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How much storage for new iMac?

M

Motoxmann

macrumors member
Original poster
Apr 17, 2010
72
2
My late 2013 iMac was stolen from my house, and I'm looking to replace it with a new 5K. The old one had a 3TB Fusion drive and while I was happy with it, I'm thinking this time I just go straight SSD. The computer is mainly used for photo editing (lightroom, photoshop, etc), and a little gaming so I figured most of the photo and game files will probably live on external USB 3 drives anyway.

I know this is a situation that varies from user to user, but wanted to get opinions on if its worth it to upgrade from 256 to 512 on the ssd. Anyone in the same situation and have any tips or advice from their experiences?

Thanks
 
Motoxmann said:
My late 2013 iMac was stolen from my house, and I'm looking to replace it with a new 5K. The old one had a 3TB Fusion drive and while I was happy with it, I'm thinking this time I just go straight SSD. The computer is mainly used for photo editing (lightroom, photoshop, etc), and a little gaming so I figured most of the photo and game files will probably live on external USB 3 drives anyway.

I know this is a situation that varies from user to user, but wanted to get opinions on if its worth it to upgrade from 256 to 512 on the ssd. Anyone in the same situation and have any tips or advice from their experiences?

Thanks
Click to expand...

Of course, everybody's situation is different. But in my experience 256GB is just way too small. You may find yourself quickly running out of room. I would get the 512GB SSD for sure.
 
If you have less than 120GB of apps then you're good. Just use an external hard drive. Heck, I keep a lot of my apps on external HDDs!

With 256GB of space you have loads of room. :) How did you get your iMac stolen inside your home!?
 
MathBunny123 said:
If you have less than 120GB of apps then you're good. Just use an external hard drive. Heck, I keep a lot of my apps on external HDDs!

With 256GB of space you have loads of room. :) How did you get your iMac stolen inside your home!?
Click to expand...

House was burglarized. Came in while my wife and I were at work. Pretty much took anything of value.
 
If you ever needed it you could go with external storage.

Everyones uses are different. I value capacity over speed since most of my storage is media. I have over 500gb in just movies so I'd prefer a 1-3tb fusion over 512gb-1tb SSD. And depending on cost even a HDD over an SSD.

However eventually I'll need to go external anyway I kind of wish I would have done a 512gb SSD and then just kept all my media externally. However at the time I felt that I'd NEVER use 1tb of storage. Famous last words.
 
cynics said:
If you ever needed it you could go with external storage.

Everyones uses are different. I value capacity over speed since most of my storage is media. I have over 500gb in just movies so I'd prefer a 1-3tb fusion over 512gb-1tb SSD. And depending on cost even a HDD over an SSD.

However eventually I'll need to go external anyway I kind of wish I would have done a 512gb SSD and then just kept all my media externally. However at the time I felt that I'd NEVER use 1tb of storage. Famous last words.
Click to expand...

Thats was my thinking. If I'm eventually going to load stuff on to externals anyway, i might as well get the added speed of the SSD and sacrifice the additional internal storage. Probably going to go 256 since all thats going to actually get installed on it is Photoshop and Lightroom and a couple games at most.
 
That sucks

I hope your work was backed up offsite. When my house was broken into several years ago, my laptop was stolen. Lots of valuable photos went with it. I'm anal about multiple backups now.

I replaced a MacBook Air that has 128GB SSD with a late-2013 iMac that has a 512GB SSD. I went "big" because I was always on the verge of running out of storage. I do very little Photoshop but I'm a heavy Lightroom user. It turns out 512GB is way more than I need as my catalog is stored on externals – I really like the extra large buffer zone though. There's no reason 256GB would not be enough for your needs.
 
Unfortunately nothing was backed up offsite. I had a time machine back up and another bootable clone that I kept updated on two separate hard drives but they were both sitting right next to the iMac and , of course, were taken as well. I was more worried about disk failure than someone coming in and taking everything. I've learned my lesson though and will definitely have a better back up plan in place with the next one.

Ordered today and went with the 256 SSD riMac. Thanks everyone for the suggestions.
 
Motoxmann said:
Unfortunately nothing was backed up offsite. I had a time machine back up and another bootable clone that I kept updated on two separate hard drives but they were both sitting right next to the iMac and , of course, were taken as well. I was more worried about disk failure than someone coming in and taking everything. I've learned my lesson though and will definitely have a better back up plan in place with the next one.

Ordered today and went with the 256 SSD riMac. Thanks everyone for the suggestions.
Click to expand...
Sorry to hear that. :( I guess it's a lesson for every too... :(
 
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