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The new Mac mini is almost certainly coming
- Thread starter GabrieleR
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Well if your system + apps run out of SSD space you're SOL. Also, If you don't have space to download something as simple as an SD card from your camera to work on the photos/videos that's a pretty lousy setup. Hence why I got 512GB. I still get short of space at times when I'm working on a big project.
3rd party upgrades are available for the M4 Mac mini: https://expandmacmini.com/product/ssd-m4-2tb/ and https://iboffrcc.com/ (up to 8TB for M4 Pro)
You can move apps to an external drive, as well as media/photo libraries etc. or direct downloads there If you do this it's pretty unlikely that you'll fill up even the base 256GB HD with system files.
You can even install MacOS on an external drive and boot from it.
What would be nice is if Mac OS included a simple one-stop tool for assigning/moving documents, media libraries, downloads, large application libraries etc. to particular drives - you can achieve that currently but it's kinda one method for Photos, one method for (say) Logic and "manually" moving folders, setting up aliases etc. for other kinds of file.
That said - I much prefer to have everything your computer needs to run (i.e. system and apps) on the internal disk and keep externals for large data files, archive, backup etc.
256GB may be OK for basic "personal productivity" use but a substantial proportion of it goes to system & standard apps, and a few "pro" apps or games & a VM or two will rapidly diminish the free space. Bear in mind that you don't want your system drive to get anywhere close to completely full as that will hit performance.
I'd just bite the bullet and regard the upgrade to 512GB or 1TB as "Apple Tax" but - for anything beyond that - look to externals.
I downgraded from 1 TB on my M1 Mac mini to 512 GB on my M4 Mac mini because 1 TB was massive overkill for me for the internal drive. On my M4 512 GB, I have 270 GB free. However, I have an external 4 TB SSD for large data files.
after reverting Tahoe'd to Monterey on my M1 Mac mini, I have 200GB free from 265.
everything is on 4 ssd drives!
1tb is overkill, as my sis has that space on her iPhone, as she agreed!
I'd do the "it only seems like overkill because Apple charges so much for SSD upgrade" routine, but right now real world RAM and SSD prices seem to be playing catch-up with Apple...
I'd agree that 512GB is fine if you're going to keep most things on externals. I'd aim on keeping the system drive around half full in everyday use.
My last Mini (Intel 2018) was 256GB. It was a nightmare worrying about whether I'd had disk space to work on projects I needed to download off memory cards. Working off external SSDs are about 1/3 as fast. Unless you pony up and get a TB3 drive which are generally over $500 and used to cost even more than that.
My 4 TB TB4/USB4 drive cost me about US$375 last year, and that’s with a top of the line SSD.
I bought an OWC Envoy Ultra for under 400 (2TB) and that being a TB5 drive. I'm sure with ram/ssd prices surging that might gone up but overall I'm incredibly happy with that drive. Its as fast as my internal drive, though you'd need a thunderbolt 5 port to experience those speeds.
In Australia, the cost of 3rd party internal storage upgrades matches the price of the Apple upgrade, so there is no real reason for most people to use them.
I bought the 512TB GB M4 because when I looked at my 2TB Fusion Drive iMac, I had only used 350~400 GB, so there was no reason to go bigger.
I do use external drives for storage and scratch disks, but all my personal files and documents are on the internal drive, which is backed up two different ways each day.
I bought the 512
I do use external drives for storage and scratch disks, but all my personal files and documents are on the internal drive, which is backed up two different ways each day.
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I'm guessing you're confusing TB with GB. There is no option for a 512TB Mac of any variety at the moment. It would be great not to need 128 x 4TB drives to get 512TB though. Perhaps one day... 🙃
Thank you. Fixed. However, my point still stands. At least in Australia, there is no point in buying the smallest model and upgrading with a third party NVMe, when for the same price, you could get the size you need.
Unless you discover that you really need more internal storage a year or two in.
This is not correct. Third party NVMe SSD pricing is way, way cheaper in Australia too. You can get a 2TB SSD with TB4 enclosure for under AU$400.
Not normal NVMe SSDs, the special ones for internal storage in the machine itself. I have an external 2TB in a 40 GBs enclosure.
Ah. However, those internal 2 TB NAND upgrade cards are still under AU$450 shipped to Australia. Personally I'm not keen on this method though, at least while the Mac mini is still under warranty.