I don’t know how things are on the Mac side for this, but I recently purchased a new computer just for speeding up Dorico and Adobe Creative Cloud. Once the new PC was up and running, I decided to wipe my old Surface Pro 7 and reinstall Windows 11, installing only Office, Dorico, and some writing aps like Scrivener. Not only did I reclaim 140 GB of drive space, but the whole thing is world’s faster for Dorico. So much so, that I wouldn’t have needed the upgrade if it was just for that.
If this sort of thing works for a Mac, I’d start there…
That will work obviously, but as it will be using the swap file instead of RAM, it will slow all the audio processing down dramatically. If budget allows, being able to host the VSTs in RAM is certainly preferable!
To some extent. Apple Silicon has dedicated memory compression hardware, essentially zipping and unzipping data. The Memory Pressure indicates how much compression is in use. Audio samples lend themselves to compression pretty well.
Here’s the thing: There’s actually only a small amount of swap. 8Gb of compressed memory probably represents double that – or more! – in uncompressed data!
On a Mac, the OS is on a separate, secure, read-only partition – essentially it’s a disk image; so there’s never a need to ‘nuke and pave’. Having a good amount of free space on the drive will certainly help; and removing old apps and revising all the OS and user config settings can’t hurt.
Windows works pretty much the same way with a separate partition, but as the computer ages it (as I assume Apple does as well) collects an amazing amount of chuff that slows everything down. A fresh install is actually recommended by Microsoft as a cure for a system slowing over time, and there are different levels of install to suit your needs. I went with a clean install to reclaim the most disk space, as that had also become an issue. Drives tend to slow down the more full they become, and I had reached the limit of how much I felt I could remove.
I’ve often considered switching, but changing silicon usually brings its own unique problems. I, for instance, have never had to “trash a preference folder” FWIW.
But don’t ask about all the times I’ve had to modify the Registry…
When I got my Mac Studio I also went with 128GB, as well as a 2TB internal SSD. Not quite fully maxed out but by my standards it was twice as much for both than I had with my previous MacPro 2013 trash can.
The primary reason I did it was to “future proof” it for quite awhile, since I don’t plan on buying a new computer anytime soon. I originally thought that I would pay less upfront for lower specs and then upgrade the ram and SSD a couple years later, but I found out unlike previous macs the Mac Studio is a closed architecture – not only can you not upgrade it yourself, apparently you can’t even send it in to be upgraded. I’m not sure if they have changed this (I’m referring to my M2 from 2023, where I was told that I had to upgrade at the time of purchase).
Anyway, I have no regrets! It’s enabled me to run some pretty hefty Dorico templates, using NPPE and BBCSO Pro (when that was a thing), and with VEPro open, tons of VSTs, master bus plugins at higher sampling, all the while having Cubase open (since I work a lot between the two), and it has rarely blinked. I feel like had I gone with 64GB as I had previously, I would be hitting a ceiling often.
And as for the drive, I honestly wish I went even further with 4TB – but at that time it was quite expensive. I keep almost all of my projects and sample libraries / instruments on much larger external SSD drive which I back up, but back when I only had a 1TB internal drive I was constantly running low on drive space primarily due to applications getting bigger and all their caches and assets.
Long way of saying – I think it’s worth the extra specs even if you think you don’t need it today, as software gets more advanced so will the demands on hardware tomorrow.
As regards the Main drive - I currently have a 2TB drive and am filling up 40% of that. It requires maintenance - it has been as high as 65% at which point I start to get twitchy. It hadn’t occurred to me to upgrade beyond 2TB but I’ll think on that.
Stuff like this turned me off from Macs for a long time as I could build something just as fast for a fraction of the price. That changed with the Silicon Macs which are extremely fast, and honestly not that expensive for a basic setup. Obviously they gouge you with RAM and storage.
$2,160 for 8TB of storage, while you can get a Samsung 4TB 990 Pro for $299! Get two of the Samsungs M.2s, put them in a Thunderbolt housing, and save over $1K. As I mentioned earlier, I have 14TB of M.2 drives in an OWC Express 4M2 housing that I use for all my files, VSTs, etc. All my programs are on the internal 2TB drive, of which I’ve only filled about 800GB. (Two of the 4TB M.2 drives have over 3.5TB each, so I’m gonna have to shuffle things around fairly soon. The other 4TB only has 2.1TB on it.)
Yeah for me at 2TB, I don’t even keep any project files or samples or assets on the internal drive – apps and their required assets or media cache only – and it has totally saved me from the headache I used to experience with 1TB where every month or so I would get a low disk space warning, sometimes down to MBs, where my computer suddenly seemed ill! With 2TB I usually have a free space buffer of around 250GB, and if it gets any lower than that I just delete unused cache from some other apps I use (I do a lot of video stuff too which tends to really bloat with cache!). But I’ve survived with 2TB no problem.
Same, or similar – when I bought my mac studio I opted to go the OWC route with this external storage - OWC miniStack STX: Mac mini Thunderbolt 4 Storage (I like how it fits the form factor of the mac studio, it can rest underneath without heat issues, and the fan is very quiet)
I ended up getting 16TB of a standard spinning drive (7200 rpm) and 8 TB SSD which while expensive was drastically more cost effective than apple’s prices. At a whopping 24TB of space, I’m basically future-proofed for many many years to come, and no longer have to worry about making room when I invest in a new virtual instrument, especially since the sampling depth and sizes have only been getting bigger!
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