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I Have Been Told Not To Buy Mac Studio With 512 SSD

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whirl

macrumors member
Original poster
Jul 24, 2011
51
6
I am at that stage now where I would like to move away from my iMac Intel and get a Mac Studio.
I am constantly seeing YouTube videos saying that buying a Mac Studio with 512 SSD is a bad move simply because it only has one chip and the data transfer is considerably slower than having a 1TB SSD.

Can anyone with more experience tell me if getting one with 512 SSD is such a bad deal?
 
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The disk-space accounting would be on you; as for performance, disk-access should still be as-or-better than what you've been experiencing.

Based upon my past usage, 2TB of storage is the bare minimum that I can tolerate.

I do not have personal experience with 512MB Studio units.

As for reviews, consider that we now have PCIe-5x4 m.2 nvme metrics bordering upon 16GB/s, so one may gain insightful perspective when seeing individuals poo-poo'ing the pedestrian speeds we might experience using modern AAPL hardware ;)

"Only 4GB/s?!?"

Since you're questioning the limits, you'll probably never notice the difference.

I am not your wallet, any more than random YT's are :)
 
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I use the M2 Max Mac Studio with 32G ram and 512G SSD. I have no issues with it for almost a year now. I have 4 external drives, Samsung S990 Pro connected to an OWC TB4 dock which boots Ventura, Sonoma and keeps my videos and edits.
 

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I also use the M2 Max Mac Studio with 32G ram and 512G SSD, only 3 months. Primary storage is external 2TB external drive (Samsung 980 Pro). No problems. I don't think it was a "bad deal" as it upgraded my '18 Mini at the price point that was acceptable to me. I pay as little as I can for Apple SSD prices as USB 3.0/TB is so fast now, external storage is fast/cheap, and I am not working in photo/video.
 
Depends on what the Studio will intend to do. I was offered a choice between 1TB/24GPU and 512GB/32GPU and I took the latter, for I post-process photos too often. The ports on Studio allow for many different external disk configurations. I even run Sonoma from a T7!
 
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My Mac Studio has not arrived yet so I can't speak from experience. What I can tell you in all the research and info from here. Get the most you can afford for a future machine. This is a one and done unit you cannot upgrade later. I keep my computers until they die. I did get a 3 year apple care.

Whatever memory you have the SSD drive will be the secondary memory if/when you run out. When the SSD wears out you can't fix that internally. I work extensively in Photoshop but can also have several apps open at once. I went with 96GB ram 2TB drive. Was going to go with a 4TB internal but when I found out that I can't update that later I chose to use external drives instead. Speed is not an issue in my world. Yes time is money but I don't need my hair on fire speed.
 
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Don’t take YT reviews as gospel for an all-in-all choice.
As mentioned above, your personal usage can affect your decision.

I have lost track the number of times, I see people comparing SSD speeds as though they are slow.
OK, yes a 1TB drive is faster than 512GB…..but we are talking massive speed increases with AS over previous intel setups.
YT reviewers seem to quibble over differences in VERY fast drives, which is ludicrous.

For daily use I doubt you would notice any difference.

My personal setup was from a cMP (fastest drive I have is 500MB/s), which is by no means slow.
I never noticed any lag or waiting time.

My M2 Studio (512ssd) is 4800MB/s - 3400MB/s (w/r)…AND….unified.

So from one Mac to the other a 7x speed increase….🤣
 
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whirl said:
Can anyone with more experience tell me if getting one with 512 SSD is such a bad deal?
Click to expand...
It really depends upon your needs, usage and how much stuff (work files, photos, music, movies etc) you like to have at hand without hooking up an external storage drive to view. The only fact is that a 512GB SSD is 1/2 the storage size and will read and write data slower than a 1TB (Or larger) SSD, this may or may not bother you.

My 2019 iMac (bought refurbished from Apple in mid 2020) was a 512GB SSD and I soon found out, as a photographerher, the smaller SSD was a mistake for me. My LR catalog and preview files, which I keep on the internal storage, were about 1/2 that amount alone, the actual photos were stored on external drives. Within 1 year I was looking at getting an external drive with 2TB of storage attached via a TB port to use as my startup drive, using the internal SSD as cache storage. I got an Acasis USB 4 enclosure with a 2TB Samsung 980 NVMe SSD inside. It actually had slightly faster R&W speeds than the iMacs internal storage. It worked beautifully with no issue for 2-1/2 years as my daily startup drive.

Today with my M2 1TB 64GB Mac Studio Max I use the same style USB4 enclosure with a 4TB WD Black 850x internal NVMe as my startup drive (My old one is now 4TB as well and my system backup drive). But I am eyeing 8TB NVMe's down the line, which is possible with an external startup drive of this type. A simple 5 minute swap of the NVMe and my "internal" storage doubles in size again.:cool:
 
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whirl said:
I am at that stage now where I would like to move away from my iMac Intel and get a Mac Studio.
I am constantly seeing YouTube videos saying that buying a Mac Studio with 512 SSD is a bad move simply because it only has one chip and the data transfer is considerably slower than having a 1TB SSD.

Can anyone with more experience tell me if getting one with 512 SSD is such a bad deal?
Click to expand...
What are your NEEDS?
How much storage do you have now?
What are you using your iMac for today that makes you want a Studio vs mini?
 
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SATA SSDs, heck even SATA 2 SSDs when I was using my 2010 Mac Pro was good enough for high end video editing. Current SATA 3 SSDs is enough for even 8k video editing.

Watch this, its not just about gaming even though that is in the title.

 
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whirl said:
I am at that stage now where I would like to move away from my iMac Intel and get a Mac Studio.
I am constantly seeing YouTube videos saying that buying a Mac Studio with 512 SSD is a bad move simply because it only has one chip and the data transfer is considerably slower than having a 1TB SSD.

Can anyone with more experience tell me if getting one with 512 SSD is such a bad deal?
Click to expand...
Buying a Mac Studio with a 512GB SSD isn't necessarily a bad deal if your usage patterns don't heavily rely on rapid data transfer speeds or extensive local storage. However, for those looking for optimal performance and more storage space, the 1TB SSD model offers significant advantages that could enhance your computing experience. Evaluate your specific needs and budget to make the best decision.
 
Lots of other people here have offered their opinions, and I’ll just cut the chase: only care about storage capacity you need. If 512GB is enough, then go for it and don’t regret later.

One point about permanently attached external storage, I’m generally not a big fan of that setup for I tried and it went horribly wrong after just a month. Granted I was using it on my M1 MBP rather than a desktop, but point still remains. Connection stability is hard to maintain.

In the end I was forced to turn on all the “stream files” feature since my 1TB internal drive is far too small to download everything I need. I’d end up having to have an Apple Silicon Mac with 16TB of internal storage (which doesn’t exist today) and guaranteed colossal price tag, to make sure I don’t need to worry about storage for a long enough time. But again, that’s just me.
 
Shirasaki said:
Lots of other people here have offered their opinions, and I’ll just cut the chase: only care about storage capacity you need. If 512GB is enough, then go for it and don’t regret later.

One point about permanently attached external storage, I’m generally not a big fan of that setup for I tried and it went horribly wrong after just a month. Granted I was using it on my M1 MBP rather than a desktop, but point still remains. Connection stability is hard to maintain.

In the end I was forced to turn on all the “stream files” feature since my 1TB internal drive is far too small to download everything I need. I’d end up having to have an Apple Silicon Mac with 16TB of internal storage (which doesn’t exist today) and guaranteed colossal price tag, to make sure I don’t need to worry about storage for a long enough time. But again, that’s just me.
Click to expand...

I gave up on the “stream files” option on Google Drive for home use. Why change a 1000-3000MB/s file transfer speed from an external disk for a 10-12MB/s one from my 100Mb/s internet connection?

I constantly had to download files and wait as though I were using a heavily loaded USB2 disk from 25 years ago, and Mac search indexing no longer worked properly. Just a poor user experience overall, unless you have very fast Internet speeds.
 
Fomalhaut said:
I gave up on the “stream files” option on Google Drive for home use. Why change a 1000-3000MB/s file transfer speed from an external disk for a 10-12MB/s one from my 100Mb/s internet connection?

I constantly had to download files and wait as though I were using a heavily loaded USB2 disk from 25 years ago, and Mac search indexing no longer worked properly. Just a poor user experience overall, unless you have very fast Internet speeds.
Click to expand...
It’s just that Apple charges an arm and a leg for internal storage, otherwise more people would’ve gone for bigger internal storage.

I’m thinking about replacing the 2TB NVME SSD that I installed a little over 5 months ago with a bigger one. For one reason: some games ask for 100GB+ of free space, SSD only.
 
I'd suggest 1tb as "the minimum" for a Mac Studio in any case.

Doesn't make sense to buy a "big" computer like that (in terms of speed and power) without a comparably-sized SSD to go with it.
 
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The YouTubers are not wrong. You have one chip so half the transfer speed overall and your fast cache can get filled up pretty fast, bringing your SSD to a crawl.

That said, if you don’t transfer files very much, aren’t reading/writing to your SSD often, etc. you won’t notice any difference.

Of course if you can really get by with 512GB, I have to wonder if a Mac Mini might not suit you just as well as the Studio lol
 
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