice as much.

 

[AmarKap]

You have the money to buy two of these computer and yet you are not sure if you should spend $200 to buy the 512GB option?

 

[rosegoldoli]

You have the money to buy two of these computer and yet you are not sure if you should spend $200 to buy the 512GB option?

i ordered both to get a good shipping time frame (apple doesnt charge until shipped). so i ordered to hold my place while i thought about it ?