2021 MacBook Pro 1tb vs 2tb

[bbons]

Hello,

New to the forum any help would be appreciated. I just received my MacBook Pro M1 Max 14' today. I got the 1tb option but now I'm starting to feel like I should have gotten the 2tb option and would appreciate any perspectives. For context I will primarily be using this for two things music production with Logic Pro x and Mixed Reality development. I would also like to partition part of the ssd for windows to dual boot in case I need to do Dev work on the windows side of things. Lastly I will be doing light video editing work for YouTube. In your opinion should I return the laptop and wait until late December for the 2TB version or is 1TB probably enough? I used an external 1tb on my old laptop unfortunately External ssd don't play very nicely with Logic.

Thanks in advance!

 

[chabig]

It sounds like you've got valid reasons for wanting 2TB internal. Go for it.

To be clear on another point, M1 Macs can't dual boot Windows.

 

[bbons]

It sounds like you've got valid reasons for wanting 2TB internal. Go for it.

To be clear on another point, M1 Macs can't dual boot Windows.

I mean't using a program like parallels or bootcamp. But thanks for the advice I am going to hate waiting for it to arrive but I feel like I will appreciate the extra storage in the long run.

 

[chabig]

Parallels, yes. Bootcamp, no.

 

[wilberforce]

For my primary computer (iMac) I got 2TB.
For my secondary computer (MBP) I got 512GB, but probably should have got 1TB. 1TB is pretty cheap nowadays.

It is best not to fill SSDs more than 90%, for several reasons (speed, swap, caching). My last iMac with 1TB SSD noticeably slowed down when it was 95% full. So you need to think of 1TB as effectively 900GB.

I also have about 20TB in external storage, mostly drone videos. So at least for me, can't avoid external storage for long term storage, anyway.

My take: both 1TB and 2TB are workable. Just have to dump files to long term storage more often with 1TB. Less than 1TB is too small, more than 2TB is too expensive, and can't avoid offloading files anyway.

 

[bbons]

For my primary computer (iMac) I got 2TB.
For my secondary computer (MBP) I got 512GB, but probably should have got 1TB. 1TB is pretty cheap nowadays.

It is best not to fill SSDs more than 90%, for several reasons (speed, swap, caching). My last iMac with 1TB SSD noticeably slowed down when it was 95% full. So you need to think of 1TB as effectively 900GB.

I also have about 20TB in external storage, mostly drone videos. So at least for me, can't avoid external storage for long term storage, anyway.

My take: both 1TB and 2TB are workable. Just have to dump files to long term storage more often with 1TB. Less than 1TB is too small, more than 2TB is too expensive, and can't avoid offloading files anyway.

Thank you this is a really helpful perspective! I'm trying to avoid external storage as much as possible I think I'm going to go with the 2tb waiting on the new one to arrive is gonna be painful tho

 

[wilberforce]

Thank you this is a really helpful perspective! I'm trying to avoid external storage as much as possible I think I'm going to go with the 2tb waiting on the new one to arrive is gonna be painful tho

Yeah, this why I only got 512GB for my MBP: it was in stock and I didn’t want to wait for 1TB version. I might regret being impatient. We shall see.

 

[CoffeeMacBook]

1TB is barely enough for my parents and they do nothing pro. Just a lifetime of accumulated photos and videos. They have several external hard drives but yes, I would’ve gone for the 2TB.

I’m currently on a 2 TB 2017 MBP but I’m upgrading to a 4TB. Adobe Creative Software Suite alone takes up a chunk of SSD space.