Drawback to storing media on Mac?

[MonsterPilot]

Back in my PC days, I was always under the impression (told?) that it was always best to move photos, music, etc. to a separate hard drive to keep your computer as "light" and fast as possible. Even after my first Mac, I continued this habit.

With a Mac, is this necessary? I mean, as long as there is plenty of storage, is there a drawback to using said storage by saving and keeping media on the laptop? Ideally, I'd like my next Mac to be maxed out--storage wise--and just keep everything on it for easy access (in addition to the Time Machine backup).

Thoughts? Thank you in advance.

 

[appltech]

As far as I know, on the newest macOS versions there aren't any specific problems, those were fixed with APFS.
Yes, it's a quite good idea to store some files in isolated space. And you can even backup those files with Time Machine
If you want a disk where you can work with files on both OS's I can suggest ExFAT (supported on Windows and macOS side)

In two words: it's doable. Your system – your rules)

 

[gilby101]

I mean, as long as there is plenty of storage, is there a drawback to using said storage by saving and keeping media on the laptop?

Not from performance view. Media files are relatively static (write once, read more often) - so minimal load on the internal SSD. Try and keep some free space (20% or more).

But internal storage is expensive. So on a desktop Mac, you could save money by keeping media on an external SSD.

 

[400]

Don't rely on time machine alone as a backup. See other threads on the recent issues.

I keep my photos and vids on external HD as the premium for Apple storage is huge. I have 1tb on the iMac and keep 800gb or so on the external and use several spinning hard drives for backups and off site.

However!!
Not sure it is just me, but using a spinning HD, it seems OK in hfs, but if you want to encrypt it (spinning HD), it is changed to apfs by the system and a big speed hit. Just shifted my 800gb library to a 2tb nvme SSD and if I encrypted it is massively slower then not encrypted. Un encrypted it absolutely flys on USB3.1. TB will be quicker obvs.

(Think the upgrade for my iMac to 1tb from base was £200 and to 2 tb was £600, my external NVMe was £220 or so inc case)

 

[NoBoMac]

Not from performance view. Media files are relatively static (write once, read more often) - so minimal load on the internal SSD.
[...]
But internal storage is expensive. So on a desktop Mac, you could save money by keeping media on an external SSD.

This.

I would also go as far as saying not just "static" but in many (most?) cases, "inert". File/document lifecycle. Lots of data is never or rarely accessed after a few weeks/couple of months. So do what big companies do, make the data near-line (aka. external SSD/HDD).

(I'm keeping all my photos and podcasts on an SSD that's replicated on a couple of other disks)

 

[MonsterPilot]

I thank you all for your thoughtful comments! I learned something and it's appreciated ?

 

[DaveFromCampbelltown]

Back in my PC days, I was always under the impression (told?) that it was always best to move photos, music, etc. to a separate hard drive to keep your computer as "light" and fast as possible. Even after my first Mac, I continued this habit.

With a Mac, is this necessary? I mean, as long as there is plenty of storage, is there a drawback to using said storage by saving and keeping media on the laptop? Ideally, I'd like my next Mac to be maxed out--storage wise--and just keep everything on it for easy access (in addition to the Time Machine backup).

Thoughts? Thank you in advance.

I believe that this has always been a myth, as though having lots of bytes stored on your spinning platter HDD 'slowed it down' because it was 'heavy'.

Take the case of an early model PC with a 'massive' 500 Mbyte HDD. I cannot see how having only 50 Mbytes of files on it would slow it down compared to having 450 Mbytes of files.

The problems come when the files are fragmented badly, so the poor HDD is searching all over the disk looking for parts of each file. Defragment and optimise the disk so that files are all in one piece each, and sorted according to need. You will then get the fastest speed out of the computer regardless of how much data is on there.

With one exception. If the drive is really, really full, and really, really fragmented, then it won't be able to use Virtual Memory or Caching optimally. Again, you will get substantial disk thrashing. Delete some files so that it is at least 10% empty, and defragment and optimise, and it will speed up.

With modern computers with modern operating system, defragmenting, optimising and VM management are built in to the OS, so as long as you aren't more than 90% full then you should be ok.

As far as backups are concerned, you should follow the 3-2-1 rule.

1. 3 copies of your data
2. 2 copies on different media
3. 1 copy offsite.

You can do this by using TimeMachine, as well as a Cloud storage solution.
1 copy is offsite in the cloud
2 local copies exist, one in your computer and on on the external TimeMachine backup
3 copies all up.