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Time for a new machine... having trouble with Apple offerings

Jorgen Udvang

Subscriber Member
FWIW, I use a maxed out 15" retina MBP with thunderbolt displays. It's not the cheapest solution, but it works for me, and I always have my main man with me
That was the conclusion I came to in the end as well. I'm comfortable with it as long as I don't think about the Zeiss Otus those monies could have bought me... :cry:
 

Jorgen Udvang

Subscriber Member
If you can tolerate Windoze and the associated viruses and spyware then by all means go cheaper.

No thank you. How much is your time worth?
Don't even talk about it. I recently spent several hours ridding my father's computer of a nasty, little virus. He runs Norton and all, but the nasty little bugger found a way around that too :(

PS. For those interested, the virus set the incoming signal of the automatic time/date adjustment many years back, effectively disabling many programs like Java etc., but also Norton updates. Disabling the automatic update and setting the correct time manually enabled me to re-install Norton and get rid of it, but sometimes the simplest things (like checking if the date is correct) is what I remember last.
 

Godfrey

Well-known member
FWIW, I use a maxed out 15" retina MBP with thunderbolt displays. It's not the cheapest solution, but it works for me, and I always have my main man with me
I use a rather minimal MacBook Pro 13" Retina for all my writing work, and if I were to buy another laptop for myself (the office provides me my work machines) I'd likely buy the same thing for myself ... or a MacBook Air 13" when they do a Retina screen for it. I use the laptop in conjunction with the Thunderbolt Display, both at the office and at home.

But I've long since stopped carrying a laptop when I travel. On travel I carry just an iPad mini now, saves a ton of space and weight, and is good enough for the occasional couple of images I want to check or process on the road. I bought the Mac mini for my image processing work at home because I realized it saved me a bundle (already had the Thunderbolt Display, etc) over buying the laptop.

I'm running about 50-50 on film to digital capture lately, so having the latest, greatest image processing machine with me all the time doesn't really speed things up by much. Leaves more time to look around and hunt for photo opportunities... ;-)

G
 

JMyerz

New member
I too am at the same crossroad, editing 2k video and retouching MF files are taking it's toll on my aging MacBookPro. Pricing out a new MacPro or even iMac is giving me severe sticker shock.

I've also been incredibly frustrated with the stability of Adobe in the OSX environment. It seems that every time apple updates their patches adobe gets buggy until they update their programs. Cursors disappear, CC14 crashing, etc etc. It's especially frustrating as my studio mate whizzes along nicely on his PC with very few issues.

Viruses are a concern, but from what I understand aren't nearly the issues they were 5-10 years ago. Here is what I do know:

Get Windows 7 pro (Super Stable)
Buy top of the line hardware, don't skimp.
Build it on the side so that your not without a machine

Best,

J
 

k-hawinkler

Well-known member
I highly recommend the 6-Core nMP, fully loaded. A wonderful machine for photography, provided one has sufficient fast storage attached to it. :)
 

T.Karma

New member
I am a Mac Book Pro user, with bootcamp alongside Win7 Pro, because I have to, for some ERP software (MS Database). When it comes to workstations I build my own machines and take care to use only hardware that is specified for server applications. It may not have the best price/performance ratio, but solidness is a very nice feature.
I have never any issues with stability, running Win 7 Pro.
 

mjm6

Member
So, I figured I'd follow up with what I decided to do...

I was all set to build a PC and probably run it as a Hackintosh. Really spec it up and then be good for a long time on that machine.

I had the gear priced up and was about to pull the trigger, and I though about it some more, and realized that I believe that it massive overkill for the volume of images I do right now.

I reviewed my Mac Pro a bit more and then decided to spend some money on upgrades and hold on to it for a bit while longer. At some point in the future, Adobe won't support it any more as it is locked at OS 10.7.5 but frankly, that is just fine with me for the time being. I really like the Mac Pro and don't want to part with it anytime soon.

a nMP is simply massive overkill for photography, and way too much money. I think it is a very poor investment for most photographers unless you are moving a huge amount of large images regularly.

I upgraded the CPUs in the machine to the best that are compatible, and installed SSDs in for the OS and apps and another one for cache. I upgraded the video card to speed up the 2D processes somewhat. I installed a USB3 card in a slot and put together an external HD box with redundancy into the HDs in the machine (weekly backup). Finally, I swapped out one of the smaller HDs with a larger one.

All in all, it was about $500 or so, not counting the external HD box. I think that was money well spent, because I will probably get another 5 years out of the machine now before it gets relegated to backup or recycled. Considering I got about 6+ years out of it so far, I think it will be overall the best computer I've ever owned.

At this point, I'm very pleased with the results. Not the fastest machine out there, but it's costing me very little to own right now, and it is capable of meeting my needs fully.


---Michael
 

jonoslack

Active member
If you can tolerate Windoze and the associated viruses and spyware then by all means go cheaper.

No thank you. How much is your time worth?
How much is your money worth.

Two of our clients have recently had a virus which locked all their data . . . and requested large payments to reinstate it. Luckily they had proper backups, but many people are forced to pay this money.

I appreciate the shortcomings of Apple, and I use VMware virtual machines for what I need to do in XP, Windows 7 and Windows 8. . . But the concept of running my life on a Windoze machine turns my blood cold.
 

k-hawinkler

Well-known member
Well, life is too short to muck around with PCs! :D

Seven or eight years ago I gave up on individual USB and Firewire drives. Not enough storage, too slow, and a cable mess! I switched over to FirmTek eSATA enclosures. My dual 2.5 GHZ PPC G5, that lasted for over 9 years, worked great with those FirmTek eSATA enclosures. Over the years I upgraded my disk drives from .5 to .75, 1, 2, 3, and currently 4 TB drives. Speeds improved quite a bit as well. So, when after more than 9 years, I finally replaced my dual G5 with the nMP I was looking for a way to continue to use my substantial investment in eSATA enclosures. Luckily, Firmtek developed an adapter that permits attaching the eSATA enclosures via Thunderbolt.

Here is a diagram of my current system



and corresponding sustained data rates as a function of buffer size.





A current individual 4 TB disk drive can sustain up to about 150 MB/s of read and write speeds for large buffer sizes. With 8 spindles that can scale up to about 1200 MB/s as the first graph above shows for about 1 MB buffer size.

SSDs have different performance characteristics. In particular, their read speeds are impressive.

Is such a system overkill for processing photographic images or videos? Maybe yes, maybe not.
It certainly permits to fly through videos or large number of images with impressive speed.

This Forum has a large number of threads entitled "Fun with ...".
My guess, we need a thread entitled "Fun with Computing!". :eek:
 

jonoslack

Active member
This Forum has a large number of threads entitled "Fun with ...".
My guess, we need a thread entitled "Fun with Computing!". :eek:
:clap::bugeyes::cry:
I'm impressed K-H I'm a simple person at heart, and I've gone over to SSD's except for backup purposes. Works for me :)
 

Jorgen Udvang

Subscriber Member
I have now had my new MBP Retina 15" for a week. The only thing I can say is... :clap:

Do you remember the "good" old days, when you started Photoshop, then went for a cup of coffee, had a chat with a colleague on the way back, and upon returning to your office, Photoshop was almost finished loading?

On this machine, Photoshop CS6 starts in less than 2 seconds, and even Premiere Pro CC is ready for work in less than 6. It wasn't cheap this toy, and with 2.8GHz Quad-core Intel Core i7, 16GB RAM and 1TB SSD, it's the fastest portable machine that Apple has in their lists right now, but it's almost worth it :)

Half an hour of HD video outputs from Premiere in 5-10 minutes btw. I don't know how long it took on my old Mini, since I mostly started that just before going to bed, but the improvement is huge. Great fun this is :)
 

fotografz

Well-known member
I have now had my new MBP Retina 15" for a week. The only thing I can say is... :clap:

Do you remember the "good" old days, when you started Photoshop, then went for a cup of coffee, had a chat with a colleague on the way back, and upon returning to your office, Photoshop was almost finished loading?

On this machine, Photoshop CS6 starts in less than 2 seconds, and even Premiere Pro CC is ready for work in less than 6. It wasn't cheap this toy, and with 2.8GHz Quad-core Intel Core i7, 16GB RAM and 1TB SSD, it's the fastest portable machine that Apple has in their lists right now, but it's almost worth it :)

Half an hour of HD video outputs from Premiere in 5-10 minutes btw. I don't know how long it took on my old Mini, since I mostly started that just before going to bed, but the improvement is huge. Great fun this is :)
Thanks for this report Jorgen!

I have to outfit a second work station in a new location, and have been debating between a maxed out iMac and the same MBP you just got + a Thunderbolt monitor.

Your report makes the decision even harder.

I like the idea of a highly portable but speedy/powerful lap-top for tethered location work.

- Marc
 

emr

Member
My late 2009 Mac Mini with 4 GB is getting pretty slow with ost processing and I'm also wondering if I should buy something new or upgrade it with 8 GB and an SSD. But considering the different Apple models, I feel they're not selling what I'd need. The Minis are made with the focus on being small and not necessary powerful. The iMacs on the other hand come with integrated displays, while I'd prefer to use an external one as I always have. Don't know how good the iMac displays are for post processing and accurate colour profiles. And then we have the Mac Pros which are over the top for me both specs and money wise. What I'd prefer is a separate Mac without an integrated display and located in the huge hole between a Mini and a Pro.
I ended up upgrading my current late 2009 Mini with 8 GB of RAM and a 256 GB Samsung 840 Pro SSD. And it is faster and smoother, although not quite the power boost I was hoping for. But as it is at the moment, it's usable with 16 Mpix RAW image post processing for now.
 

Jorgen Udvang

Subscriber Member
I ended up upgrading my current late 2009 Mini with 8 GB of RAM and a 256 GB Samsung 840 Pro SSD. And it is faster and smoother, although not quite the power boost I was hoping for. But as it is at the moment, it's usable with 16 Mpix RAW image post processing for now.
That's an interesting solution, and something I should consider for the Mini I have at home which is now used as a file/print server.

- Did you do the upgrade yourself?
- What was the cost of the upgrade?
 

Swissblad

Well-known member
Thanks for this report Jorgen!

I have to outfit a second work station in a new location, and have been debating between a maxed out iMac and the same MBP you just got + a Thunderbolt monitor.

Your report makes the decision even harder.

I like the idea of a highly portable but speedy/powerful lap-top for tethered location work.

- Marc
I can concur that the new MPBs are great machines....highly recommended.

Query to Jorgen - can the memory on the MPB be upgraded from 512mb to 1Tb?
 

emr

Member
That's an interesting solution, and something I should consider for the Mini I have at home which is now used as a file/print server.

- Did you do the upgrade yourself?
- What was the cost of the upgrade?
Yup, did it myself. The SSD was about 150 € in Europe and the Corsair branded RAM about 80 €. 1066 MHz RAM is getting rarer in stores and allegedly some or all 1333 MHz memory do not work. The HD and memory upgrade isn't probably meant to be done by user, but with a suitable screwdriver set and a little care, it's not so hard. There are videos on Youtube showing how to do it.

EDIT: This video shows the memory upgrade process https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KaHNLR6Aac
 

fotografz

Well-known member
Hold the phone.

My Mac Business consultant called today to let me know that there may be a new iMac coming … and may be announced this Thursday. So far just a rumor, but there IS an announcement coming this week so stay tuned whether it is the purported new iMac.

- Marc
 

Jorgen Udvang

Subscriber Member
I can concur that the new MPBs are great machines....highly recommended.

Query to Jorgen - can the memory on the MPB be upgraded from 512mb to 1Tb?
According to Apple; no, it can't. You have to order it with 1TB to start with, which is a special order. However, there are third party solutions available, but I don't know if you save much since you've paid for the 512MB already.
 
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