I’m a photographer as a hobby. Could I get the 512GB M3 iMac and just use external hard drive sticks (or cases) for my storage for my photos I take or do I need to get a 1TB internal hard drive? I would like to get a computer this week but it’s delayed if I get it with a 1TB hard drive. I’m forced to get the 512GB model if I want my computer soon over the holidays. What should I do?? I can get it with 16GB of memory in time.
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512Gb or 1Tb M3 iMac?
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Not hard drive, you mean SSD I hope. And I don't know what you mean by stick. A real SSD drive - e.g. Samsung T7 or better. For your use case, a 512GB plus external SSD for photos will be fine.
Well, generally speaking, and depending on how many photos you have stored and plan to store in the future, yes the 512GB might be enough. I'd still get the 1TB if I were you and could afford it, for the simple reason of not having to rely on outside storage in the future, and for the slightly minimal bump in write speeds. Having said that, if u get the 512GB one , an external 512GB SSD can be bought for a fraction of the price that Apple will charge you for that extra 488GB you'll be getting if you bought the 1TB version.sss so there's that.
Yes, you can use external storage. But it is very inconvenient to use external on a notebook computer that you carry around with you. If this is for a desktop, like a Mini or a Mac Studio then the external drive works well.
An external SSD can be very fast. The best ones are almost as fast as the Mac's internal SSD.
The other option is to store photos on a network-attached device and then keep the photos you are currently working on in the internal drive. The network connection is not very fast but you'd only use it now and then to move entire folders of files.
Also, in either case, you will need a backup system. The first one should be Apple's Time Machine and for that the drive must be external. But you can use a big, slow, and low-cost mechanical spinning disk. Buy one that is 2x or 3x as large as all of the data you will have some years from now. A 4TB drive would work
Then in addition to Time Machine, you need some kind of off-site backup, a cloud service works well.
16GM of RAM works well for photo editing.
Summary. Technically it works but no one likes using external storage with a notebook. You will end up copying files to and from the external drive and leaving it at home. But external drives work well for desktop computers.
We can't tell you whether a 512GB internal drive is sufficient. Let me explain. Your internal storage should be enough to comfortably hold all of your "current" photography projects. That would be the ones you are actively working on. Everything else, at least the raw files, can easily be archived on an external drive (with additional backups on your backup drives). You can keep a selection of the best final images from each project in a high-quality JPEG library on your computer. This is assuming a "normal" project handling where you'll shoot a 100s-1000s of photos, keep 10s-100s and select 10s for presentation. But here's the problem, we don't know how many "current" projects you'll be working on and how big they will be! That's why we can't tell you how big your internal drive needs to be. Then again you're not planning on getting a laptop, so using external drives to extend your capacity is not really a big issue.
I'm like you and have been running off external for the last 10 years and its fine but I've grown tired of it as external drives are noisey and if my computer is asleep I find external drives can slow it down from waking up. Not by much but I find it irritating now. plus you then need another external to back up that external and technically a 3rd external again to give you a 3rd back for ultimate security.
My new set up on route is a 2TB internal which is enough to keep my entire photo and video library on and also some buffer for years to come. Plus when It comes to back up I only need one or 2 external drives for backing up.
so your way with the smaller drive can be done but for the ultimate convenience, I'd go with the larger internal to hold all your files.
My new set up on route is a 2TB internal which is enough to keep my entire photo and video library on and also some buffer for years to come. Plus when It comes to back up I only need one or 2 external drives for backing up.
so your way with the smaller drive can be done but for the ultimate convenience, I'd go with the larger internal to hold all your files.
Surely that's only the case when your external drives are mechanical hard disks. If you get solid state that shouldn't be an issue, unless it's a very fast one that needs active cooling?
USB sticks are not a good idea to keep your data on unless it's as cheap 4th or 5th backup.
Mechanical hard disks are best for archival and backup purposes.
Solid state drives are best for stuff that you are actively using but don't want to, or can't, keep on an internal drive.
I’ve set up a couple of recent Macs that way; 512GB internal plus 4TB NVMe with a Thunderbolt enclosure. 4TB seems to be the “sweet spot” for price per GB in external storage; even though I could have been fine with 2TB the cost differential was minimal. The last one I bought was around Thanksgiving and that was under $300 for the 4TB+Thunderbolt enclosure, so for not-much more than the cost of upgrading to 1TB I get 4.5TB.
Of course it really only works properly on desktop Macs (mini, studio, iMac). And yes; the external is measurably slower than internal storage… but no, I don’t notice the difference in day-to-day use.
Of course it really only works properly on desktop Macs (mini, studio, iMac). And yes; the external is measurably slower than internal storage… but no, I don’t notice the difference in day-to-day use.
Pretty much correct, although I keep all my backups on external SSDs as well. My CCC clone is on an external SSD - even my Time Machine Backup in on an external 4TB SSD. Sure, mechanical HDDs are good for backups and especially for achieving, and its the cost of SSDs that many will see as the main factor too, but I still prefer SSDs for backups because of the restore process being much faster. If I lose any data, or need to restore my entire system, I want that restore to happen as quickly as possible, so I can be back up and running as quickly as possible......
yeah just on mechanical drives like my lace 2 big which I have in raid 0. I do use just the SSD now mainly which is silent.
With almost any desktop I’d go with a relatively small internal drive (256 or 512) and get an external SSD for storing large files like photo libraries and video. You can attach a second drive as a backup; Time Machine can be configured to backup both the internal and external SSDs. For the backup drive I’d go HDD to get the biggest drive you can affordably buy (2-4x total size of the backup is recommended) and maximize your version history.
For desktop like iMac 512GB is ok. Better get more RAM 16GB or 24GB and external Thunderbolt SSD (Samsung 980 Pro 2TB or 990 Pro 4TB for best performance).
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