On my old MBP I have 256gb SDD drive and use about 200gb of that, everything else is on external drives.
About to order the new M1 and can´t decide If it´s better to buy the 512 version or the 256 plus an external Samsung T5
How would you do If you were in my situation?
I think it depends entirely on your budget and what you are doing.
For general use the biggest advantage from the fast internal SSD probably comes from having frequently accessed system files, temporary/working files, regularly used sound samples (for audio production) libraries/header files (for development) VM virtual discs etc. Also, the peak sustained transfer speed (which is what everybody tends to benchmark) is pretty irrelevant (and rarely achieved) unless you're constantly moving around huge media files or need a certain bandwidth for high-def video editing. Having, for example, your
finished video/audio/photo collection (...in formats designed to be streamed over a damp string broadband link) sitting on your internal super-fast SSD is a waste of expensive real estate.
You can make the internal/external join fairly seamless through judicious use of symbolic links/aliases (it's a pity that Apple doesn't supply a 1-stop point'n'drool tool for moving the standard Documents/Music/etc. to external media).
So, unless you have a specific case whereby your "work in progress" is huge and needs the full speed of internal storage, the 1TB+ options fall under "nice convenience feature if you can afford it".
However, if you're up to 200GB even with external support I'd probably go for 512 - you never want an SSD, especially the system drive, to get anywhere close to 100% capacity. It's just a pity it is so expensive.
