Ssd or hdd

[Adhvaitv]

I know ssd is better .. but my question is ...

i should go for 256gb ssd + 1tb external hdd (costs less obviously)

or 512gb ssd only ?

for macbook pro 15

and yea please tell me about intel iris pro graphics .. does this gpu perform well or i should pay more for nvidia ?

in short
is it worth buying 512gb, nvidia graphics by paying $ 500+
i can get any external hdd instead ..

 

[maflynn]

Can you live within 512GB of storage? Obviously the 512SSD is the better option since you'll not have to use an external storage.

 

[yjchua95]

I know ssd is better .. but my question is ...

i should go for 256gb ssd + 1tb external hdd (costs less obviously)

or 512gb ssd only ?

for macbook pro 15

and yea please tell me about intel iris pro graphics .. does this gpu perform well or i should pay more for nvidia ?

in short
is it worth buying 512gb, nvidia graphics by paying $ 500+
i can get any external hdd instead ..

Totally pay more for NVIDIA if you're using CUDA assisted software, or driving external 4K displays, or for some gaming.

 

[aicul]

SSD is coming to maturing only recently. The differences in technical specs are still sufficiently different to warrant a careful choice.

Unfortunately Apple does not allow for a careful choice of SSD.

So if SSD is intrinsically better, there is no guarantee that the most appropriate SSD will be in the Mac you purchase.

Is this worth $500 ? Don't know !

 

[yjchua95]

SSD is coming to maturing only recently. The differences in technical specs are still sufficiently different to warrant a careful choice.

Unfortunately Apple does not allow for a careful choice of SSD.

So if SSD is intrinsically better, there is no guarantee that the most appropriate SSD will be in the Mac you purchase.

Is this worth $500 ? Don't know !

256GB PCIes used by Apple are either SanDisk (inferior) or Samsung (superior).

512GB and larger are Samsung only.

I'd just get the stock high end 2.5/16/512/750M configuration, because when you're already paying so much for the 512GB SSD upgrade alone, having a processor upgrade and a 750M doesn't seem that expensive anymore.

 

[Samuelsan2001]

What do you need it for??

SSD is coming to maturing only recently. The differences in technical specs are still sufficiently different to warrant a careful choice.

Unfortunately Apple does not allow for a careful choice of SSD.

So if SSD is intrinsically better, there is no guarantee that the most appropriate SSD will be in the Mac you purchase.

Is this worth $500 ? Don't know !

Actually SSD's matured fairly well about 2 years ago. The current SSD's found in the 15 inch rMBP are the industry leading samsung PCIE connected versions running at around 700MBs read/write speeds. The 1 TB option uses 4 PCIE lanes instead of 2 and can reach speeds above 1GBPS. There is no need for careful choice with these machines you are getting the best consumer tech available already...

As to wether you need more ssd space and a dGPU until you tell us your use case that is almost impossible to determine...

 

[Fishrrman]

OP asks:
[[ I know ssd is better .. but my question is ...
i should go for 256gb ssd + 1tb external hdd (costs less obviously) ]]

More space is better.

How much space do you currently use?
Do you keep a lot of photos, movies, music?

Also:
IF you keep a lot of stuff, do you always need it ALL "online" (i.e., instantly-accessible)?

Unless you are willing to spend a LOT of $$$ for the 512gb SSD (which you will need to keep backed up anyway), it might be more cost-effective to buy and use the 256gb as your internal drive, and pick up the 1tb external to serve as your "primary-EXTERNAL storage".

Keep in mind that if you do use an external drive as a "primary-external" storage volume, you should also get a SECOND external drive to use as your "secondary external backup" as well.

Example:
You could partition the second external, make the first partition 256gb or a little smaller.
Now, use CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper to clone a copy of the internal drive to the first partition (which will be bootable), and clone a copy of the primary-external to the second partition.
You'll now have BOTH drives backed up, and you'll also have an immediately-accessible second boot source if you ever get into an "I can't boot!" moment with the MacBook.

 

[Adhvaitv]

yess i can live with 512gb

because i need only movies ... pictures are stored online and music is obviously now available online at youtube etc

i will use my MBP for office work, movies , designing and sometimes games such as gta, nfs, fifa.... just for timepass for not more than half an hour ...

i don't know it will need nvidia or not ...

By spending $500 more .. i will get 256gb more ...
but within $300 i can get 1TB hard disc other than 256gb inside the machine itself ...

i mentioned my usage ...

according to me should i go for i7/16/nvidia/512/2.5ghz or i7/16/nothing/256/2.3ghz

and yess i forgot to mention i will also get windows 7 or 10 [after few months] on mbp

 

[TRC-WA]

in short
is it worth buying 512gb, nvidia graphics by paying $ 500+
i can get any external hdd instead ..

It wasn't worth it to me.

The Iris Pro handles everything I do just fine... including AutoCAD. I was fine with the base 256GB SSD because I already have a 2TB ATC.

No need for a dGPU... if I wanted a gaming machine I wouldn't have bought a Pro.