Recommendations for a new Mac please

[GMB]

I have a 4 year old Mac Pro with two 2.8 GHZ Quadcore processors and 8 GB RAM. I find it increasingly frustatingly slow on LR 4 and CS6 (I shoot with M9 and S2). So I want to do something about it (and I don't want to move to Windows). Options are:

1) Keep the machine but add more RAM. Upside: not that expensive. Downside: putting more money into a 4 year old mashine.

2) Get a new Mac Pro. Upside: Can simply move hard disks from existing mashine to new one. Downside: costs and the new is also already 2 years old and I was told that Apple does not seem to invest into the Pro line.

3) 15" Retina Power Mac with 16 GB RAM. Upside: newest kid on the block; super fast SSD; portable but can be used with my currenty EIZO. Downside: costs; need to work with external drives and transfer all data to those.

4) Wait a couple of months when most likely the 27" IMac will be updated and use that with the EIZO as a second monitor and an SSD and 16 GB RAM. Upside: newest kid on the block; super fast SSD; two monitors; 27" great for showing photos. Downside: costs; need to work with external drives (and compared to PowerMac not portable).

Any views & recommendations much appreciated.

 

[bradhusick]

Option 3 is your best bet. (I assume you mean MacBook Pro, not Power Mac )

 

[stephengilbert]

Transfer all data? Can't you buy an external drive enclosure, and simply slot the old drives into it?

And an unlisted option is to upgrade the processor of your current machine: http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/turnkey/MacPro/2009_2010_Xeon_Processor/Apple_Mac_Pro_2010_2

 

[H. Mark Weidman]

Any new Mac that you buy includes an easy to use utility called Migration Assistant. With that utility it is very easy to connect to your older Mac, most often with a Firewire cable, and import all the data, applications, preferences, etc., into the new Mac. Depending on how much data you have it might take a few hours, but I have done it half a dozen times with various Macs and it works fine.