Will Apple ever increase the base storage for Macs?

[Funny Apple Man]

We've had 128gb Macs for quite a long time until 2020. Expect 256gb to be the base storage for a long while.

 

[deconstruct60]

Obviously, it just isn't going to happen. Apple just wants us to buy tons of iCloud storage subscriptions.

No. They want more folks to buy the $400/TB upgrades. Mostly upgrades to 512GB or 1TB.

iCloud isn't that much cheaper. 200GB iCloud is about $3/mo. Over span of 3.5 years tha $126. Getting a 256GB upgrade to 512GB is $200 (and it is local all the time).

2TB level is about $10/mo so 3.5 years is about $420. Out $400 anyway if wanted to move to a 1TB drive.

iCloud is a 'nickel and dime' you path, but it isn't a substantially cheaper path if look at holistic lifecycle costs.

The bigger issue is whether really need to drag around every data file you have ever had with you all the time. A non mobile , external drive that you leave at home that you push you photos collection from 10 years ago that hardly ever look at is a cheaper solution that what Apple is offering local or cloud.

 

[now i see it]

Base storage for a Mac in the late 1990s was 1GB. Upgraded machines had 2GB.
So there’s hope.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

Do you all think Apple will ever increase the base storage of just about every Mac to 512?

 

[antiprotest]

Definitely. Apple will increase the base to 512GB when 512GB becomes too low as the base.

 

[ThomasJL]

[deleted]

 

[SpotOnT]

The 256GB SSD's are probably available to Apple for a pittance. 512GB, not quite. Raising the base storage to 500GB would be charging a lot of people for storage they don't need. I've had a 256GB SSD as the only storage in my rMBP laptop (primary office machine) since 2014, and it's workable.

I imagine that eventually we might see 500GB as the base, but only if they become as cheap as 256GB SSD's.

They don’t have to raise the base storage, they just need to start charging a leas than exhorbitant price for the upgrades.

We are stuck paying Disneyland prices for a coke, when we should be paying supermarket rates. Apple has a monopoly on RAM and SSD though, so they can charge whatever they want. And they do.

I mean $400 for 16GB of RAM or 1TB of storage is just obscene.

 

[Danfango]

This screenshot is from my MacBook Pro.

It contains every photo and video I have taken in the last 45 years of my entire family, photos running back 100 years, all my documents, every bit of software I have ever written, all my business stuff and a bunch of dev tools, photoshop and lightroom.

256Gb is probably enough for most people if they don't hoard data like some weirdos do with bottles of urine and old newspapers.

BUT the price jumps to upgrade the storage are 100% definitely not ok.

 

[NT1440]

I've been astonished at how low base storage for all new Macs are continuing to be at 256GBs. I've had a 500GB hard drive in all my Macs since the 12 Macbook Pro and it's astonishing that what would be considered a small size for an M.2 drive is still the standard on a laptop over 1k.

Do you all think Apple will ever increase the base storage of just about every Mac to 512?

256 is still the standard on all the Thinkpads I order for work. This is an industry thing.

 

[jav6454]

256 is still the standard on all the Thinkpads I order for work. This is an industry thing.

On some of the HP laptops that work provides some of my coworkers, the standard is 256GB as well, but corporate IT request that all laptops have a minimum spec up to ~512GB. However, it is not an expensive upgrade, I believe I saw it at ~$80.

 

[mi7chy]

256 is still the standard on all the Thinkpads I order for work. This is an industry thing.

Different industry focus with PC laptops more price competitive. Most Thinkpads, at least for 2.5# X1 Carbon and heavier models, have user upgradable storage where people tend to buy the smallest factory storage then self upgrade to their choice of brand and capacity with more pricing competiton. Their 4 pound gaming laptop even has two NVMe SSD slots.

 

[JMacHack]

By the time other companies offer 2tb storage as standard I’m sure Apple will increase the base spec to 512gb.

 

[hans1972]

• I've been astonished at how low base storage for all new Macs are continuing to be at 256GBs. I've had a 500GB hard drive in all my Macs since the 12 Macbook Pro and it's astonishing that what would be considered a small size for an M.2 drive is still the standard on a laptop over 1k.

Do you all think Apple will ever increase the base storage of just about every Mac to 512?

Not for their consumer models for some time.

A lot of people's need for local storage has in fact gone down in the last 5-10 years due to:

• Streaming music services, no need for a huge local music library
• Streaming video services, no need to have huge collection of films
• iCloud Photo Library and Google Photos, no need to store every photo and video you took
• Cloud storage (Dropbox, iCloud, OneDrive), no need to store every file you have

I got 256Gb SSD in 2012 and it's still more than enough for me. Even with a virtual machine, my photo library and music library, I still have 80 Gb available space.

 

[hans1972]

i too do not understand why people keep defending apple on certain decisions.

i like the macbook air,in fact ,i love it.i like apple API and sdk . i like the overall feel of their devices.but you can't deny that they charge you a LOT for very little base hw.64gb storage in iphones and ipads is ridicoulous.8/256 laptop for 1500 bucks is a monstruosity .

Because we believe in the free market and don't want companies to be feature or price regulated by the government.

Any company should be free to make the products they like to make and charge whatever they want, especially in markets with high competition.

 

[StudioMacs]

I personally think 8GB RAM on the entry-level models is more of an issue since you can't plug in external RAM like you can plug in external storage.

 

[Apple_Robert]

Keep in mind that the average MR member is the exception to the consumer at large. I venture to say many, many people can get by just fine with 256GB. If the base model isn't for you, there is no real need to worry about it. Buy for what you need and let those who need less be thankful for the base model offering.

 

[jakey rolling]

Apple probably should do a better job talking about the quality built into their drives ( in terms of endurance , wear , etc) , but there are range of SSDs out there. The 'most affordable' SSDs are not using the high performance, high endurance NAND chips. There is definitely a sizable mark up on Apple drives. But they also are not picking the cheapest components possible either.

Apple are picking premium components, true. But don't kid yourself - these aren't components that are any different than what you'd find on premium-priced off-the-shelf flash drives. Apple don't manufacture these, they don't spec them, they don't design them. They buy what is available. And they pay discount bulk prices on them.

Apple doesn't "talk about it" more because it is a myth that there is anything incredibly special going on.

A Samsung 980 x4 PCI-e v3 1TB is about $100 . But a Samsung 980 Pro is about $150-190. That is a 50-90% increase in cost. Yes, Apple is charging around $400/TB ( up until top two capacity tiers when when ramp back a bit on the mark up on top of mark up. )

So just to be clear, Apple is charging $400/TB for a stripped down version of what Samsung are charging $190 for. Samsung's version can be gotten off the shelf from any retailer, and it can be installed in nearly any modern computer. It performs just as well and lasts just as long.

I've got to say - I'm still failing to see where Apple's "quality built into their drives" comes in.

It isn't commodity

Yes. Yes it is. Just because Apple gimped the design in order to lock out third-party upgrades doesn't mean that the chips that they are using aren't "commodity". They absolutely are.

It isn't just margin though. They also are pretty good at risk shifting. If some 3month old SSD fails and they have to replace the whole motherboard , then they have collected enough margin on the working ones to dray most of that cost.

That is 100% Apple's due to Apple's own design methodology. The need to replace the motherboard to fix a failed SSD is Apple's own doing. I really don't think they deserve a pass for this.

 

[jakey rolling]

Base storage for a Mac in the late 1990s was 1GB. Upgraded machines had 2GB.
So there’s hope.

My Performa 6400 came with 2GB. That was in 1996.

 

[exoticSpice]

Last time they increased was 2019

 

[kc9hzn]

The 256GB SSD's are probably available to Apple for a pittance. 512GB, not quite. Raising the base storage to 500GB would be charging a lot of people for storage they don't need. I've had a 256GB SSD as the only storage in my rMBP laptop (primary office machine) since 2014, and it's workable.

I imagine that eventually we might see 500GB as the base, but only if they become as cheap as 256GB SSD's.

I currently have a 1TB SSD in my Windows 10 laptop, but I doubt I’m even using 128GB. (1TB was what Best Buy had in stock when my hard drive crashed on me last year.) I mostly use it for remote desktop into my work PC while I’m work from home. I occasionally use it for SDR (software defined radio) software, managing MiniDiscs, ripping music from CDs into my Apple Music library, playing around with desktop Linux distributions in VirtualBox. That’s a whole lot of space that’ll never get filled up. I do tend to use more storage on my iOS devices, because I keep my full music library and photo library on them, as well as use more third party software, but, even then, I’d only buy the 1TB iPad Pro for the extra RAM and a whole lotta future proofing. (Next phone I buy will probably end up being 256GB, maybe 512GB if I decide I want extra future proofing.) Even if I were using a MacBook Air instead of a Windows 10 laptop, with my current usage patterns, I can’t imagine I’d use up more than 128GB.

 

[kc9hzn]

My Performa 6400 came with 2GB. That was in 1996.

I had a Power Mac 6500 with 4GB, but, granted, that thing had some bizarre upgrades in it, including a USB 1.0 port. So I can’t guarantee the 4GB hard drive was stock. (I’m assuming the USB port was added a couple years after the fact for software authentication dongles, after USB had become common. Since it had previously been used in a music education environment, the idea of authentication dongles doesn’t seem too far fetched to me.)

 

[jav6454]

I personally think 8GB RAM on the entry-level models is more of an issue since you can't plug in external RAM like you can plug in external storage.

We aren't talking about RAM here... just fyi

 

[jav6454]

Last time they increased was 2019

Yup, when NAND chips prices dropped, there was a market glut and densities went up quickly. Now? None of those are remotely true.

 

[mi7chy]

Apple charges $200 for 512GB and $800 for 2TB when you can buy a Samsung 2TB NVMe SSD for $189 so get used to low base storage and say goodbye to ever seeing user upgradable storage because it wouldn't benefit Apple.

 

[Brandon42]

I had a Power Mac 6500 with 4GB, but, granted, that thing had some bizarre upgrades in it, including a USB 1.0 port. So I can’t guarantee the 4GB hard drive was stock. (I’m assuming the USB port was added a couple years after the fact for software authentication dongles, after USB had become common. Since it had previously been used in a music education environment, the idea of authentication dongles doesn’t seem too far fetched to me.)

I just came across my old 100MB Apple SCSI hard drive. No realistic way at of getting at the data on it though.