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M1 MacBook Pro, which SSD size did you choose?

Which SSD size did you choose?

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    188
4rtemidis

4rtemidis

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jun 20, 2012
187
15
Switzerland
I'm interested which ssd you chose? And what's the reasoning behind your choice?
I myself can't really decide between 2 and 4 TB... I guess 2 TB would be enough for now. My current MBP has 1 TB SSD. But since there's no chance to upgrade anything...
 
4rtemidis said:
I'm interested which ssd you chose? And what's the reasoning behind your choice?
I myself can't really decide between 2 and 4 TB... I guess 2 TB would be enough for now. My current MBP has 1 TB SSD. But since there's no chance to upgrade anything...
Click to expand...
External storage is significantly cheaper. I bought the base 512.
 
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Stuck with 512 as I absolutely don’t need any more for what remains a secondary machine for me. If they would have kept the storage at 256 and dropped the price to 1799 I still would have bought it.
 
Went with 1TB, but really thought hard about 2TB. Decided the RAM upgrade to 64GB would add more value since a good 2TB Samsung T7 drive is $300 — still fast, but slower than the internal Apple SSD.
 
2TB. I occasionally do multi-day video shoots. It’ll be really useful to back-up the footage onto the laptop at the end of each day and even start editing it without using the external SSD I’ve relied on until now.
 
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I got 8 TB.

If you're working in music or film, you quickly reach a point where you need a lot of storage (a minute of 4K 30FPS ProRes video is already 6 GB, many music software sample libraries are several hundreds of gigabytes in size), and I can't be bothered to carry around a bunch of slow external hard drives everywhere I go.

The faster and more convenient workflow when not needing external drives is worth more to me than saving a couple hundred dollars on my laptop purchase.
 
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alexe said:
I got 8 TB.

If you're working in music or film, you quickly reach a point where you need a lot of storage (a minute of 4K 30FPS ProRes video is already 6 GB, many music software sample libraries are several hundreds of gigabytes in size), and I can't be bothered to carry around a bunch of slow external hard drives everywhere I go.

The faster and more convenient workflow when not needing external drives is worth more to me than saving a couple hundred dollars on my laptop purchase.
Click to expand...
How much RAM did you choose?
 
Storage is a touchy subject. I opted for 2TB. I do work with the cloud as well as external SSDs. My biggest fear is always losing data, but that can happen whether its the external or internal.
 
alexe said:
64 GB, I maxed out the config
Click to expand...

Have you received your system? It would be great if you could help with a quick 8TB benchmark over in this thread:

forums.macrumors.com

MBP 2021 - SSD Speed Comparison - Please Contribute!

From some of the YouTube reviews, it looks like there are SSD chip configuration differences between the 14" and 16" models and significant speed differences across SSD sizes. Can I please get everyone's help to run Blackmagic speed tests - only takes 2 minutes. Please use 5GB stress file size...
forums.macrumors.com forums.macrumors.com
 
I haven't bought one (yet), but I watched a youtube review yesterday that showed (based on Blackmagic benchmarks) that the 2TB+ drives have a write speed of approx. 7GB/sec while the lower capacity are ~5 GB/s. I know the difference most likely wouldn't be noticeable in the real world, but it got me thinking that I'd go for 2TB over the planned 1TB if I purchase one.
 
daniel.dawson.397 said:
I haven't bought one (yet), but I watched a youtube review yesterday that showed (based on Blackmagic benchmarks) that the 2TB+ drives have a write speed of approx. 7GB/sec while the lower capacity are ~5 GB/s. I know the difference most likely wouldn't be noticeable in the real world, but it got me thinking that I'd go for 2TB over the planned 1TB if I purchase one.
Click to expand...
When doing video editing it helps. Doubt there will be bottle-necking now-a-days when using the internal SSD when video editing instead of using an external as a scratch drive or project drive you edit from.

Those days may be over and you can use internal now to edit. This is why I got the 2TB. Some People say that heavy rendering causes SSD’s to go out early… but now-a-days, internal SSD’s have improved, so I expect the SSD now to outlast the laptop. External SSD drives are fast now and good, but you can’t beat the now fast SSD in the MacBook Pro M1 MAX. No thunderbolt 4 external drives really yet (except the few offerings from OWC (not as fast). Worth the extra money for speed instead of buying an external.

Look forward to mine in a month!
 
Well mine isn't one of the "new" 14" or 16" MBPs, mine is just the regular 13" M1 MBP that I bought a few months ago. Anyway, it's the 1TB model. (My older 2016 15" MBP is a 2TB model, but I have Mac stuff and Windows stuff on that.)
 
loby said:
When doing video editing it helps. Doubt there will be bottle-necking now-a-days when using the internal SSD when video editing instead of using an external as a scratch drive or project drive you edit from.

Those days may be over and you can use internal now to edit. This is why I got the 2TB. Some People say that heavy rendering causes SSD’s to go out early… but now-a-days, internal SSD’s have improved, so I expect the SSD now to outlast the laptop. External SSD drives are fast now and good, but you can’t beat the now fast SSD in the MacBook Pro M1 MAX. No thunderbolt 4 external drives really yet (except the few offerings from OWC (not as fast). Worth the extra money for speed instead of buying an external.

Look forward to mine in a month!
Click to expand...

This is a very good point. Ive always purchased the 1TB option to 'future proof' but I rarely even touch 100GB!!!
Most of my projects and data are on external TB3 SSD drives or my 10GBe NAS.
I've never actually considered editing video using the internal drive, but your comment makes perfect sense! lol
 
All depends on your personal needs. It will vary from user to user and what you intend to use the laptop for. I personally like to have most of my files stored locally. I use it for Ableton to compose / edit music and Photoshop. Went with a 14 inch MBP - 2TB - 32GB. The majority of my internal storage is taken up by my sound banks. If I were keeping them on an external (or didn't need to install them at all) 1TB would be plenty.

If you're dealing with video, that's a whole different ball game. Rule of thumb is to keep 15% of your hard drive space free at all times for optimal performance.
 
DennisdeWit said:
1TB. I have a MacBook Pro with 1TB now and have only 300GB free. So my new MacBook Pro also should have 1TB.
Click to expand...
If you have only 30% free, why not upgrade to 2tb?

(im in the exact same situation, considering if it is possible for me to trim my usage down or just pony up the money to upgrade)
 
I do not know if I am returning my macbook pro 16 m1 pro 16gb 512gb to spend on a 1tb of storage, I do not know if this is reasonable?

I use it for capture one, web browsing, some video editing, I already have a 1tb 1050mo / s extreme sandisk and a 2tb 125mo / s lacie hdd, after uploading my photos (for a little over 10 years I have less than 100gb of photo), install my two or three software on my Mac I have 395go of free storage left I don't know if it's worth it for my use?

Could the extra write speed get me what more than I might miss? At the level of the ram I am still at 12.5 of use
 
I've grown to use external HDs in my workflow if I need the extra storage (plus iCloud has definitely improved over the last 4-5 years) but otherwise have been making due with 256 GB on my 2014 MBP. The 1 TB in my midrange 16" M1P feels like a luxury ???
 
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