If You Have An iPhone 17 Pro, You Might Be Using The Camera App Wrong

The iPhone 17 Pro is earning strong reviews globally, with critics praising the latest iOS device's enhanced display, improved battery life, and upgraded camera features. One notable improvement is the ability to shoot video at up to 4K resolution at 120 frames per second. But hear us out: Capturing everyday moments with the Pro's settings maxed out is often overkill, especially when it comes to data consumption.

If you're the proud owner of an iPhone 17 Pro (or Pro Max) with an A19 Pro chip and 2TB of internal storage, shooting 4K at 120fps (based on data collected from an iPhone 16 Pro) is estimated to burn through about 7GB per minute. That means an hour of 4K/120fps footage eats up around 420GB, or a little more than one-fifth of your phone's 2TB of storage. Once you factor in apps, messaging, and other storage-hungry features, you'll likely find your storage depleting faster than you expected. 

Fortunately, changing your iPhone's video recording settings is easy. Simply launch Settings, then tap Camera > Record Video. Even lowering the frame rate to, say, 30 fps while maintaining 4K resolution will reduce strain on the processor, battery, and internal memory.

Generally speaking, the only time you'll really want to use 4K/120fps is when you're recording action-oriented content, such as sporting events or your pet's latest zoomies. This is because shooting at a higher frame rate captures more visual information per second, delivering refined details and smoother motion when subjects are moving quickly. This is particularly useful during editing, as you can switch to slow motion and apply other post-production effects while preserving the quality of the high-frame-rate footage you captured.

If shooting at higher resolutions and frame rates is a regular part of your video-taking workflow, you can ease the strain on your iPhone 17 Pro's OS and internal memory by investing in an external SSD for offloading footage. This LaCie 1TB Mobile SSD Secure USB-C Drive is sold exclusively through Apple and delivers up to 1,000 Mbps for write speeds and 1,050 Mbps for read speeds. The product page even highlights that this LaCie model is tailor-made for recording 4K/120fps in Dolby Vision, in both video mode and slo-mo.

The SSD comes with everything you need to start transferring files, including a USB-C cable. Just be sure you're using an iPhone 15 or later (since Apple switched from Lightning to USB-C in that model), and that your device is running iOS 14 or later, since that version (and subsequent ones) includes support for external drives in the Files app.

If you'd rather not invest in an external SSD but still want to use your iPhone 17 Pro to shoot at higher resolutions and frame rates, you could opt for a cloud storage subscription instead. Services like iCloud+ and Google One offer user-friendly tools for safely extracting and storing video files and other content from your iPhone. And since these work not only on desktop apps and websites but across connected devices, as long as you have an internet connection, you'll be able to access your footage from virtually anywhere in the world.

Prices for iCloud+ start at $0.99 per month for 50GB, but if you're pushing your iPhone to its ProRes limits (a feature that Android fans wish they had), it makes sense to invest in at least the 2TB plan for $9.99 per month. There are also 6TB and 12TB options — priced $29.99 per month and $59.99 per month, respectively.

On the Google side, Google One's pricing starts at $1.99 per month for 100GB, with a Premium plan at $9.99 per month for 2TB. Power users may even want to sign up for Google AI Pro for $19.99 per month, which adds several Google AI features, alongside 2TB of monthly storage. If you want as much storage as possible, as well as the best of Google's AI features, Google offers the AI Ultra plan for $249.99 per month.