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i4k20c

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Sep 10, 2005
878
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I'm always thinking that I need the next tier up of storage. I currently have a 14pro with 256gb (with 140gb filled up). 33gb of that is messages, 13gb is voice memos, 9 gigs each is for whatsapp, music, photos, and the list goes on.

I've played the game before where i had to constantly delete stuff and it was a frustrating experience for me so i always try to go higher on storage to never deal with it. That said, I have the 2tb icloud plan (with only 330gb filled).

I have the chance to purchase a iphone 16 pro (256gb) or iphone 15 pro (512gb) for $200 cheaper. Originally, i was going to go with the iphone 15 pro due to the higher storage but now i'm wondering if its better to pay a little more and get the new 16pro.

How do you all determine how much storage to get with your phone?
 
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I have 512GB. I sometimes use my iPhone, instead of a GoPro (to avoid the GoPro Wideangle look) on a TV show I'm filming. For those times I need Prores, and that quickly eats up GBs
 
I currently have the 16 pro max 512 gb, I'm only utilizing like 47 gb. This is because I use iCloud for photos and videos. I figure I just get the 512 gb. To me it's a sweet spot. IMO 1 tb is just overkill for me. I don't necessarily need that huge amount of empty space.
 
How do you all determine how much storage to get with your phone?
I don't.

I want the largest capacity Apple offers whenever buying a new iPhone. I get that.

Notice I used the word 'want' and not 'need'. That's because, whatever it may be, I get what I want. That usually settles any questions about need. Now sometimes I don't need a thing I want, but that's irrelevant because want trumps need (or lack of need). And I'd rather have what I don't need, than not have what I DO need, when I need it.

Note, I am not implying that I am rich or free with my money, as I am neither. I am however, patient. I will wait decades or more to acquire what I want and have done so.
 
Camera, and specifically video, are what determines the capacity I need. I want a HEALTHY buffer of storage even though I use iCloud Photos, so that I can record a video or take vacation photos without needing high-speed uploads to free up space.
 
I currently have the 16 pro max 512 gb, I'm only utilizing like 47 gb. This is because I use iCloud for photos and videos. I figure I just get the 512 gb. To me it's a sweet spot. IMO 1 tb is just overkill for me. I don't necessarily need that huge amount of empty space.

1TB is overkill for you? Seems like 512GB is too!
 
1TB is overkill for you? Seems like 512GB is too!
Nah. 512 GB isn't overkill. It's a perfect spot because if I decide to keep my photos directly to my phone and if I had 256 gb it only leaves me with 80 gb of space left which I don't want. So 512 GB is the prefect size. 1 tb is just overkill for me imo.
 
I don't.

I want the largest capacity Apple offers whenever buying a new iPhone. I get that.

Notice I used the word 'want' and not 'need'. That's because, whatever it may be, I get what I want. That usually settles any questions about need. Now sometimes I don't need a thing I want, but that's irrelevant because want trumps need (or lack of need). And I'd rather have what I don't need, than not have what I DO need, when I need it.

Note, I am not implying that I am rich or free with my money, as I am neither. I am however, patient. I will wait decades or more to acquire what I want and have done so.

This is the best answer.

Don't limit your potential tomorrow by skimping on storage space today. Whether you plan on upgrading in 6 months, or 60 months, always go with as much storage as possible to really maximise the usefulness of your device.
 
OP, you might reconsider managing your storage. Else you probably need more and more and more and will never have enough. It's expensive to keep adding to the virtual warehouse for digital hoarding. Consider pruning the many vaults. Odds are high that so much of what is currently stored could be dumped (or archived to a hard drive attached to a computer) and you would never miss it.

Manage your cloud usage. Else you probably need more and more and more. Companies renting a hard drive in the sky love digital hoarding: raise that forever rent. But what if there was no cloud? Could you roll with some other option that has no rent? Yes you can. We all easily did it before iCloud.

33GB of Messages storage reads like the never-ending text message accumulations, common on much tech. Work messages like we work phone calls: start one, chat, then end the call (close the text). When you want to chat with that person again, start a new chat. You'll nearly immediately see about 31GB+ freed up from your device. Just about no one needs a forever record of everything that has been said in every text chat. Immediately save anything to be forever preserved (which is usually not piles and piles of cat videos or similar people send each other) and then delete the messages. If every one of them is precious and must be forever maintained, print them as PDF files you can archive on a single hard drive attached to a computer.

13GB for voice memos seems excessive unless you have a special case where you need that much voice stored and available at all times. Offload the ones you don't need at all times and keep only the ones you do need on device. That should free up a considerable amount of storage on device.

Manage synched music, photos, etc via synch with Mac. In other words, store the whole libraries on Mac and synch only that which you really want on the mobile. You can't listen to 9GBs of music in a few days even if you ran it non-stop. You probably don't look at 9GBs of photos (ever). WhatsApp can be managed just like the 33GB Messages thing described above. Make favorite playlists in Music and sync just those. Make favorite photos albums and sync just those. Just about nobody needs to be carrying around their entire library of such media. Especially stuff like that can't be consumed even if you tried by doing nothing but playing music or looking at photos on device. There's just too many.

How I pick storage when buying a new device
Look at my normal amount on device I already have. If it is within 30% of "full" while applying the above, I need the next tier in the next purchase. Else, I have enough.

An exception consideration: do I heavily travel and shoot a lot of 4K video without a handy way to offload the shoot to a Mac or other storage? If I'm shooting extensive video with no easy way to offload it, I probably buy very big storage so that I'm always ready to capture big video.

I run a business but rarely have more than a few text messages active in messages (because I close conversations when a round to texting is done). I have about 8% of my music library on device (all favorites in a number of playlists). I have about 5% of my photos library on device (all favorites in a few synched albums)... and I utilize only the free iCloud space, pruning anything that piles up in there to get it towards the 5GB limit. If I want to mix up music or photos, I can readily replace some synched playlists & albums with other synched playlists & albums.

If I had 330GB of cloud "need", I'd buy something like a Synology NAS to own my own cloud and drop the rent. You don't say what's in all of that but much of it could probably be locally stored on a hard drive. If every bit of it must be accessible at all times, I'd own my own cloud to not pay the forever rent.

Not everyone should adopt my ways and some may have valid reasons for needing much more storage/cloud. But another way to think about it is through the lens of conservation. What if peak available storage was LESS than we use now and there was no iCloud? How would we make that work? We certainly would make it work. How? We would be more selective about what we store on device and all of our cloud media would likely be on a hard drive attached to a computer. It's not that many years when there was no iCloud and on-device storage was much smaller than today. We made that work just fine.

Else, there will never be enough storage in device and in the cloud... and we will always be piling up more and more media in both (much of which we'll never actually access)... and pay-pay-paying for doing so.
 
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This is the best answer.

Don't limit your potential tomorrow by skimping on storage space today. Whether you plan on upgrading in 6 months, or 60 months, always go with as much storage as possible to really maximise the usefulness of your device.
It eliminates, as OP said, the game of constantly deleting stuff. As tech support for my wife, I have never had to be in the spot of having to tell her 'you need to delete stuff'.

Transferring data when upgrading phones is also worry free in this aspect. You're always going to transfer to a device with either the same capacity as the old one, or more. And if you need to downgrade for whatever reason the older device is more than likely going to have enough storage to handle it.

A tertiary reason is that I don't have to pay for an iCloud sub to get additional storage. I do in fact have an iCloud sub, but added storage was not the reason I got it.

We upgrade every 2.5 to 5.5 years, so not having to even think about any of this is worth the extra that we pay when we do upgrade.
 
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My wife filled her 256, then 512, and now 1Tb (We had our 1st newborn) so there is never too much when it comes to storage.

Heck I was hoping apple will release a 2Tb phone but that never happen so I am waiting for the 16 PM issues to get resolved before I get a new phone for her.
 
I got a 64gb phone in 2019, used it for like five years. Was always maxed out on storage always had to delete stuff. So when I got my 15 pro I went 512. 1tb seems like too much, and tbh 512 seems like too much too. But I’m hoping this phone lasts the better part of a decade so there’s room to grow Into it if need be.

After about a year of use, I am at 126gb used of 512. I don’t have to delete text threads, uninstall and re install apps etc. it’s terrific. If you can swing it, get as much storage as you can whether it’s a phone or a laptop. Cause you can’t add more with Apple.
 
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I currently have the 16 pro max 512 gb, I'm only utilizing like 47 gb. This is because I use iCloud for photos and videos. I figure I just get the 512 gb. To me it's a sweet spot. IMO 1 tb is just overkill for me. I don't necessarily need that huge amount of empty space.
How is 512 not also overkill for you? You could have a 256GB phone and still have 80% of your storage free.

*Edit*
Nevermind. I see that you addressed this in another post.
 
Well, a good question. For 6 years I was using an iP with only 64 GB and I was constantly offloading Apps just to even do software updates. I much prefer not to use iCloud for photos and videos and so, with the 13 mini, decided to buy the 512 GB option. I will say that the plan is once again to use this device for another 3-4 years.

I've just checked my storage and see I've only used 145 GB of 512 GB, so possibly, maybe, 256 would have been ok. But with so much flexibility I just never ever worry about downloading offline streaming content, or making longer videos. Also, I'll be soon importing many pics after RAW conversion (looking for time), onto the device. Indeed if I could do it all over, I would still buy 512 GB.

As for your question of the iPP16/256 or iPP15/512, I would bite the bullet and go for the iPP16 but with 512 GB. But again, this preference is from someone who excludes pics/ videos in iCloud and hangs onto their phone for ever and a day.
 
This is the best answer.

Don't limit your potential tomorrow by skimping on storage space today. Whether you plan on upgrading in 6 months, or 60 months, always go with as much storage as possible to really maximise the usefulness of your device.
Since usually money is limited, money spent today limits potential of other things tomorrow ;)
 
512GB, in my opinion is perfect in terms of future proofing honestly, I am quite happy with it on my 15 Pro Max, I previously had Xs Max, 11 Pro Max and 13 Pro Max in 256GB and chose to finally go up to 512GB for 15 PM last year.
IMG_4576.png
 
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An iCloud subscription would eliminate the problem.
It theoretically would, but not everyone wants to upload all things into iCloud. I for example pay my 99 cents/monthly to at least have 50 GB but only use 13 GB right now. My photos and videos stay on my devices and backups are DAS only on multiple storage. Perhaps the OP feels the same?
 
OP, you might reconsider managing your storage. Else you probably need more and more and more and will never have enough. It's expensive to keep adding to the virtual warehouse for digital hoarding. Consider pruning the many vaults. Odds are high that so much of what is currently stored could be dumped (or archived to a hard drive attached to a computer) and you would never miss it.

Manage your cloud usage. Else you probably need more and more and more. Companies renting a hard drive in the sky love digital hoarding: raise that forever rent. But what if there was no cloud? Could you roll with some other option that has no rent? Yes you can. We all easily did it before iCloud.

33GB of Messages storage reads like the never-ending text message accumulations, common on much tech. Work messages like we work phone calls: start one, chat, then end the call (close the text). When you want to chat with that person again, start a new chat. You'll nearly immediately see about 31GB+ freed up from your device. Just about no one needs a forever record of everything that has been said in every text chat. Immediately save anything to be forever preserved (which is usually not piles and piles of cat videos or similar people send each other) and then delete the messages. If every one of them is precious and must be forever maintained, print them as PDF files you can archive on a single hard drive attached to a computer.

13GB for voice memos seems excessive unless you have a special case where you need that much voice stored and available at all times. Offload the ones you don't need at all times and keep only the ones you do need on device. That should free up a considerable amount of storage on device.

Manage synched music, photos, etc via synch with Mac. In other words, store the whole libraries on Mac and synch only that which you really want on the mobile. You can't listen to 9GBs of music in a few days even if you ran it non-stop. You probably don't look at 9GBs of photos (ever). WhatsApp can be managed just like the 33GB Messages thing described above. Make favorite playlists in Music and sync just those. Make favorite photos albums and sync just those. Just about nobody needs to be carrying around their entire library of such media. Especially stuff like that can't be consumed even if you tried by doing nothing but playing music or looking at photos on device. There's just too many.

How I pick storage when buying a new device
Look at my normal amount on device I already have. If it is within 30% of "full" while applying the above, I need the next tier in the next purchase. Else, I have enough.

An exception consideration: do I heavily travel and shoot a lot of 4K video without a handy way to offload the shoot to a Mac or other storage? If I'm shooting extensive video with no easy way to offload it, I probably buy very big storage so that I'm always ready to capture big video.

I run a business but rarely have more than a few text messages active in messages (because I close conversations when a round to texting is done). I have about 8% of my music library on device (all favorites in a number of playlists). I have about 5% of my photos library on device (all favorites in a few synched albums)... and I utilize only the free iCloud space, pruning anything that piles up in there to get it towards the 5GB limit. If I want to mix up music or photos, I can readily replace some synched playlists & albums with other synched playlists & albums.

If I had 330GB of cloud "need", I'd buy something like a Synology NAS to own my own cloud and drop the rent. You don't say what's in all of that but much of it could probably be locally stored on a hard drive. If every bit of it must be accessible at all times, I'd own my own cloud to not pay the forever rent.

Not everyone should adopt my ways and some may have valid reasons for needing much more storage/cloud. But another way to think about it is through the lens of conservation. What if peak available storage was LESS than we use now and there was no iCloud? How would we make that work? We certainly would make it work. How? We would be more selective about what we store on device and all of our cloud media would likely be on a hard drive attached to a computer. It's not that many years when there was no iCloud and on-device storage was much smaller than today. We made that work just fine.

Else, there will never be enough storage in device and in the cloud... and we will always be piling up more and more media in both (much of which we'll never actually access)... and pay-pay-paying for doing so.
We've had some communication in the past in regards to NAS vs DAS storage. Just to say that you've once again written quite good advice for the OP. I hope she/ he takes this into consideration or expands on storage requirements further a bit further.
 
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