Looking for a better storage solution

Currently im running Ableton Live on a Macbook and am saving my projects on locally/iCloud, and now that my storage is near full 470Gb+/500, iCloud seems to be deleting any projects locally and only redownloading/syncing when I’m looking to reopen projects.

I currently using a 1TB external for samples, plugin resources.

Should I be putting projects on external and plugins locally?

I’d like to hear some thoughts and how you guys currently have your storage system configured where it feels good.

Thanks