Considering a new Mac, memory and storage advise needed
The 2022.5 update forces me to upgrade my 2013 16 gb iMac a bit sooner then I hoped and now I am stuck between choices.
Running on osx 10.14 I experience memory issues quite a lot and sometimes my computer stalls completely. So I am in doubt about which memory size to choose.
Having a keyboard and separate monitor the mac mini could be a good choice, but has a max of 16 gb RAM. Would that be enough to run Photo Raw or any other photo software now and in the next couple of years?
My alternatives are the 16” macbooks and the mac studio.
My second question is about the internal disk size. Currently I have a 3 tb hard disk but I am thinking about moving my data to the cloud. Are there any issues with PR to think about in regard to performance and workflow?
Thanks in advance,
Martin
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I'm running a 16GB M1 Mini without any problems. The newer M2 chips have the ability for more than 16GB RAM but they are only available in the MacBook Air for now.
Where is your 3TB drive? Have you considered putting it in an external enclosure and continuing to use it?
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I am running a 16Gbyte M1 iMac and performance for On1, Photoshop etc feels much faster than my previous 32 Gbyte 2019 iMac, though it arrived at the same time as the 2022 upgrades were coming out so some might be linked to those as well.
I hope that performance will survive for the next few years. One issue might be size of files being worked on, I have been using Micro 4/3 cameras for the last 10 years or so, so my RAW files are 16-20 Mbytes. Working with some of the newer much higher resolution files might start to put pressure on memory in the future.
Not sure that I would want to work on images that are held in the cloud unless there are copies cached locally so that network access does not become a bottle neck. I added a dock to my system to give extra ports to spread filestore across several devices - SSD for recent photos, SSD for Scratch files and hard disk for older images. Programs etc live on internal SSD. Spreading storage in this way improves performance because it gives several channels between storage devices and computer.
Hope this helps.
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I have both a 2019 Mac mini and Macbook pro. Again the mini has 16Gb memory, but I have a 2TB SSD as a scratch drive/second hard drive.
Only on very large files does the mac mini slow down. Yes the Macbook pro is faster, but not by much
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Thank you all.
My 3TB hard drive is the system drive so I cannot reuse if I want to sell my current iMac.
But I am down to 2 options now, being a mac mini or 14” MacBook pro. Both with 16Gb memory, a 1Tb ssd and external drives (ssd or hard drive).
To extend the number of connections I want to use a dock. Do you have any suggestions about these?0 -
I use one from Other World Computing – owc.com
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I'm using a M1 MacBook Air with 16 GB RAM, and On1 works well there - frankly faster than the high-end 2018 15" MacBook Pro I use for work. The M2 Air looks like it'll be even better.
I've used USB-C mini-docks from a couple of companies. VaVa's dock has a lot of ports and performs very well, but it's a bit expensive. Monoprice's Consul series also performs well and has several cheaper options, as well as several options with different combinations of ports; however, they don't have just one dock with all of the ports of the VaVa.
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Unfortunately the docks Brian and Travis mention are hard to get in the Netherlands, but I found the Satechi ST-TCMM8PAS. Would that be a fitting dock?
And I am not sure if I want an ssd as they are around 2.5 times as expensive as a hd of the same size. Do you really notice the speed difference?
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Very much so. I have several very modern hd’s and 4 ssd’s. The ssd’s are lightning fast compared to the hd’s, so much so that my workflow copies raw files from the card to the ssd and I edit from there. I very rarely have anything on the computer drive.
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You'll notice it if you boot from one. If all you're doing is loading a photo for editing, probably not so much. Copying your photos from the SD card to the drive, yes.
You have to decide upon the drive's use and whether or not the increased speed during that use is worth the increased cost.
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