There is nothing wrong with buying an 8tb spinning disk, and copying files to the internal SSD as needed. I use a 8t drive for primary video and picture storage, and copy it out for heavy processing.

I put this 3M super Velcro right over the apple logo on my MBP, and on all my external SSDs. With short cords it tucks around nicely on the back and fully stays out of the way without issues. This is not my photo but it shows basically what I do, although mine is covering the logo since my cords are slightly longer. Between my 4tb internal, multiple 4tb externals, and a 100tb NAS, I juggle a lot of footage and this solution works great for me

You could also just ball out and get the 8tb internal also…

Interface doesn't matter and I really doubt you're going to notice a difference between a SATA SSD drive and NVME SSD if you're using it for music. USB 3.0 is fast enough, I'm sure someone is going to chime in and be like "but Blackmagic Disk Speed Test says it's faster", for just audio stuff you're not going to notice a difference; video editing is a different matter.

I store my sound library on an external nvme drive with thunderbolt.

Put what away? No damage and I’ve rocked that setup for years on various planes/cars/cafes/etc, all sorts of scenarios I’d argue it’s way easier to cause damage with loose peripherals vs solidly attached like mine. MBPs are tanks and I don’t baby any of my tools at all

You're not going to notice any speed difference between thunderbolt or USB 3.0 for your purposes. Even though it might benchmark higher in Blackmagic Disk Speed Test for audio you're not going to notice any difference; video is a different matter as that is much higher bandwidth than something like audio. Just get whatever external SSD.

The way SD cards are designed isn’t the same as a use case of an external SSD, if you use a SD care like they are designed, for example take a bunch of photos on a camera, take out the SD card, offload the photos, format the SD card, and repeat; you won’t run into issues with a quality card. It’s when you use them like an external SSD that then you can run into issues. They just don’t have the same level of a per-bit controller to manage lifespan that a proper external SSD has. That is a very basic explanation that doesn’t explain the technicalities

I've been trying to understand this too.. such a bummer we can't just plug in a nice fat SD card and fix all our MacBook storage problems haha

For extra co tent storage I threw in a flush 2tb extreme sdcard, flush, into the sdcard slot. I love it.

Truly insane I just ran this test on my M1 pro MBP and got 5500 for both.

What is the SSD capacity ?

Well that’s because they aren’t disks.

Old MacBook Pros are pretty fast too...

https://preview.redd.it/sxkx95fbduye1.png?width=1484&format=png&auto=webp&s=a6de7f934c681129b554f64eaa9df0d2aafb3205

... just having a little fun. ;)

diskutil partitionDisk $(hdiutil attach -nomount ram://16777216) 1 GPTFormat APFS 'ramdisk' '100%'

Why is this a screenshot of posting the image to reddit?

Yes, it is possible to upgrade the SSD in your MacBook Pro. You have the very last model that has a non-soldered SSD, though it does use a proprietary form factor drive. OWC sells custom drives that fit in that MacBook Pro, and while they're pretty pricey for their capacity they do work out of the box. You can also use your own SSD with an adapter board, but I've heard that some people have had some issues with that approach.

Here's a link to the OWC drive: https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/ssd/owc/macbook-pro-13-inch-non-touch-bar/2016-2017

Yes. Like champ says. There’s only two issues. Have to use smaller 2242 drive. That is, 42 and not the far more common 80mm drives. And a lot of people, myself included, have weird sleep and restart issues. Mine fails on both. I always have to shut down and turn on instead of restart or letting it sleep.

Buy an external mobile drive. Only way.

No.

Invest in an external SSD such as Samsung T7, and possibly NAS

Lots of good info here. Works with Airs too.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/upgrading-2013-2015-macbook-pro-ssd-to-m-2-nvme.2034976/

What MacBook do you have? Any USB 3.0 external drive should work just fine but if your computer has thunderbolt ports this would be even better for transferring large amounts of data.

ETA: Just checked, as you have an M3 MBP no you can’t upgrade the internal storage so an external drive is definitely the way to go something like this maybe?

>Is there an external hard drive or SSD that can function almost like an extension of my MacBook’s internal storage?

Not sure what you mean by "like an extension," but you can certainly add a second storage drive via USB. Which MacBook model? Different years have different USB data transfer rates, which will directly influence our recommendations and possibly spare your wallet some.

Asus TUF Gaming faster than internal SSD. I worked for a long time on a 256GB Macbook pro and tried an external Samsung 500GB PRO SSD and other SSDs.

Have you considered using a tool like Clop to optimize all the videos and pictures for you? It would be done automatically every time you receive one

https://lowtechguys.com/clop/

It's honestly probably my favorite app that I've purchased. I use it in tandem with Cleanshot X

To address your needs for expanding storage on your MacBook Air and installing apps on an external SSD, you can use Satechi USB-C NVMe and SATA SSD Enclosure - it supports M.2 NVMe and SATA SSDs in all sizes with tool-free design for easy installation and compatibility with macOS.

You can easily move items in your internal SSD's Applications folder to an external SSD and create an alias back into the original internal Applications folder. Just remember that if you travel with it, you also need to take that external drive or else you won't have those apps. So you may want to prioritize moving apps you aren't as likely to need on the road and/or those where speed/performance is less critical.

SD cards slip right into the slot. 512GB size cost ~$90.

How about a 2TB SSD? Leave out all the cables etc.

Booting from a thunderbolt drive is honestly not that painful. But I'd very much consider it a placeholder while you're remaining 32bit apps get replaced or upgraded.

I’m still using a Mavericks for my old 32 bit apps on a partition on my drive and Mojave in the 2nd one

just don't upgrade?

There's no reason to unless you plan to start saving a lot of things on your computer. If you're being sent photos and things you would like to save that can begin to fill up your drive.

If you click the Apple Icon in the top left and choose "About this Mac" you'll get an info box about your machine. Click more info and it takes you to the settings app and shows you an overview of your computer. At the bottom of the general tab in settings, you'll see your storage drive including ho9w much data is on it out of the maximum space you have. If you notice this starting to fill up, it might be worth thinking about buying external storage.

I hardly ever install or save anything on my M1 Air and after two years of continuous use (purchased in October 2021) I still have 166 GB free of my original 256 GB. If you're mostly sticking to the internet, you just won't use that space up.

you’re fine until the macbook starts throwing warnings saying you’re running out of space, that’s when you should get more space…otherwise, just enjoy it right now.

If ur worried just get cloud storage sure it might cost more but like it’s so much more convenient

But as far as a ssd id wait till u get to like 200gb cause honestly sounds like u won’t be doing much that even phones could do and those only the past few yrs been making the minimum 128 so u being at double should be fine 🐱

Hold back for a while til you actually need it. Meanwhile you can use icloud or any cloud storage

I think the advice you hear is implying an "if-then-statement," as in, "if you need more than the base model 256 GB drive, then buy an external SSD to store your files because otherwise (during purchase) you'll need to spec up the drive size and Apple is charging too much for that."

Since you seem to only be using the Air for web apps and services (eg. YouTube, email, web browsing) instead of for storing apps, media, photo collections, then 256 GB will be more than sufficient for your needs.

For me, macOS and System Data are taking up a combined 46 GB, which if I had your drive, would leave me 210 GB of free space. For your needs that should be plenty of free space for the lifetime of the device.

What you should keep in mind is a backup strategy. Ask yourself, "What would I miss if my Air was stolen or died overnight?" That is what you should backup. If everything is online (eg. email) then you have nothing to worry about.

But if you have precious photos and digital videos from your phone, it may be best to download the originals to your Mac, and then make copies onto external drives, so that they exist in three places:

1. online

2. your MacBook Air

3. an external SSD (which you will encrypt with a password)

You then take that SSD and keep it off-site, like at your family member's (or a trusted friend's) home, or workplace, or even the car, and store it there in case of fire, theft, or natural disaster. You can use an app like Time Machine to do the initial backup (which copies your Mac) and then periodically update that backup as you collect more and more photos.