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iPhone 13 Pro Max iPhone 13 Pro Max 256GB vs 512GB

sparkie7

sparkie7

macrumors 68030
Original poster
Oct 17, 2008
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Thinking very seriously of upgrading from my iPhone 11 Pro Max 256GB to a 13 Pro Max. Have 98GB left on the 11 Pro Max, mostly photos. So with the 13 Pro Max should I get the 256GB or the 512GB. If I use the video features more I might run out of space? Or should I save some $$ and get the 256GB ang just back up and clear if it gets full. Others must have had the same question before ordering, interested to hear what others decided. TIA
 
I have the same phone as you do but I'm going down in both size and storage. I backup all the time, and could get away with the 128gb and the IP13 Pro. Good luck.
 
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dizmonk said:
I have the same phone as you do but I'm going down in both size and storage. I backup all the time, and could get away with the 128gb and the IP13 Pro. Good luck.
Click to expand...

I bought the 11 Pro hoping to down size from my 7 Plus, but didn't like the 'smaller' screen size, too used to the pro max screen so took it back and swapped it for the pro max. What are you using to back up. Is there a way to back up progressively, say just the photos for example?
 
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prores imo would only work on devices that have 512GB or above. Even 256GB is just clogging device spaces without any practical use. But outside of that, 256GB seems to be fine.
 
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Milellie111 said:
4K Pro-Res works with 256GB and up

iPhone 13 buyers beware! If you want 4K ProRes, you're going to pay Apple more money than you think

The base 128GB iPhone 13 Pro and iPhone 13 Pro Max both have a limitation you should be aware of.
www.zdnet.com
Click to expand...
I’m not talking about support. I’m talking about practicality.
4GB per minute, so 30 minute video would be 120GB, how much left behind? 120GB? That’s not even enough for me to store all of my current app data, music, photos and such.
You might argue “offload it to iCloud Photos”, good, then next time you want to watch it you’d need to burn multiple GB of data, cellular. Is that really worth it?
 
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Shirasaki said:
I’m not talking about support. I’m talking about practicality.
4GB per minute, so 30 minute video would be 120GB, how much left behind? 120GB? That’s not even enough for me to store all of my current app data, music, photos and such.
You might argue “offload it to iCloud Photos”, good, then next time you want to watch it you’d need to burn multiple GB of data, cellular. Is that really worth it?
Click to expand...

I’m guessing for most users who will casually play around with Pro-Res and aren’t professional videographers, they won’t be shooting 30 minute long continuous videos. Even if they did, they would still have around 120GB of free space which still is more than enough. 20 years of photos and albums do not need to be stored on an iPhone. Many free cloud services such as Google photos that gives you 15 GB’s for free. I have access wherever I go and rarely do I NEED to access an old photo or video when I don’t have service. Same goes for music. Folks are downloading storing 5,000 high res songs on their phones when in reality, they probably only listen regularly to 50 or so. With unlimited data plans and cloud services, the need for onboard storage has become less and less.
 
It’s weird I had 150GB left on my 256GB 12 pro max but on my 13 pro max I suddenly have 196GB left which I have no idea how this is possible as Im using the same back-up.
 
sparkie7 said:
I bought the 11 Pro hoping to down size from my 7 Plus, but didn't like the 'smaller' screen size, too used to the pro max screen so took it back and swapped it for the pro max. What are you using to back up. Is there a way to back up progressively, say just the photos for example?
Click to expand...
I just use icloud.
 
Got the 512GB iPhone 13 Pro Max only because Best Buy didn't have any 1TB available to pre-order on 9/17. Wanted to have as much storage as possible in the event that ProRes delivers as advertised.
 
jcp007 said:
Got the 512GB iPhone 13 Pro Max only because Best Buy didn't have any 1TB available to pre-order on 9/17. Wanted to have as much storage as possible in the event that ProRes delivers as advertised.
Click to expand...


Could you clarify what you meant by: "Wanted to have as much storage as possible in the event that ProRes delivers as advertised."

Does it eat up a lot of storage?
 
sparkie7 said:
I'm tempted to get the 256 to save the extra $$. But is 256 adequate, just not sure how much space the 4K ProRes will eat up...
Click to expand...
4K ProRes uses 6GB of space for 1 min of video. Getting the 512GB 13 pro max. It’ll get way better read/write speeds which makes the phone feel a tad bit faster.
 
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Milellie111 said:
With unlimited data plans and cloud services, the need for onboard storage has become less and less.
Click to expand...
This is a lot to ask for users outside of US. In Australia, unlimited data is something like $145/mo with fair play policy that will deprioritise during peak hours. Also I dont think handing over personal data completely to the cloud is a good idea either way. Your data, your responsibility.

sparkie7 said:
I'm tempted to get the 256 to save the extra $$. But is 256 adequate, just not sure how much space the 4K ProRes will eat up...
Click to expand...
4K ProRes takes a LOT of space. 4GB per min or 6GB per min. It burns storage (and data) FAST.
 
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Supesss said:
4K ProRes uses 6GB of space for 1 min of video. Getting the 512GB 13 pro max. It’ll get way better read/write speeds which makes the phone feel a tad bit faster.
Click to expand...

So the larger the SSD the faster the read/write speeds? Not familiar with what Apple uses in their iPhones...
 
Shirasaki said:
This is a lot to ask for users outside of US. In Australia, unlimited data is something like $145/mo with fair play policy that will deprioritise during peak hours. Also I dont think handing over personal data completely to the cloud is a good idea either way. Your data, your responsibility.


4K ProRes takes a LOT of space. 4GB per min or 6GB per min. It burns storage (and data) FAST.
Click to expand...

Ok. Thanks. Looks like 512GB might be safer...
 
sparkie7 said:
So the larger the SSD the faster the read/write speeds? Not familiar with what Apple uses in their iPhones...
Click to expand...
Yep, that’s why there’s no 4K ProRes on the 128GB model. Apple used slower SSDs for the 128GB and about the same for the 256GB models this time around. The only faster SSDs are for the 512GB and 1TB models 😄
 
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Supesss said:
Yep, that’s why there’s no 4K ProRes on the 128GB model. Apple used slower SSDs for the 128GB and about the same for the 256GB models this time around. The only faster SSDs are for the 512GB and 1TB models 😄
Click to expand...

Thanks. Good to know. You get what you pay for. I guess......
 
sparkie7 said:
So the larger the SSD the faster the read/write speeds? Not familiar with what Apple uses in their iPhones...
Click to expand...
This is not just Apple thing, all SSD share this same characteristic. More NAND chips given the same capacity provides higher write read performance. This doesn’t mean we need 1024 chips for 1TB drive, but a single chip 1TB SSD performance will not be as good as 2 chips or 4 chips 1TB SSD. Fundamentally, SSD read and write data in parallel from multiple NAND chips rather than sequential like spinning hard drive, hence why generally SSD can achieve higher performance over HDD, assuming SSD design is good and NAND chip is in good quality.
 
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I would have preferred to get the larger storage option but Apples prices are just to high here in Canada for the 512 or 1TB 256GB should be ok for now but next year when we start to travel again a larger storage amount could be worth it :)
 
I think of going with 512 every year but stick with 256. I’ve never come close to 256 so see no reason to change now. One thing I did wonder is do those who choose larger than 256 have to wait longer for their devices? I seem to remember the larger storage iPhones sell out quicker? Maybe they produce less of them?
 
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