Why is the highest *retail* M3 Max Macbook Pro SSD capacity 1TB?

[phrenologist]

Yeah you have to keep checking, the availability changes daily. When they aren't available for same day pickup, these configs show that longer lead time.

 

[Sowelu]

I picked up a Space Black 14" 16c/64G/2TB M3 Max with same day order from my local Apple Store on 11/11, and I see multiple stores with that config showing as available today in the SF Bay Area.

Yeah, this sounds like it would be one of the 'ultimate' models that they typically stock in stores. I am sure they'll pop up again when stock levels normalize as demand drops.

 

[Appletoni]

I would love to know how Apple concluded it made sense, for retail (non-custom) Macbook Pros, to pair a 16-core CPU and 48Gb of ram with a 1TB hard drive. I am sure they had analytics models to support this, but anecdotally it does not make sense; 1TB is a joke.

It's like selling a schoolbus that houses the driver and one student.

Because a lot of people released that 1 TB SSD is not enough, so they sell the device and start to buy a new one with at least 2 TB or 4 TB or 8 TB.
Yes 1 TB is a joke but makes sense for Apple, because people will buy twice in a short time.
My friends and I are still waiting for 16 TB or 2x 8 TB.

Depends on a game, one has 400 GB size.
1-2 years and a game will have 1 TB.

 

[watchmainspring]

Because a lot of people released that 1 TB SSD is not enough, so they sell the device and start to buy a new one with at least 2 TB or 4 TB or 8 TB.
Yes 1 TB is a joke but makes sense for Apple, because people will buy twice in a short time.
My friends and I are still waiting for 16 TB or 2x 8 TB.

Depends on a game, one has 400 GB size.
1-2 years and a game will have 1 TB.

I agree games will exceed 1TB soon. I wish there were better games for mac though. My needs are due to multimedia mostly. I'm not special I just have photos and videos of family largely but some work projects, too.

 

[masotime]

I agree games will exceed 1TB soon. I wish there were better games for mac though. My needs are due to multimedia mostly. I'm not special I just have photos and videos of family largely but some work projects, too.

So did you consider an external NVMe enclosure with a 4TB drive....?

 

[ChrisA]

I use my mac for video editing...

Then you are a very tiny minority of Apple's customers. Likely well under the 1% range. The vast majority watch your work via some streaming service, so they don't need to store the video data locally.

It comes down to the "cost of inventory". So Apple invested $1,200 in building a computer that sells for $2,400. Apple has to pay interest or at least lose the use of that $1,200 until someone like you (you are very rare) walks in and buys that computer. Apple was to stock thousands of these $1,200 machines in stores all around the world, just in case you happen to walk into one of them. Apple simply does not want to tie up millions of dollars of capital in inventory, so they offer to build the outlier machines to order.

Then there is an even worse problem. To ensure that this outlier machine is available in stores they must over-produce it so that EVERY store has a few of them. This might mean making more than they will eventually sell. Remember Apple is a cell phone company and computers are now sideline. They don't sell huge numbers of computers and VERY few $3,000+ computers

The problem is that the base M2 Air is far better than most users need if all they do is watch a streaming service and do online shopping. so these high-end machines are kind of rare in stores. Not rare here, MacRumors readers are a very biased sample.

Next, we might ask why so few stores stock size triple-zero women's clothing in every color and style.

 

[mdhaus72]

I agree games will exceed 1TB soon. I wish there were better games for mac though. My needs are due to multimedia mostly. I'm not special I just have photos and videos of family largely but some work projects, too.

I am very skeptical that we will get to 1 TB games anytime remotely soon. Most places don't have the internet structure to support that kind of a download. Compression technology will likely continue to improve, which will help to slow down game file sizes.

 

[gigapocket1]

Duplicate. Oops… Delete

 

[gigapocket1]

Then you are a very tiny minority of Apple's customers. Likely well under the 1% range. The vast majority watch your work via some streaming service, so they don't need to store the video data locally.

It comes down to the "cost of inventory". So Apple invested $1,200 in building a computer that sells for $2,400. Apple has to pay interest or at least lose the use of that $1,200 until someone like you (you are very rare) walks in and buys that computer. Apple was to stock thousands of these $1,200 machines in stores all around the world, just in case you happen to walk into one of them. Apple simply does not want to tie up millions of dollars of capital in inventory, so they offer to build the outlier machines to order.

Then there is an even worse problem. To ensure that this outlier machine is available in stores they must over-produce it so that EVERY store has a few of them. This might mean making more than they will eventually sell. Remember Apple is a cell phone company and computers are now sideline. They don't sell huge numbers of computers and VERY few $3,000+ computers

The problem is that the base M2 Air is far better than most users need if all they do is watch a streaming service and do online shopping. so these high-end machines are kind of rare in stores. Not rare here, MacRumors readers are a very biased sample.

Next, we might ask why so few stores stock size triple-zero women's clothing in every color and style.

All of this does make sense, but they could build a few and put them in a store in a heavy populated market. I would think that at least 1 flagship Apple stores in NYC would 1 of those models in stock.. as they would def get sold fast here.

 

[watchmainspring]

All of this does make sense, but they could build a few and put them in a store in a heavy populated market. I would think that at least 1 flagship Apple stores in NYC would 1 of those models in stock.. as they would def get sold fast here.

I agree. Even in Raleigh-Durham there would be a market for these and they'd sell fast.

 

[Appletoni]

I agree games will exceed 1TB soon. I wish there were better games for mac though. My needs are due to multimedia mostly. I'm not special I just have photos and videos of family largely but some work projects, too.

We need a MacBook with a lot more CPU and GPU cores for games, like chess. RAM maybe fine for games but for chess or high-end work like simulations or databases 256 GB RAM would be better. Only 8 TB SSD is a big problem. Let's say 1 TB for macOS, 1 TB for Windows 11 ARM and 1 TB for Linux = 5 TB left. For work at least 4 TB. = 1 TB left. For High-End and normal games at least 4 TB. = -3 TB left. For pictures, videos, hobbies and other stuff at least 4 TB. = -7 TB left.
= we need at least 16 TB to have at least 1 TB free at the end.
But for chess syzygy endgame tablebases we need at least 18.4 TB.
= we need at least 4x8 or 2x16 or 1x32 TB.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endgame_tablebasehttps://en.chessbase.com/post/8-piece-endgame-tablebases-first-findings-and-interview

5 or lesser	26,038,209,193	Syzygy	DTZ	2013	939 MB
Nalimov	DTM	2005	7.05 GB
6	3,787,154,440,416	Syzygy	DTZ	2013	150.2 GB
Nalimov	DTM	2005	1.2 TB[32]
7	423,836,835,667,331	Syzygy	DTZ	2018	18.4 TB[4]
Lomonosov	DTM	2012	140 TB[3]
8	38,176,306,877,748,245	—	—	—	~2 PB (estimated for Syzgy)[33]

8-piece endgame tablebases - first findings and interview!

Endgame tablebases can only be described as "god chess" as they are perfect information on all positions they cover, and the terms 'better' or 'worse' cease to have any meaning. Marc Bourzutschky has trained and resolved a large number of the 8-piece tablebase positions and shared his results...

en.chessbase.com

 

[SuperPuppet]

With iCloud and other cloud solutions, it's very easy for a lot of people to live with 1TB just fine. I've gone for 4TB in my new MBP because the 2TB in my current machine is just not enough. But almost 1TB of my drive is used up by my Photos library, which I could easily chose to optimise and store in iCloud, which is what most people would do (I chose not to because I want a 'full' library on my main computer so that it also backs up to my Time Machine backup). Take my Photos library out and I'm at 1TB. But then I have 340GB of Documents, way more than most, which could also be stored in the cloud.

As a comparison, my wife's 14" M1 MacBook Pro has a 1TB hard drive. She uses it pretty much all day every day for both work and personal stuff. She stores all her photos locally like I do and yet she still has 300GB free.

If you're not doing video editing work or playing modern AAA games then you don't really need that much space. As you're a video editor though, you're living in literally a different world from most people. Put it this way; a single 20 minute 4k ProRes video is likely takes up more hard drive space than most users entire lifetime's worth of photos.

300 gb free doesn’t sound like a lot when you put it against 700 used. Only 30 percent left!

 

[SuperPuppet]

I would love to know how Apple concluded it made sense, for retail (non-custom) Macbook Pros, to pair a 16-core CPU and 48Gb of ram with a 1TB hard drive. I am sure they had analytics models to support this, but anecdotally it does not make sense; 1TB is a joke.

It's like selling a schoolbus that houses the driver and one student.

Great post. I just cancelled my M3 Max MBP 16/30 36/1 after thinking about it overnight for that very resason. Felt a bit panicked at the thought of one day realising I screwed up by shorting on the memory.
Reordered with 2 TB.

 

[SuperPuppet]

My local store had a 14" 16c 64G 2TB system available for pick up on launch day according to the Apple Store app. So that seems to be a non-BTO config.

Yea… and it may have been a cancelled order… more likely I reckon.

 

[Appletoni]

Great post. I just cancelled my M3 Max MBP 16/30 36/1 after thinking about it overnight for that very resason. Felt a bit panicked at the thought of one day realising I screwed up by shorting on the memory.
Reordered with 2 TB.

Buy M3 MAX 16-inch 128 GB RAM 8 TB. I'm using this for chess.

 

[jlc1978]

Bonus question:
How many members know that Apple's "online store" was originally brought into existence when Apple bought "Power Computing" (the Mac clone company) many years ago?

I remember them. We bought several to print a newspaper as they were cheaper than Macs; which is why Apple eventually killed them.

I agree, this is a valid point - the Apple ID is a single point of failure for iCloud.

Which is why yo need to setup a recovery password.

Another thing is that I believe it's possible for someone to use your iPhone PIN to change your iCloud password, which is bad from a security standpoint.

I is on an iPhone with a phone number attached to the Apple ID; which is why an alphanumeric passcode is best even if a bit of a PIA.

My other issue from my understanding is that apple markets its iCloud service as a sync service and not a back up? So its no obligation to be responsible for our data?

Yes, ICLoud synchs things like photos across devices and deletes them from all and the cloud (after 30 days) if deleted from one device. That's why things like Time Machine are important.