6 ways to boost your Mac's storage without paying Apple's insane upgrade prices

You'll have to resort to external solutions that aren't as convenient but more affordable.

- BY ROMAN LOYOLA

Apple offers pretty good prices on the standard configurations of its Macs. $599 for an M4 Mac mini? $999 for a new M4 MacBook Air? $1,299 for a new M4 iMac? Those are attractively priced. But those prices involve a few sacrifices, most notably the starting storage of just 256GB. A quarter of a terabyte might sound like a lot, but much of what we do on the Mac involves large files—high-resolution pictures, videos, games (literally the biggest culprit), and a lot more—so 256GB runs out quickly.

Apple does give customers the option to upgrade storage at the point of purchase, of course, but their prices are steep. Upgrading from 256GB to 512GB (the minimum amount we recommend) is an extra $200/£200, and jumping to a terabyte is another $200, turning an attractive entry-level offering into a pricey one.

But if you don't want to plunk down the extra money, you can still expand your Mac's storage without paying Apple's exorbitant prices. The alternatives here are mostly external storage solutions—in other words, you'll need to carry and plug in an extra device—but the compromise can help you meet your budget.

External drives offer a great combination of price and capacity.

EXTERNAL SSDS AND HARD DRIVES

Pros: Best price-capacity ratio; large range of capacities available.

Cons: One more thing to carry or clutter your desk; faster performance usually means higher prices.