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Time for me to go Mac...

Jack

Sr. Administrator
Staff member
Vista is what finally pushed this die-hard PC user over the fence... Any tips or suggestions?
 

bradhusick

Active member
Jack,
I have put together what I believe is an ideal Photoshop CS3 Mac workstation, with advice from the engineers and support personnel at Adobe. Feel free to contact me for specs and tips.
-Brad
 
T

texasrancher

Guest
Jack - Like Guy, I nearly fell out of my chair with this latest revelation. I switched about 6 weeks ago - transition has been very painless. I would be interested in learning what desktop system you eventually assemble, as your tech knowledge & needs are far beyond mine. The MacBook Pro with 17" matte screen & 160 GB fastest hard drive has served me well. Added a LaCie 200 GB portable external drive where I keep all my images (also make DVD hard copies of all files), a stand to elevate laptop to same level as my Dell 24 inch monitor (which runs flawlessly with DVI input to Mac), bluetooth Apple Mighty Mouse & bluetooth keyboard. System gives great field portability with minimal hassle to connect to keyboard & desktop monitor when in the office - external HD & BT mouse go everywhere with laptop. I have not found it necessary at all to utilize MS Office for Mac, as $79 iWorks has been more than capable of reading & exporting Word & Excel files. I have not yet upgraded to Leopard operating system - my years of PC experience have made me leery of becoming a 1st adopter of new operating systems - am awaiting a few more "bug" fixes before doing so. Hope this helps. You will love Mac system - it just works! My IT tech is not too thrilled, though - not much for him to do.:)
 

Guy Mancuso

Administrator, Instructor
Well I just upgraded leopard and it went flawless on the MBP but my desktop was a nightmare and even worse i lost real raw images but that is another story. I have the desktop humming now but i had a few flies in the mix.

My specs are as follows for my Desktop

MacPro 2.66
6gb of ram and you have to match riser A and riser B with the same amount, this is very important
Main OS drive is Two WD 10 k Raptors but i just undid this and running on one 10k raptor now and the second 10 k Raptor is dedicated to LR library.

Drive 3 is a 500 gb 7200 internal that i like to call the junk pile. It has all the actions, downloads and files that need a quick place to go .

4th Drive another 500gb 7200 drive is Time machine which i partitioned 100gb to cloning the OS and the rest to Time machine. This drive will get a update soon to 1 TB drive and than pull the 500 gb and make it a externals.

External Drives are all Western Digital My Books one 750 and 2 500 gb. One drive is RAW only the other Final Master 16 bit Tif or PSD and the other is Graphics files . i do have one BIG client that i do graphic design for so they get there own drive.

Than every Master file is backed up with DVD's also.


Oh i use a 30 inch Cinema for the Desktop and a 23 inch for the Laptop.

Now both of these Monitors will be shipped to whatever workshop location .

Our new plan on workshops is 2 30 inch displays and 2 23 inch displays being powered by the Mac Pro and 2 graphics cards. i have a ATI 1900 which will push 2 30 inch displays and i will add the standard card which will push 2 23 inch displays. Lot's of horsepower and you can even get more. But i do run very well on the MacPro and laptop which has 4gb of Ram
 

Jack

Sr. Administrator
Staff member
Jack - Like Guy, I nearly fell out of my chair with this latest revelation. I switched about 6 weeks ago - transition has been very painless.
-- snip specs --
You will love Mac system - it just works! My IT tech is not too thrilled, though - not much for him to do.:)
Thanks for the encouragement Skip! My IT tech switched about three years ago and can't even help me with my PC issues anymore LOLOLOLOL!
 

bradhusick

Active member
Here's my suggested setup based on conversations with Adobe engineers and support managers while at Photoshop World in Las Vegas a few months ago.

Dual-dual 3.0GHz (no need for quad core, minor speed increase), 8GB or 12GB RAM, 250GB OS drive (that's all you'll need there), 500GB or 1TB Seagate internal drive for photos, another internal just like it for backups, dual external eSATA enclosure with dual 150GB WD Raptor 10K RPM drives solely as a scratch disk, connected to internal dual channel eSATA card. Don't slow the system down with firewire or USB external drives, stick to eSATA.

The external enclosure will also let you swap in other backup drives for weekly/monthly backups, then put them away in a fireproof/waterproof safe-box.

30" cinema display (goes without saying) and a Wacom Cintiq panel both running from the ATI X1900XT card (best choice for Photoshop).
 

PSon

Active member
Jack, this is what I got hope it is another alternative options for you to considered:

1. Mac Pro Quad 3.0 GHZ (Great speed for both Adobe but Video editing in which I can see in your future).

2. Raptor 10,000 RPM for all important applications such as Adobe

3. Scratch Disk, I raid two 7K RPM to make it fast and save you from buying another Raptor 10K RPM.

3. http://www.firmtek.com for external hard drive and hot swapable to save and archive

4. Super Duper for back up.

-Son
 

Guy Mancuso

Administrator, Instructor
Son that is what I want to do is rip out the drives in the Western Digital My Books and load them in a e-sata box. So all i would need is a e-sata controller card and the box of course. What i need to figure out though is what kind of drives are in my My Books IDE or Serial Ata drives. Need to make sure i can marry the two up.
 

PSon

Active member
Guy,
I cannot tell you how fast my Mac Book Pro with the SATA card in my labtop and the ability to swap 2 new hard drives for my archival. Putting together a fine data archival system is a must for top end photographer like you who clients will only climb each year. In addition to your workshop and personal shooting, you will need to store hard drives after hard drive in a moisture and static electricity control environment.

-Son
 

Guy Mancuso

Administrator, Instructor
Great that is what i will do than is get a e-sata controller and a box setup. Not a big fan at ALL of USB . I do use the Firewire 800 but the e-sata stuff is much better
 

PSon

Active member
yes the SATA techology made the firewire 800 slow (one fo the reason I own the high end Mac computers is due to the firewire 800 so that is how great the SATA technology has come). This set up will also be incredible for videography.
 

Jim Stone

Workshop Member
Jack,

What a surprise after the workshop cracks!! Guy must have finally gotten to you eh? But as the others have mentioned you ARE going the right way. Welcome to Mac world !! YOU won't have any difficulty learning its nuances being a computer type....no offense of course! :) If I could figure out the basics by myself, YOU will be an expert in no time.

Brad,

I would be interested in your recommended system also, so perhaps you could post it for the group??

Jim
 
C

Chris Herbert

Guest
I've been a Mac guy since 1989 (although digital photo processing is all quite new to me), so I think it's the right move as well! I'm a bit like an NRA guy with regard to my Mac... you'll take it from me only when you pry my cold, dead fingers off!

A couple suggestions. Take a look at G-Technology's drives. Very well designed (they supply a lot of Hollywood video talent) and they were the first -- and perhaps still the only -- ones to have a quad interface drive: USB, FW400, FW800, and eSATA. The flexibility and compatibility appealed to me. I now travel with one or two of their small drives (FW/USB only... no eSATA) so that I have immediate back-up of whatever comes off an SD card and goes onto my G4 laptop.

Also, the suggestion to store drives carefully is well taken. But be careful. An ordinary fireproof file cabinet or safe may not be enough. I use Sentry Media Safes (Staples has had good prices in the past), which are designed to keep temperature and humidity levels during a fire below the maximums which Hitachi and Seagate (the makers of the drives in the G-Tech enclosures) recommend. Fireproof files designed for paper (which burns at 451 degrees... remember the Ray Bradbury book?) allow things to get way too hot inside. For large quantities of storage, there are much larger media safe options at much higher prices, but I can easily fit 3 G-Tech 750GB drives in one such safe. I've got quite a few pix to shoot before I fill those drives... but with my new M8 finally arrived this week, I may find myself filling them faster than I think!
 

Lars

Active member
Hmm I had a discussion with a friend re fireproofing backup media, we agreed that it is not worth the effort, better put the effort into keeping one copy (or two) offsite and circulate copies once at regular intervals like weekly. After all, you can never be quite sure that anything is bombproof anyway.
 
C

Chris Herbert

Guest
No disagreement from me on that idea! I have multiple redundant backups, including at home and offsite (primarily a safe deposit box at a local bank that, for convenience, is right next door to my favorite grocery store; but occasionally I just give a drive to my wife to store at her office). But, for practical purposes, I think one needs some sort of protection at home that at least MAY offer some protection from fire. The problem with offsite storage, at least in my experience, is that there are often several days of work done that are backed up only in the most convenient place -- be it home, office, or studio -- and not taken to the offsite location because it's a hassle. But all this is a lot like the whole question of how much insurance to buy. In the final analysis, it all comes down to how much risk one wishes to take.

The main point I wanted to make is that if someone wants to store things at home, it's best not to think that a simple "safe" is going to offer the protection one really needs for digital media.
 

PeterA

Well-known member
Jack I have used macs for personal work since swatting through two years of MBA 20 years ago...I recently upgraded my Macs (one for office one for home and one for farm ) to 2x2.6Intel Xeons x 8 gig ram..you should buy Fusion which allows you to run windowsX or Vista ( why would you run this piece of crapola?) and MacOSX at the same time..the programme allows your intel chipped mac to dynamically allocate ram according to wether you are running one or both operating systems at the same time. there ya go mate - the best of both worlds....email me if you like..
 

Jack

Sr. Administrator
Staff member
Jack I have used macs for personal work since swatting through two years of MBA 20 years ago...I recently upgraded my Macs (one for office one for home and one for farm ) to 2x2.6Intel Xeons x 8 gig ram..you should buy Fusion which allows you to run windowsX or Vista ( why would you run this piece of crapola?) and MacOSX at the same time..the programme allows your intel chipped mac to dynamically allocate ram according to wether you are running one or both operating systems at the same time. there ya go mate - the best of both worlds....email me if you like..
Hi Peter:

Yes, my plan is to run XP through Fusion. I have one program that is PC only that I like, and their stated Mac solution is Fusion/XP LOL! Beyond that, most every other piece of software I use is cross platform.

Cheers,
 

Guy Mancuso

Administrator, Instructor
Also remember Adobe will transfer your License and send all new software that are registered for the shipping fee. It was great when I switched and saved bundles of money making the switch. Office for Mac is 150 dollars. so not as bad as some think. Of course Rip software and such maybe a issue
 
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