external mbp hard drive options?

[d0nK]

I'm probably going to get the new mbp when it's released but am concerned about hard drive sizes and what people do atm with their mbp's.

I have a late 2011 mbp. The first thing I did when I got it was to put the existing spinning HD into the CD drive slot and put in an SSD as well. So, it has a 500GB SSD and a 1TB spinning HD inside it. All good. Could do with a bit more space but I offload photo's and certain audio projects to an external drive a few times a year.

Now, I've been following retina mbp's for a while and just gawp at the 128GB/256GB/512GB hard drive sizes! Surely those sizes should be reserved for the Air or un-pro macbook people who just do social media type stuff and write text docs?
How do mbp users cope with such eeny, weeny, teeny, tiny hard drives? I assume that there must be a solid, reliable external HD enclosure, but I've used external enclosures in the past and all of them have been terribly unreliable and break within months.

People who make music, edit video and any other normal tasks that require actual hard drive space - how do you cope with the tiny SSD inside the current macbook "pro's"?
Is there a reliable external enclosure or have Apple really forced us into using their extremely, extremely overpriced BTO option for the 1TB SSD?

Thanks.

 

[VAGDesign]

You can get a Mac Pro 5,1 and put terabytes of HDD or SDD into and keep your MBP as is for mobility. The upcoming Macs won't be Pro machines regardless their names. Apple is going to USB C and TB 3 with a bunch of converters/adapters for connectivity. Forget mobility on laptops and expandability on desktops.

 

[Clix Pix]

You can buy an external SSD -- Samsung makes them in several capacities up to 2 TB; I have the 2 TB T3 and it's great -- perfect for backups or for the way I use it, which is as a supplement to my rMBP's 512 SSD. No need to purchase separate SSD and external housing -- the device is all ready to go. (Yes, it's a bit more expensive than buying an external enclosure and putting things together oneself, but to me it is worth it.) The T3 is very small and lightweight, easy to stash in the luggage when traveling and of course easy to have on hand at home for those times one needs to retrieve a file or just look at it.

The T3 comes with a USB-C port on the device with the other end of the cable being a USB-A connector, which works on any machine that has USB-A ports. I assume, but have not yet tried this, that one could also use a USB-C to USB-C cable with the device if one has a USB-C machine. I've just gotten a new retina MacBook and am still setting things up so haven't taken the time yet to experiment with it.

I also use larger capacity backup drives for actual backups of my computers -- both the bus-driven portable ones and the larger ones which plug into an electrical source.

 

[d0nK]

I think that it's highly likely that I'll just keep on using my late-2011 mbp. I've been hoping for an acceptable new mbp replacement for a while now but every year I see more money-pinching BTO tactics and more of a reason to keep my late 2011 mbp.
My current mbp is blazing fast and has upgraded 16GB ram as well as the hard drives I mentioned. The only reason I keep hoping for a decent mbp upgrade is so I can pass this mbp to a family member and experience a retina display.
I just cannot accept the stock SSD sizes and refuse to participate in the ridiculous BTO markup.

TLDR - tired of "hoping" that Apple produces a new mbp that I feel is better than my current 2011 one.