iPhone 17 Pro Upgrade 256 --> 512 or leave good enough alone?

[LordArchie]

Have 50GB free.. would love to shoot more video in ProRes. Have a few days left on return, it's pretty painful to change phones, Wallet, 2x eSim. Go external SSD or bite the bullet and spend $200 the afternoon tomorrow setting up a new device?

Local stores have both 512 and 1TB in stock in Orange.,

Thoughts?

 

[JPack]

Go for the upgrade unless you plan to offload like 100GB of media from your phone.

ProRes 4K is 6GB per minute and you have less than 10 minutes.

 

[kitKAC]

Have 50GB free.. would love to shoot more video in ProRes. Have a few days left on return, it's pretty painful to change phones, Wallet, 2x eSim. Go external SSD or bite the bullet and spend $200 the afternoon tomorrow setting up a new device?

Local stores have both 512 and 1TB in stock in Orange.,

Thoughts?

Some ProRes recording modes require an external SSD, why not cover all your bases? Plus your files are already portable ready to edit where you like.

 

[Shirasaki]

Even if you don’t record ProRes, not needing to juggle between apps and documents choosing which one to offload is a huge life saver. 1TB might be a bit extreme imo but 512GB is definitely good to have if you want to go for it. Great for everyday use too. I have 512GB on my iPhone and I don’t spend much time offloading storage. If you REALLY want to record lots of ProRes then maybe you should consider 1TB.

Also, external storage is nice until one unfortunate touch disconnects your external SSD, corrupting files and destroying your footage. If you go external SSD you pretty much need to have iPhone set up still.

 

[James6s]

Go for the 512GB as it’ll save a lot of hassle having to offload and delete stuff to free up storage.

256GB used to be my go to storage option but nowadays it isn’t enough, and it’s a pain when I have to free up storage. Currently have a 512GB Air with a healthy 230GB of free space.

 

[LordArchie]

I'm a bit torn.. my primary use case is photos, then video. Thinking on it a bit, I may focus on my needs for photos. I'll mull it overnight and consider the 512GB 17 Pro.. Adding over 300GB of space would suffice

 

[LordArchie]

Go for the 512GB as it’ll save a lot of hassle having to offload and delete stuff to free up storage.

256GB used to be my go to storage option but nowadays it isn’t enough, and it’s a pain when I have to free up storage. Currently have a 512GB Air with a healthy 230GB of free space.

Thinking the same.. I've always stored full res originals photos on my phone, right now I have them in the cloud. Just feels odd

 

[Tsepz]

I'm a bit torn.. my primary use case is photos, then video. Thinking on it a bit, I may focus on my needs for photos. I'll mull it overnight and consider the 512GB 17 Pro.. Adding over 300GB of space would suffice

Keep in mind that the 512GB iPhones get significantly faster flash memory chips than the 256GB ones, I believe almost double the speed according to AnTuTu tests, this counts greatly in how fast the phone processes + saves photos and videos and overall performance when shooting.

 

[LordArchie]

Keep in mind that the 512GB iPhones get significantly faster flash memory chips than the 256GB ones, I believe almost double the speed according to AnTuTu tests, this counts greatly in how fast the phone processes + saves photos and videos and overall performance when shooting.

I was today years old when I learned that

Thanks, that seals it...I'll go through the couple hours of pain this afternoon.

 

[Shirasaki]

Thinking the same.. I've always stored full res originals photos on my phone, right now I have them in the cloud. Just feels odd

I used to do the same, until I somehow managed to balloon my photos library to over 3TB and thus making storing full res photos library content physically impossible on all iOS devices. So I just keep it in the cloud the whole time.

 

[MarkX]

Keep in mind that the 512GB iPhones get significantly faster flash memory chips than the 256GB ones, I believe almost double the speed according to AnTuTu tests, this counts greatly in how fast the phone processes + saves photos and videos and overall performance when shooting.

Can you link to those antutu tests, I was under the impression they were the same!

 

[Tsepz]

Sure, here you go:

Apple's 256GB iPhone 17 Models Appear To Have A Surprise Shortcoming - BGR

Apple fans were excited to see the company double the base storage on the iPhone 17, but the cheapest models appear to have a different limitation.

www.bgr.com

 

[winxmac]

Keep in mind that the 512GB iPhones get significantly faster flash memory chips than the 256GB ones, I believe almost double the speed according to AnTuTu tests, this counts greatly in how fast the phone processes + saves photos and videos and overall performance when shooting.

So a repeat of the MacBook SSD situation

 

[eoblaed]

Have 50GB free.. would love to shoot more video in ProRes. Have a few days left on return, it's pretty painful to change phones, Wallet, 2x eSim. Go external SSD or bite the bullet and spend $200 the afternoon tomorrow setting up a new device?

Local stores have both 512 and 1TB in stock in Orange.,

Thoughts?

The pain of changing phones will be pretty minimal compared to the pain of constantly having to deal with external storage for however long you have the phone.

I'd say upgrade, and go as big as you feel is reasonable given your budget.

 

[Love-hate 🍏 relationship]

512 if you only got 50 left and plan on keeping it for a few years

 

[Cobold]

Have 50GB free.. would love to shoot more video in ProRes. Have a few days left on return, it's pretty painful to change phones, Wallet, 2x eSim. Go external SSD or bite the bullet and spend $200 the afternoon tomorrow setting up a new device?

Local stores have both 512 and 1TB in stock in Orange.,

Thoughts?

The moment you start thinking about it, the ship has already sailed. Go for 512 Gigs as long as you can return your 256.

 

[LordArchie]

Went for it.. couldn't find my thunderbolt cable, so bought one at the Apple Store. Biggest hassle was upgrading to 26.1 before the transfer. The place was packed, not the fastest WiFi.

So, after that it took 8 minutes using the thunderbolt cable. $25 well spent

 

[1rottenapple]

Get the 512. I’m a digital hoarder and started getting 512 with the 13 mini, to now the air. It’s a must. Sadly my MacBook Air is only 256 lol.

 

[Tsepz]

Went for it.. couldn't find my thunderbolt cable, so bought one at the Apple Store. Biggest hassle was upgrading to 26.1 before the transfer. The place was packed, not the fastest WiFi.

So, after that it took 8 minutes using the thunderbolt cable. $25 well spent

Congratulations and enjoy your 512GB beast!
What colour did you get?

Get the 512. I’m a digital hoarder and started getting 512 with the 13 mini, to now the air. It’s a must. Sadly my MacBook Air is only 256 lol.

Lol, you and I have the same situation, got 512GB 17 PM but 256GB MBA M1 😂

 

[JamesMay82]

I used to do the same, until I somehow managed to balloon my photos library to over 3TB and thus making storing full res photos library content physically impossible on all iOS devices. So I just keep it in the cloud the whole time.

I got a 1TB phone for that reason but since gone over that so I'm now reliant on the cloud... It's the one thing I really begrudge paying for but its too damn convenient for keeping everything in sync!

 

[LordArchie]

Congratulations and enjoy your 512GB beast!
What colour did you get?


Lol, you and I have the same situation, got 512GB 17 PM but 256GB MBA M1 😂

Nothing but orange

 

[WarmWinterHat]

Went for it.. couldn't find my thunderbolt cable, so bought one at the Apple Store. Biggest hassle was upgrading to 26.1 before the transfer. The place was packed, not the fastest WiFi.

So, after that it took 8 minutes using the thunderbolt cable. $25 well spent

The iPhone 17 Pro doesn't have Thunderbolt, it's USB 3.1 Gen 2. Thunderbolt will work, but it's complete overkill.

 

[LordArchie]

The iPhone 17 Pro doesn't have Thunderbolt, it's USB 3.1 Gen 2. Thunderbolt will work, but it's complete overkill.

My options were:

Use supplied cable with USB 2.0 speeds (480 Mbps). buy a thunderbolt cable with USB 3.2 (Up to 10Gb/s)

No brainer and I can use it later on my MB Pro

 

[uacd]

Few points:
1. You don’t need ProRES or even LOG for 99% of footage, since you will need to waste time editing that mess;

2. H264 is just FINE. Has many bitrate options in 3rd party apps, white balance fine tuning, so you will rarely need to go ProRES at all;

3. You can write to SSD I guess, which is the best option;
4. Some new phones have unconfirmed lens focusing issues, so if you are lucky and don’t have that - do not risk replacing phone. People on this forum have tried multiple phones just to get rid of this seemingly hardware problem. If your current phone works - leave it as is;

5. 256GB is already A LOT. I used to shoot beautiful videos on my 16GB iPhone 5, I still rewatch these videos and they look gorgeous. Would have never thought I might need 4K or LOG or ProRES back then, and don’t think I need it now as well. Only recently moved on to 4K after all my main devices started to support it, as well as I got myself a great fast SSD to store that;

6. Storage. You will need to store that footage, back it up, archive. You know, it might get complicated faster than you think. And apps like Handbrake won’t always help and are not really efficient storage-wise;

7. 512 is not much larger for storing ProRES. Also editing these videos on your phone is not the best solution, you are better with copying them to Mac and finishing them off there, so not much difference in internal storage sizes;


Verdict? Get a decent SSD instead.

UPD: you upgraded. Well, good for you, might be a better option if you like rewatching photos and videos on your phone instead of making copies more often

 

[Astrohunter]

Some ProRes recording modes require an external SSD, why not cover all your bases? Plus your files are already portable ready to edit where you like.

Wait, you can record to SSD using Apple's software?!