Ah yes, yeah id also add that if you do get a mbp you mifht as well get the extra internal storage. I feel like all that power is somewhat wasted if you dont have loads of files readily available to use it with. Otoh if you go the cloud route you should probably get a MBA, since it is less powerful and it wont be as badly bottlenecked by cloud dl speeds. If the weight of the MBP doesnt bother you than a MBP with a big internal SSD is a great all in one solution!
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Any Disadvantages to 2TB of Storage vs 1TB on the new MBP?
- Thread starter Spotlighter9
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I got 2TB on one of my machines, previously having had 1TB, but I am not sure it is great value for the extra $400. 1TB is kind of a sweet spot for the price, IMO, and gives plenty of working room. I can't nearly fit all my files (about 20TB) in 2TB anyway. For some people (myself included) $400 might be better spent on 32 GB RAM.
How often do you upgrade? Surely you'd lose more in depreciation than buying a higher spec machine that would last longer or meet your needs longer?
I think the value of Storage vs RAM vs CPU (and even display size) upgrades are highly dependent on how one uses their MBP. For us, my wife and I use the shared MBP solely as a portable desktop with the most important task being organizing, editing, and securely backing up (3-2-1 backup) our combined ~900GB iCloud Photo Libraries of our family life. We don't need to open several apps or 50 tabs in Chrome requiring more than 16GBs of RAM or do anything CPU intensive requiring more cores or the MAX. The decision to upgrade the SSD to 2TB was made even easier by several collateral advantages: 1) the blazing fast SSD speeds of the 2TB over the 512GB or 1TB or any external; 2) the M1's ability to memory swap SSD as RAM; 3) better SSD wear leveling/TBW rating from the 2TB for longevity; and 4) not having to juggle external drives, dongles, or extra weight...especially given the physical bulkiness/weight of the new 16" M1 MBP. I intend to keep this MBP a very long time (5-10 years) so I want the SSD to stay reliable and last. For me, after a year of use I still feel the 2TB upgrade was the right choice.
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Sure, because your photos etc happen to fit neatly into 2TB, with some room to spare. But when one has over 10TB of photos/videos/files one needs a different approach, and 1TB vs 2TB vs 4TB internal SSD doesn’t much change that approach.
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The samsung T7 2TB is well under $200 (got mine for $169) and it is a rocket even on USB-C:
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I've read this whole discussion, thank you for documenting your experience, it has helped me years later. I have a question for you, since I am in basically the same boat as you were but I'm getting the M4 and I'm choosing between 2TB or 4TB. I utilize a Dropbox 2TB plan which is only halfway full, so I would be getting the 4TB MBP for reasons of speed and flexibility. In reality I'm telling myself 1TB is fine, because I'm coming from a 2019 Intel with 1TB which is maxed out, but it's a lot of junk I won't be transferring to my new machine and like I said, the 2TB Dropbox has been working nicely for me. I'm curious to know your opinion whether I should go for 1TB, 2TB, or 4TB considering storage is not the main issue, but rather wanting maximum speed. I am the type who has 50 tabs open with 3-4 ram-hungry apps running as I'm moving large files around between Photoshop, Premiere, ProTools...
I have a 2TB Mac Studio which i use all the storage and a m3 pro with 1TB and i deeply regret the 1TB purchase mainly from a security back up point of view.
I prefer to have all my files with me at all times from a personal POV with photos and videos. With having all files stored locally you only need to remember an external drives for backing up. Having to keep files on an external drive means i then need to have another external drive to back up the first external and it just gets messy IMO.
If a 730GB (and growing) photo library is driving storage needs, external storage is just fine. You don't need 7000MB/s read and write for thatThanks! This is a very elegant solution that I've considered in the past. Unfortunately, given the size of my fast growing Photo library at 730GB, I would need to get a 2TB Mac Mini that would cost $1,500 BTO. So the mac mini option doesn't seem all that attractive compared to spending the extra $400 on the MBP to solve the problem.