Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Ploki

macrumors 601
Original poster
Jan 21, 2008
4,325
1,560
I'm about to order an i7 Mac Mini. Will replace RAM myself, stuck on the darn soldered SSD.

I'm torn between 512GB and 1TB options, maybe some of you have some insight since i dont have any distance anymore.

Pros for 1TB:
- no need for another external drive right now (1TB is enough for me)
- faster write speeds

Cons:
- 480$ extra.
- stuck in mini



Pros for 512TB:
- cheaper
- could get a nVME TB3 enclosure with Samsung 970 for about the same cash.
- could use the same TB3 drive to use with a macbook pro when necessary.

Cons
- poor write speeds, need for external drive.
 
For many use cases, 512GB should be enough. But if you dual or triple boot to Windows and Linux or use a lot of Virtual Machines, then maybe 1TB or more is for you.

Wanting 1TB just to store music and videos on NVMe might not be the best use for the tech.

For this use case, might be worth looking into NAS, i.e. if you don't already have one. The best 2 bay NAS from QNAP or Synology costing within the range of $400-$500, will give you so much more storage and functionality.
 
I bought the 1TB and then paid the premium for 2Tb and upgrades to that version when I returned my first mini. I know it is expensive but the internal drives are really fast and convenient compared to external drives. I figured if I got an 1 TB m2 drive it would cost around $300 to $400 for everything so the additional incremental cost wasn’t that horrible. I bought this for speed and the future. I already have $600GB on the drive so needed more for video and music production. I will still use an external T5 for projects
 
The Samsung X5 external is pretty darn fast.

Up to 2800 MB/s Sequential Read
Up to 2100 MB/s Sequential Write

I paid $300 for 500GB on sale at B&H a couple weeks ago.
 
Compared to what?
compared to 1TB
1,9gb/s vs 2,7gb/s write speeds if i recall correctly.

difference between 1TB vs 2TB is marginal (0,2gb/s on both fronts)
Are you doing something for which the difference between 1TB and .5T write speed matters? If so, I'd love to know what it is :)
no... probably not.
just OCD.

Since posted i figured i'm better off getting an affordable nVME Thunderbolt enclosure with 512gb samsung evo (like Wavlink) for 280€ and eventually upgrade to 1tb 970 EVO, which performs around 3,4/2,5 gb/s

if i go with 512GB on both laptop and mac mini i can clone them on the fly and use an external 1TB nVME drive for projects which will be cheaper than 500gb spec bump on either of the computers, or god forbid, both.


I bought the 1TB and then paid the premium for 2Tb and upgrades to that version when I returned my first mini. I know it is expensive but the internal drives are really fast and convenient compared to external drives. I figured if I got an 1 TB m2 drive it would cost around $300 to $400 for everything so the additional incremental cost wasn’t that horrible. I bought this for speed and the future. I already have $600GB on the drive so needed more for video and music production. I will still use an external T5 for projects

True, but if you have an external thunderbolt drive your total speed is ~2.5gb/s from the internal + additional 2,5gb/s from the external (for less money)
 
If you've got the $$$$ to throw away to Apple for the high price of 1tb, then... go for it.

But I wouldn't spend that much...
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.