Still can't decide if 1TB or 512GB

[skids929]

is the right decision..I go back and forth and think if I get the 1TB it will be less storage management and more future proof. Most of what we are doing with our storage is offloading iOS devices and managing photos. Right now the workflow is device, to MBP, to external 3TB HDD drive thats reachable over wifi.


I am mainly thinking of this from the standpoint I can never upgrade this and I plan on keeping this laptop for a long time.

 

[fs454]

I got 512 on my Late 2013, and all I could think of this past year was how much I regretted not getting 1TB at the outset, although it was far more expensive then. I likely would have kept it another year if I had upgraded.

The 1TB allows me to have a 200GB Windows partition for games on the go, and 800GB of macOS freedom at 3000MB/sec. If you're on the fence now, I feel like you'll really be on the fence in a year or two.

 

[RyanC1384]

I'm in the same boat. Should I go with the 1TB or just invest in the Samsung 1TB external HD to use with the 512 internal?

 

[Brookzy]

How important is $400 to you?

 

[jetjaguar]

I got 512 on my Late 2013, and all I could think of this past year was how much I regretted not getting 1TB at the outset, although it was far more expensive then. I likely would have kept it another year if I had upgraded.

The 1TB allows me to have a 200GB Windows partition for games on the go, and 800GB of macOS freedom at 3000MB/sec. If you're on the fence now, I feel like you'll really be on the fence in a year or two.

My 1tb in my 16 only gets 1800 write and 2000 read

 

[Brookzy]

My 1tb in my 16 only gets 1800 write and 2000 read

ONLY?! That's one of the fastest drives in existence.

And I bet you're using BlackMagic Speed Test? That maxes out at 2000MBps read. Try AJA System Test, available on the Mac App Store.

 

[fs454]

My 1tb in my 16 only gets 1800 write and 2000 read

May be the way the rest is run - for example, the Blackmagic Disk Speed Test can't properly show the speed because it finishes the test (even on largest 5GB setting) quicker than the drives can stabilize at their maximum speed. Also, it maxes out at 2000MB/sec - so it's likely the 1800 is accurate for write, but the read is blowing past the capabilities of the app.

 

[Murgatroyd314]

I went with the terabyte due to three factors:
1. I have a lot of stuff.
2. I spend most of my time away from home.
3. I spend a lot of that time in places with poor internet access.
Thus, I need to have most of my stuff on the computer itself, as anything stored elsewhere will likely be inaccessible most of the time.

Your needs may vary.

 

[skids929]

How important is $400 to you?

This time of year it's important..I mean I have it, and it's not going to be something I'd look back on and say WTF!! But I don't like to burn money for no good reason. But great question.

I used to keep two music libraries, one Lossless and one AAC. Obviously the LL library took up a crapload of HDD on my old MB. I am going to archive it, which will give me some space, but I am thinking long term and I am going to curse the 512 when I have to sit and offload stuff. I guess it's not that much of a pain in the arse.
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I'm in the same boat. Should I go with the 1TB or just invest in the Samsung 1TB external HD to use with the 512 internal?

That Samsung drive is just as pricey the built in no? So I guess the question becomes would you benefit from the portability of the Samsung SSD over the built in.

 

[thesaint024]

It really depends on what you do right? It sounds like you do keep data on your MBP so you should probably go 1tb. I use a NAS and to a lesser degree cloud and don't keep much on the MBP itself. If you think you will use X amount, you should probably go next size up. This gives you flexibility if you suddenly need to transfer large files or work on some editing, you have plenty of wiggle room. I transfer some movies sometimes onto my machine if I travel. I know I have plenty of room. Again, I don't keep my media libraries on my local. If you're at all doubting, go next size up. You won't really regret going bigger, but you can dearly regret going small. My $0.02.

 

[Brookzy]

This time of year it's important..I mean I have it, and it's not going to be something I'd regret, but I don't like to burn money for no good reason. But great question.

I used to keep two music libraries, one Lossless and one AAC. Obviously the LL library took up a crapload of HDD on my old MB. I am going to archive it, which will give me some space, but I am thinking long term and I am going to curse the 512 when I have to sit and offload stuff. I guess it's not that much of a pain in the arse.

I'd go with the 512GB and get an external disk. This could be a cheap spinner, but if you still spend the $400 you can get an external SSD drive like this 1TB, 800MBps SanDisk, and not compromise on performance. And that means when you buy your next MacBook Pro you can keep using that drive and not have to pay the 1TB upgrade again.

Most upgrades are good for futureproofing and can make economic sense. However, demand for local storage is declining as things move to the cloud, and the marginal rate of residual value increase tends to decline after the higher-end storage option is already chosen: i.e. 256GB to 512GB will see a large increase in resale value, but 512GB to 1TB won't see as big a gain. (Down to lots of factors, for example that people looking for big storage space aren't looking to buy second hand computers.)

 

[Salaryman Ryan]

Yep your basically pay a premium for the convenience nothing wrong with that. I personally went for the 512GB, an external 1tb T3 Samsung, and a 50 USD 1tb regular HD. I plan to mainly use my MBP as a travel photo storing and editing station. I will store and edit my photos on my T3 and back them up on my HD for redundancy. I don't edit stuff like 4K video so an average 500mb/read/write of the Samsung is more then enough for me.

 

[Michael Scrip]

I'm in the same boat. Should I go with the 1TB or just invest in the Samsung 1TB external HD to use with the 512 internal?

It depends on how much stuff you plan to store on the laptop.

If you end up accessing so much stuff on the external that you need to keep it plugged in all the time... then you should have just gotten the 1TB internal.

Oh I can see the appeal: save money now by buying the 512GB and add a 512GB external later or whatever.

You'll have 1TB total... but it's split.

External drives are great for backup and also for occasional storage.

But it would be a pain in the butt to rely on an external drive for frequent storage.

 

[thesaint024]

It depends on how much stuff you plan to store on the laptop.

If you end up accessing so much stuff on the external that you need to keep it plugged in all the time... then you should have just gotten the 1TB internal.

Oh I can see the appeal: save money now by buying the 512GB and add a 512GB external later or whatever.

You'll have 1TB total... but it's split.

External drives are great for backup and also for occasional storage.

But it would be a pain in the butt to rely on an external drive for frequent storage.

+1. I use externals for backups too, but I personally find it inconvenient. Another similar option is to go NAS like me. All my media is there and I can access it wirelessly from any computer. This is not exactly a cost saving option though because a decent NAS will cost decent money. I have a RAID setup for redundancy which means decent NAS box and 2 drives. Of course this only applies if you are in your home/office for majority of your drive access needs. If you travel or move locations, not much help.

 

[Salaryman Ryan]

It depends on how much stuff you plan to store on the laptop.

If you end up accessing so much stuff on the external that you need to keep it plugged in all the time... then you should have just gotten the 1TB internal.

Oh I can see the appeal: save money now by buying the 512GB and add a 512GB external later or whatever.

You'll have 1TB total... but it's split.

External drives are great for backup and also for occasional storage.

But it would be a pain in the butt to rely on an external drive for frequent storage.

True true. But remember for the same amount of money you can get 512gb for internal and twice the storage - 1tb ssd for external for a 1.5tb storage. Yep it is a slight inconvenience but the size of tiny SSDs like the T3 SSDs make them less of a hassle. Also these things are fast enough that, unless you are editing 4K video or regularly copying extremely huge files, you won't feel any performance difference between the external and internal storage.

 

[skids929]

+1. I use externals for backups too, but I personally find it inconvenient. Another similar option is to go NAS like me. All my media is there and I can access it wirelessly from any computer. This is not exactly a cost saving option though because a decent NAS will cost decent money. I have a RAID setup for redundancy which means decent NAS box and 2 drives. Of course this only applies if you are in your home/office for majority of your drive access needs. If you travel or move locations, not much help.

Thanks for the advice, all good stuff. I have a 3TB networked, which I think of as a mini NAS. What are you using for a NAS?

 

[littlepud]

I wanted 512 GB but ultimately went with 1 TB because of the stock 2.9/1TB/460 config that Apple Stores carry. Yes, it's a few hundred $ more than what I was originally planning to spend, but it saved the hassle of having to order BTO (and deal with complexity for exchanges/returns).

 

[thesaint024]

Thanks for the advice, all good stuff. I have a 3TB networked, which I think of as a mini NAS. What are you using for a NAS?

Your setup probably does the same thing, so you're probably good. I have a few years old, lower end Synology NAS. I had my prior NAS die, so I just pulled the drives out, which were fine, and just threw them in a Synology case. I guess the advantage of NAS is that they have their own processors so they can act as a media server for Plex or other streaming software. I don't often use it for that, I have more reliable ways to play movies. I do use it as my primary music server though. The most valuable thing for me is the RAID setup. I've had a drive die on me and it killed me. I had to re-rip everything, music, movies, etc., but the worst was losing whatever pics I had stored there. Pictures are priceless for me, so I now backup the F out of them. Not only are they redundant on the RAID, I have them all backed up on another usb drive. Maybe overkill, but I'm not letting that happen ever again.

 

[aevan]

I have 512Gb on my MBP, just like on my previous one, and find it way plenty for anything other than long-term storage. I have a 4Tb external drive and a 512Gb external SSD, I also have an iMac with a 1Tb Fusion Drive. While more is always better, I sometimes wonder what people have that takes so much space and that they need to carry with them all the time. I keep movies, tutorials, photos etc. on my external drive and there, sure, even 1Tb is not enough. But do I really need to drag everything with me?

And besides, you can get that additional 512Gb for around $150 in an external SSD drive that can fit in your pocket.

But, if course, if the price difference is not big to you, more is always better.

 

[skids929]

Your setup probably does the same thing, so you're probably good. I have a few years old, lower end Synology NAS. I had my prior NAS die, so I just pulled the drives out, which were fine, and just threw them in a Synology case. I guess the advantage of NAS is that they have their own processors so they can act as a media server for Plex or other streaming software. I don't often use it for that, I have more reliable ways to play movies. I do use it as my primary music server though. The most valuable thing for me is the RAID setup. I've had a drive die on me and it killed me. I had to re-rip everything, music, movies, etc., but the worst was losing whatever pics I had stored there. Pictures are priceless for me, so I now backup the F out of them. Not only are they redundant on the RAID, I have them all backed up on another usb drive. Maybe overkill, but I'm not letting that happen ever again.

Is your NAS all HDD? And would a NAS or a drive, using SSD be quicker over a network? I suppose it would right if it responds quicker? Also, does your NAS auto mount when you start up from reboot and sleep?

 

[thesaint024]

Is your NAS all HDD? And would a NAS or a drive, using SSD be quicker over a network? I suppose it would right if it responds quicker?

Yes all HDD. I don't think SSD is necessary unless you are constantly COPYING files. Reading files, especially media, is not really an issue. The bottleneck in the setup is the NAS initializing when it's been sleeping. The actual reading is not a factor. SSD's would help when you copy over large amounts of files. This doesn't happen too often in my case, so HDD works fine for me. I've not heard of many people using SSD's for NAS's. That setup doesn't really take advantage of SSD speeds. Internal laptops, yes. Backup drives, maybe. But NAS, haven't seen it.

 

[skids929]

Yes all HDD. I don't think SSD is necessary unless you are constantly COPYING files. Reading files, especially media, is not really an issue. The bottleneck in the setup is the NAS initializing when it's been sleeping. The actual reading is not a factor. SSD's would help when you copy over large amounts of files. This doesn't happen too often in my case, so HDD works fine for me. I've not heard of many people using SSD's for NAS's. That setup doesn't really take advantage of SSD speeds. Internal laptops, yes. Backup drives, maybe. But NAS, haven't seen it.

Also, does your NAS auto mount when you start up from reboot and sleep? Or do you access through the finder?

 

[littlepud]

Yes all HDD. I don't think SSD is necessary unless you are constantly COPYING files. Reading files, especially media, is not really an issue. The bottleneck in the setup is the NAS initializing when it's been sleeping. The actual reading is not a factor. SSD's would help when you copy over large amounts of files. This doesn't happen too often in my case, so HDD works fine for me. I've not heard of many people using SSD's for NAS's. That setup doesn't really take advantage of SSD speeds. Internal laptops, yes. Backup drives, maybe. But NAS, haven't seen it.

The "Network" part of Network Attached Storage is generally the bottleneck, regardless of whether we look at sequential or random access.

For large sequential access (ex: large video files), "wire speed" becomes the limiting factor. A decent SATA drive can push 150 MB/s (equivalent to 1.2 Gbps) which is well beyond the throughput of gigabit Ethernet, let alone WiFi (including even "gigabit" WiFi). I doubt many of us run 10 GigE outside of data centre environments.

For small random accesses (backups, torrents, etc.), the network filesystem protocol becomes the bottleneck. This happens much more than the hardware limitations mentioned previously. For example, the SMB suite of protocols (i.e. Windows File Sharing) is known for it inefficiency when dealing with thousands of small files.

In summary, SSD NAS doesn't really make sense. If you have a use case that REQUIRES external storage to be SSD, you'd be using direct-attached storage (USB 3, if not TB) to begin with.

 

[thesaint024]

Also, does your NAS auto mount when you start up from reboot and sleep? Or do you access through the finder?

They don't automount. I don't think I ever tried this, I always mount through Finder first. I have some security on my NAS which requires logging in. I should probably clean up the setup and separate files from media so that I don't have to login through Finder. The NAS can be set up to not sleep so that I can cut down on the initialization time. But as @littlepud said, there will still be bottleneck accessing the network. He seems to be more knowledgeable on the technical reasons why.

 

[jetjaguar]

ONLY?! That's one of the fastest drives in existence.

And I bet you're using BlackMagic Speed Test? That maxes out at 2000MBps read. Try AJA System Test, available on the Mac App Store.

ran the test and ended up getting 1964 write and 2400 read