How Much Storage Does My Mac Have
From the cloud to innovative new external hard drives, there are plenty of photo storage options for photographers to choose from. But how much space do you really need for your archive? We run the numbers and show you how to tell…
It’s not just how much space you need now that you have to think about, but how much you might need in the future. Will your photo collection fit on your computer’s hard disk? Will you need to get a new computer? Will you have to use external disk drives to help you file your photos? Never fear – here’s our plan to working out how much photo storage space you need.
01 How many photos do you have right now?
When you check the storage on your Mac, you might see a significant percentage of space occupied by something called ‘Other.’ macOS does not go into much detail. You may wonder what is Other storage on Mac, why it eats up so much space, and how can I delete it? Let me help by telling you more about this to free space on your Mac. There are several straightforward ways. In any Finder window, if you have “Show Status Bar” turned on, you’ll see a summary at the bottom of every window: If you need info on a specific folder, select it and choose Get Info.
Pardon us if you already know this, but many photographers – myself included! – don’t honestly know. Your search for photo storage should begin with a survey of the images you’ve taken to date that you wish to back up, which means getting them all together in one place.
Keep it simple. Create a new folder on your computer’s desktop and call it ‘My Photos’, or something memorable. Then copy all of your images into this folder and organise them into sub-folders. I like to do this by date, but you might also choose to organise by genre, location, people’s names, or any nomenclature that makes sense to you!
Once you’re done, navigate back to your desktop and right click on the folder to check its properties if you’re using a PC; or on a Mac hit command-I.
This is how much photo storage space you need already, before you take any more pictures.
02 How many megapixels does your camera have?
Camera resolution is increasing all the time. For instance, just a few years ago the popular entry-level Canon EOS 600D offered 18-megapixel resolution. Now, Nikon’s new entry-level D3400 offers 24-million-pixel resolution.
So the point is, you can’t based your photo storage needs on the pictures you’ve already taken. If you plan to upgrade your camera in even the near-future you’ll have to expect a jump in resolution and storage needs.
Of course, you can always set your camera to a lower quality setting to reduce the file size, but we’re photographers, eh! Why would you want to compromise on quality if you’ve spent so much money on a brilliant new camera?!
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03 Do you shoot JPEGs or RAW files?
Digital SLRs, compact system cameras and premium compact cameras all enable youto shoot raw files as well as JPEGs.
Why shoot raw files? Raw files are basically digital negatives and retain more information from a scene than a JPEG, allowing you more flexibility in the editing stage and the potential for better quality images. However… they take up considerably more space.
With an entry-level DSLR you might find yourself with 25-30MB raw files, compared to 7MB JPEGs, meaning your files sizes are about four times larger if you shoot raw.
We’d always advise you to shoot raw files when possible, so if you want the best possible quality from your images you’ll need to take this into consideration.
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04 How many photos do you take each year?
Of course every photographer is different, but we’d guess that most enthusiasts will shoot anywhere from 5,000-10,000 pictures a year.
If you’re on a family day out, you might shoot just 30 pictures in a day, but if you’re at a once-in-a-lifetime event you might shoot 300 or more in a day.
Few of us take pictures every day, or the same number each time. A good way to tell how much you shoot on average (and this is easier to calculate if you organise your images by date as we mentioned above) is to look back over a year’s worth of images and see how many images you’ve taken.
05 Do you edit your images?
A 24-megapixel image from your Nikon D3400 will produce a file in excess of 40MB.
And if you edit your images in Photoshop or one of the growing number of Photoshop alternatives, you’ll probably find that your images once you save them are larger than they were originally.
Add a few adjustment layers in your editing and you’re easily over 120MB.
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So how much photo storage do you need?
- If you are a keen photographer who shoots 10,000 raw files a year and edit, say, 1 out of every 10 images you’re probably going to need 250,000MB of storage space for your new photos.
- You’ll also probably want to factor in around 120,000MB for ‘experiments’. So if we’re translating that into storage needs, that’s a rough total of 370GB that you’ll require from just one year’s worth of shooting.
- And let’s not forget the images already in your archive that you’ll need to store, as well.
- Even if we’re overestimating your photographic output here, you might find yourself shooting at this rate, or more, in the future as you gain confidence with your camera or start to experiment with new styles and techniques.
How to store photos
With ever-growing demands for photo storage space, gone are the days of keeping all your images simply on your computer’s hard drive. So what’s the answer? Delete more images? Avoid using image editing software?
External hard drives are a popular option. They’re small, fast and plug straight into your computer. And they’re getting cheaper all the time.
If you’re relatively new to photography you could get yourself a 1TB drive and likely fit all of your images to date and have a bit of room to grow with. And 1TB drives are falling in price as the demand for more space that’s driven by 4K-capable cameras continues to increase.
Cloud storage is another quick and simple option. There are loads of providers and they offer simple methods of categorising and sharing your images, if you wish.
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So you are thinking of buying a new Mac and you are wondering how much memory to get. It is a tough decision to make, and really comes down to a matter of money. Lets look at factors that will help you decide if you should spend the extra money to get more RAM.
The Case For More Memory
There are not many people around who buy a computer with extra memory and later regret it. Boom 3d virtual surround audio for mac. On the other hand, the world is full of people who buy a computer with too little memory and regret it later at some point.
Memory comes in handy if you are manipulating large graphics and video files. What do I mean by large? An example would be an image that is 100MB in size. Now a typical photo you have on your Mac is probably 2-3MB. Who works with 100MB images? Designers who do things like create high resolution posters, magazine covers and other high resolution art.
How about video? Does editing 15 minutes of vacation clips count as large? No. Editing together a season of 22-minute television shows, or a 90-minute movie, with 4K resolution is large.
If you do image or video work like this, then you probably want to get as much memory as you can. If you just work with your own personal photos and videos, then it doesn’t really matter.
How about games? If you are a serious gamer, playing in 3D worlds that require maximum frame rates on large screens, then you may also need a good deal of memory. But not necessarily. See the next section’s comments on the GPU. But if you are spending serious money on your new Mac because you want a great gaming machine, then you probably don’t want to skimp on memory.
Another reason for getting more memory is to future-proof your Mac. A new MacBook Pro with 8GB of memory may be fine for now, but thinking ahead 4 years, perhaps the macOS out then, and some of the apps you may want to run then, will need more. So getting 16GB will make it more likely that your Mac will last longer.
The Case Against More Memory
The way people think of computer memory today is a little old-fashioned. Not too long ago, more memory meant a faster computer. And that is still true. It is just not as true as it was a few years ago. Today, most Macs use solid-state hard drives which are much faster than standard hard drives. Computer speed today also relies more on the graphics processor (GPU) and the memory that is part of it. Software has also become more optimized to work faster and rely less on large amounts of RAM.
A lot of what people think of as “speed” on a computer today is really graphics performance. Anything from 3D games, to video playback and editing, even to the animation of the operating system is handled my the GPU.
A typical Mac user that chooses 16GB of RAM instead of 8GB may never notice the difference. If you are just surfing the web, writing emails, managing your photos, working with documents and watching video, then you may never use that extra 8GB of memory.
As far as making your Mac last longer, keep in mind that no matter how much memory you stuff into your new Mac, at some point a version of macOS will come out that doesn’t work with it. Memory typically isn’t a factor in this, as it is the processor and logic board that will hold you Mac back in that case. And once you can’t upgrade your macOS, your machine is obsolete regardless of the memory.
How About Upgrading Later?
You may have heard that you can’t upgrade the memory of new Macs. This is only partially true. You can certainly open up and upgrade the memory in the latest 2017 iMacs. Apple even provides instructions here. You can also do it in a Mac mini or Mac Pro. But not the MacBooks, which have RAM fixed inside the machine.
This means it is much more important to decide how much memory you want with a MacBook than the other models. How to make apple pages into pdf. Once you buy your MacBook, you are stuck with that amount of RAM for the life of the machine.
Making the Decision
On the one hand you’ve got to look at the reasons you want more memory. Fuel for pages 2 0 6. The main two reasons are if you are doing high-end professional work, or you want to possibly extend the life of your Mac in a future where that memory may be needed.
Weight against that the bill. An extra 8GB of RAM in a MacBook Pro 13-inch will cost you about $200. Is it worth that to you? Perhaps save that $200 and put it toward your next MacBook purchase in three years?
Ultimately the decision is yours. For most Mac users the extra memory isn’t necessary. But on the other hand, there are worse ways you can spend an extra $200, especially if you make a living using your Mac.
Now that Apple has standardized on fast flash-based SSD drives, Mac lovers must pay attention to the amount of storage they need before they buy a new MacBook Pro or MacBook Air. The trouble is, while built-in SSD drives in MacBooks provide awesome performance, they are stingy on storage.
New laptops — the problem isn’t limited to Apple — now come with 128GB, 256GB, or 512GB flash-based SSD drives as standard configurations. And many of these laptops are not easy to upgrade in the future like older hard drives used to be.
Here is how to tell if 256GB is enough storage for you.
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Do you take a lot of photos or video?
If you are a shutterbug — or have an iPhone 6 or iPhone 7 — and you can imagine yourself taking a lot of photos and video that you want to keep forever on your MacBook, you should try to figure out how much storage your current photos and videos take up.
If you don’t have much right now, 256GB will likely be plenty of storage for you for the foreseeable future.
If you have a lot of photos like me — I have more than 20,000 photos and videos in my iPhoto library, which takes up more than 100GB of space — then 256GB of storage on a MacBook Pro is flirting with danger. Why? I also have dozens of movies and some TV shows that I like to keep downloaded and handy directly on my MacBook Pro.
Of course, my habits are changing and so are the habits of others — for instance, I’m starting to stream more videos from Netflix and Amazon Prime Video instead of buying and downloading them. If you’re streaming content instead of buying it, 256GB is probably sufficient.
Storage Eaters: Movies and TV Shows
How Much Storage Does My Mac Have Air
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While I’m watching more streamed content, I still like to buy and own some shows and movies. Consequently, I have too much to store on my MacBook directly, so I’ve saved hundreds of gigabytes of space by moving some photos, home video, television shows, and movies to a fast external hard drive. I just move the stuff I want to save — but won’t access often — to the external hard drive. It’s a peace-of-mind thing, really. I could probably delete it all and still live happily.
Here’s another space-saving tidbit: If you have downloaded TV shows from Apple iTunes — or whole seasons of TV shows — you can safely delete these shows from your Mac. As long as you have your active Apple ID and iTunes account, Apple will know you bought those shows and provide you the ability to re-download them at will . . . or stream them to your Apple TV. I’ve personally deleted episodes of Homeland, The Walking Dead, Life, Firefly, and Castle with no ill effects. True Detective is still on there, though. I’ll be watching that series again soon, I’m sure.
Wild Card Storage
Personal photos and video, along with purchased movies and TV shows, are the biggest storage culprits for most people. If you get a handle on these files, you’ll know if 256GB is enough.
But, there are a few wild cards. If you download a lot of apps for multiple iOS devices in your family, and these family members are all downloading and storing large multi-media book files, videos, and iOS games (the graphically rich games can blow past 1GB easily these days) you can generate a surprising amount of iOS device backup storage and a large iTunes app library. Again, there are ways to delete and trim this storage, but it’s something to be aware of.
Mac gamers can start eating up storage fast, but gamers are usually more in tune with their special needs.
If you get into creating and editing movies — say by generating a lot of footage with a GoPro or a waterproof rugged camera — your smartest move will be to invest in a fast external hard drive and store much of your video on it.
As for standard documents, most Microsoft Office, word processing, spreadsheets, and presentations take up very little storage space on a typical laptop — even for workaholics.
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How to Choose the Right Mac System
All in all, 256GB is plenty of room for most every Mac lover . . . unless you also have a large iPhoto library and take a lot of photos and video — and you know that you will continue to take a lot of photos and video. If this is the case, your decision gets a bit more complicated. You can:
- Choose a MacBook Pro or MacBook Air with 512GB of storage (about a $300 upgrade)
- Choose an iMac, which comes with a 500GB hard drive or more
- Choose an external drive or high-capacity thumb drive to go with a MacBook
- Choose an iMac for the heavy-lifting at home and get a MacBook Air or iPad for on-the-go computing
For instance, you can get a 21.5-inch iMac with 1TB of storageas well as an iPad for less than the cost of a 15-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display. Or you could get a Mac mini for local home storage use and get a MacBook Air for mobile. If you’re in a family situation, the iMac method is a good plan. For most individuals, I tend to recommend just getting a versatile 13-inch MacBook Pro or 15-inch if your budget allows it.
The last option is to offload your personal photos to a cloud-based online storage service, but if you have a lot of photos, you’ll be paying for it each month in installments for years (which is why I like onboard storage and external drives).
Special Note: If you already have a newer MacBook without enough storage, you still have two good storage upgrade options, both of which use tiny flash-based drives in the shape of camera memory cards. They plug into the SDXC card slot on your Mac. For all intents and purposes, the Transcend JetDrive Lite acts like a little USB thumb drive — but it fits flush into the SDXC card slot instead. The TarDisk Pear system, on the other hand, also uses the SDXC card slot but it combines with your built-in storage to form a single “fused” drive. If you want a near-permanent, easy solution, the TarDisk Pear system might be your best bet.
