Mac Pro’s 8TB SSD upgrade costs more than a MacBook Pro 16-inch

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Apple has added the option for buyers of the Mac Pro 2019 to grab themselves an 8TB SSD when ordering their workstation.

At launch, which of course wasn’t much more than a week ago, the maximum capacity available was 4TB, and Apple promised the ability to double that was coming – so now it’s here, but as you can imagine, the upgrade comes with a fair old cost.

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As Mac Rumors spotted, upgrading from the base 256GB storage option to 8TB will set you back $2,600 (£2,340 / AU$4,160).

Nobody will argue that’s a hefty chunk of cash, and indeed it’s actually a dollar more than you’ll pay for the more expensive 8-core CPU spin on the new MacBook Pro 16-inch (which weighs in at $2,599, without any upgrades).

However, in the great scheme of what’s usually charged for workstation upgrades, the cost of the 8TB SSD isn’t really surprising. And those speccing up a truly high-end Mac Pro, which could cost something like 50 grand plus, will probably view it as a palatable upgrade – if they want the maximum amount of internal storage.

Remember that while the Mac Pro benefits from a modular design and is made to be easy to upgrade and repair, the SSD isn’t something you can replace yourself, as it’s tied in with the PC’s T2 security chip, so an Apple technician is required to facilitate replacement.

At any rate, for many people, if they want more storage with the Mac Pro, there are plenty of alternative options for hooking up external drives (like an NVMe SSD via PCIe).

GPU choices

Some further options are also coming for the new Mac Pro on the graphics card front, with the availability of the Radeon Pro W5700X (along with a dual GPU configuration using that AMD graphics solution).

While all this talk of Mac Pro’s costing 50 grand might seem ridiculous to the average consumer (and understandably so), for the professional creatives who the PC is aimed at, Apple’s new machine is actually relatively competitively priced when you look at other workstations that the likes of videographers might use.

Even so, the $400 (£360 / AU$640) wheels are clearly a step too far, and moves like that aren’t helping the overall perception of the Mac Pro’s pricing.

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