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What Mac for my needs ?

F

FrenchPB

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Sep 15, 2005
389
0
Dear all,

I would like to have your opinions on what Mac would best suit my needs, and the options are wide open...
I currently own a 2011 27-inch iMac and would like a replacement as it's getting very slow with its old hard drive.

I mostly use it for the Photos app (photo management and a bit of editing) and the PLEX server (media server always available, to watch videos on my TVs and iPads). I use VLC to watch HD video also. I don't really have a budget limit but don't want to spend money on things I don't need.

I'm kinda lost with the choices because I could go with different options with iMac, Mac Mini or even MacBook. I could for instance plug a Mac Mini to my main TV, but I'm not sure I'd be comfortable managing photos sitting away 4-5 meters from the TV. The MacBook options may not be what I need since I'd like the Plex server to work most of the time.

Could you also advise me on what processor/ RAM/ hard drive would make the most sense for me ?
Really appreciate all the help from this forum.
 
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FrenchPB said:
Dear all,

I would like to have your opinions on what Mac would best suit my needs, and the options are wide open...
I currently own a 2011 27-inch iMac and would like a replacement as it's getting very slow with its old hard drive.

I mostly use it for the Photos app (photo management and a bit of editing) and the PLEX server (media server always available, to watch videos on my TVs and iPads). I use VLC to watch HD video also. I don't really have a budget limit but don't want to spend money on things I don't need.

I'm kinda lost with the choices because I could go with different options with iMac, Mac Mini or even MacBook. I could for instance plug a Mac Mini to my main TV, but I'm not sure I'd be comfortable managing photos sitting away 4-5 meters from the TV. The MacBook options may not be what I need since I'd like the Plex server to work most of the time.

Could you also advise me on what processor/ RAM/ hard drive would make the most sense for me ?
Really appreciate all the help from this forum.
Click to expand...

I think if you like using an iMac, then a new iMac would probably be a better match for you. Part of the reason for the hard drive slow down is that I am assuming you are just using the built-in hard drive to store all your photos and videos. When you do that, it clogs up the system and slows it down. Basically, the best practise to ensure the system does not clog up with a lot of photos and videos is to place them outside of your internal drive and onto an external drive. But because your 2011 is dated and it doesn't have Thunderbolt 3 (which is what you need for quick mass storage access) ports, you are better off in getting a new iMac 27" with good enough specs and a big enough Fusion drive (a combo 128Gb SSD + xTB drive) to store your apps and then get a very large Thunderbolt 3 external hard drive to store all your photos and videos. Even a very large USB 3 drives with support of UASP (USB Assisted SCSI Protocol) will suffice as well if Thunderbolt 3 drives are difficult to get in your area. This way, the boot system won't be clogged up with all your photos and videos and you will achieve maximum speed with your iMac. I agree with you that the Mac Mini and the Macbook aren't ideal machines for what you need. Get something you're familiar with and happy with.
 
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iluvmacs99 said:
I think if you like using an iMac, then a new iMac would probably be a better match for you. Part of the reason for the hard drive slow down is that I am assuming you are just using the built-in hard drive to store all your photos and videos. When you do that, it clogs up the system and slows it down. Basically, the best practise to ensure the system does not clog up with a lot of photos and videos is to place them outside of your internal drive and onto an external drive. But because your 2011 is dated and it doesn't have Thunderbolt 3 (which is what you need for quick mass storage access) ports, you are better off in getting a new iMac 27" with good enough specs and a big enough Fusion drive (a combo 128Gb SSD + xTB drive) to store your apps and then get a very large Thunderbolt 3 external hard drive to store all your photos and videos. Even a very large USB 3 drives with support of UASP (USB Assisted SCSI Protocol) will suffice as well if Thunderbolt 3 drives are difficult to get in your area. This way, the boot system won't be clogged up with all your photos and videos and you will achieve maximum speed with your iMac. I agree with you that the Mac Mini and the Macbook aren't ideal machines for what you need. Get something you're familiar with and happy with.
Click to expand...

This is correct, all my photos and videos are on the internal drive.
If I get a new iMac, should I get a fusion drive or simply a SSD drive (for the apps) + external drive for photos and videos ?

How much RAM and processor power would I need ?
 
FrenchPB said:
This is correct, all my photos and videos are on the internal drive.
If I get a new iMac, should I get a fusion drive or simply a SSD drive (for the apps) + external drive for photos and videos ?

How much RAM and processor power would I need ?
Click to expand...

If you are going pure SSD, I would start with 256Gb and go up as your budget would allow; probably 512Gb is the good spot to be to accommodate future OSX releases and future apps that you might like to install. As for RAM, minimum would be 16Gb and if you have a number of high resolution (bigger than 20MP) photos, then 32Gb would be the ideal sweet spot. Processing power you would need -- I would say start with the Core i5 as your budget would allow. The sweet spot would be the Core i5 specs that's on the Mac Mini 6 core 2018 version. That gives you a lot of processing power to sort through and manage your ever growing library of photos, especially if you anticipate that your photos will get higher resolution, better quality as the years move on.
 
iluvmacs99 said:
If you are going pure SSD, I would start with 256Gb and go up as your budget would allow; probably 512Gb is the good spot to be to accommodate future OSX releases and future apps that you might like to install. As for RAM, minimum would be 16Gb and if you have a number of high resolution (bigger than 20MP) photos, then 32Gb would be the ideal sweet spot. Processing power you would need -- I would say start with the Core i5 as your budget would allow. The sweet spot would be the Core i5 specs that's on the Mac Mini 6 core 2018 version. That gives you a lot of processing power to sort through and manage your ever growing library of photos, especially if you anticipate that your photos will get higher resolution, better quality as the years move on.
Click to expand...

I don't have many applications on my iMac, I mostly use the Apple apps (Photos, iTunes, ...) and the MS Office Suite. A 256 Gb SSD would seem more than enough if I put my photos and videos files on an external hardrive. Would you agree ?

I shoot with a Canon DSLR and plan on getting a new camera soon with a resolution of 30+ Mpixels. I understand that RAM will be very important to work on them. Is it still easy to install more RAM in an iMac ? I bought my own RAM in 2011 when I got my 27-inch iMac, but the installation was very easy.

Finally, is there any chance that Apple would update the iMac line in October since the last updates are from March ? I definitely could wait a couple of months to get newer models if rumors suggest they might be worth the wait, but I don't follow the news closely enough to know what to do.
 
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FrenchPB said:
I don't have many applications on my iMac, I mostly use the Apple apps (Photos, iTunes, ...) and the MS Office Suite. A 256 Gb SSD would seem more than enough if I put my photos and videos files on an external hardrive. Would you agree ?

I shoot with a Canon DSLR and plan on getting a new camera soon with a resolution of 30+ Mpixels. I understand that RAM will be very important to work on them. Is it still easy to install more RAM in an iMac ? I bought my own RAM in 2011 when I got my 27-inch iMac, but the installation was very easy.

Finally, is there any chance that Apple would update the iMac line in October since the last updates are from March ? I definitely could wait a couple of months to get newer models if rumors suggest they might be worth the wait, but I don't follow the news closely enough to know what to do.
Click to expand...

I agree with you that if you only use Apple applications plus Office Suite that a 256Gb SSD would seem more than enough. The rule of thumb is to provision about 20% of free storage space for memory paging, about 50Gb so with a 256Gb SSD you're left with about 200Gb or so in storing your apps. I'm not sure if it's still easy to upgrade RAM in current iMacs as Apple is moving away from user upgradability to store upgradability, but I think iMac is an exception to this. However, with the current iMacs using the Coffee Lake CPU and fast NVMe like storage speed, you may be able to get away with less ram and basically rely on memory paging to address your memory shortfall. For example; if you are editing 30+megapixel and you need at least 32Gb of RAM, you might get away with only 16Gb of RAM and use the SSD to address the other 16Gb space shortfall by quickly paging back in and out since the latest SSD in the iMac and Mac Mini read and write at speeds so fast almost approaching normal RAM, you basically have double the RAM. You could somewhat do it with the 2011 iMac with an SSD, but with the latest iMac/Mac Mini the paging is seamless. But you need base memory. So if you need 64Gb of RAM, then you can install 32Gb physical RAM and provision about 50Gb of SSD free space to allow swapping the entire 32Gb RAM content to SSD and new content in the SSD back into the RAM.
If you have 64Gb of RAM, then provision about 80Gb of SSD free space for this.

There are always new models coming out this fall, but I don't think there's going to be any major boost in performance. Probably another incremental uptick in performance, but the current iMacs/Mac Mini are already fast enough to address your current and future needs for years to come.
 
Agree with @iluvmacs99 on this. I would go with with all SSD 512/32Gb RAM. Nice machine, not too pricey and should serve you well for a long time.

Fall announcements shouldn't affect the decision, although you could wait a couple of months and see
 
Would it make sense for me to buy an external SSD drive for my 2011 iMac in order to put the OS + apps on it and keep the internal HD for photos/ videos/ files storage ?

I was wondering whether that solution would make sense since the external SSD harddrive would be plugged via USB 2 (I guess ?) or firewire (not sure that this is possible).

If that could work, would I see a clear speed improvement ?
My inernal HD is only 5400 rpm so that's really slow.

Would it make more sense to install the SSD inside the iMac and take the old HD in an external case ?
 
I've actually already replaced my internal harddrive with a new one a couple of years ago so I'm OK with opening up the iMac. I understand that it'd be much easier to replace the actual HD with a SSD rather than plugging a second drive to the motherboard and put it in place of the optical SuperDrive.

I don't mind having an external harddrive, so just having a 1 To SSD drive in the iMac should be perfect for me.
To do that, do I need anything specific other than the disk and a 2.5>3.5 adapter ?
 
FrenchPB said:
I've actually already replaced my internal harddrive with a new one a couple of years ago so I'm OK with opening up the iMac. I understand that it'd be much easier to replace the actual HD with a SSD rather than plugging a second drive to the motherboard and put it in place of the optical SuperDrive.

I don't mind having an external harddrive, so just having a 1 To SSD drive in the iMac should be perfect for me.
To do that, do I need anything specific other than the disk and a 2.5>3.5 adapter ?
Click to expand...
Anything you need is in the SSD Upgrade bundle at iFixit: https://www.ifixit.com/Store/Mac/iM...nch-Mid-2011-SSD-Upgrade-Bundle/IF174-032?o=4

That doesn't mean you have to buy their bundle, just look over the list of what it includes... ;)
 
Mitthrawnuruodo said:
Anything you need is in the SSD Upgrade bundle at iFixit: https://www.ifixit.com/Store/Mac/iM...nch-Mid-2011-SSD-Upgrade-Bundle/IF174-032?o=4

That doesn't mean you have to buy their bundle, just look over the list of what it includes... ;)
Click to expand...

Not sure I need to get the thermal sensor though. When I replaced my old HD, I installed the SSD FAN CONTROL app and that worked perfectly.

Do you guys think the thermal sensor is needed when replacing the HDD by an SSD ?
How about the TRIM parameters ? Can I simply use UNIX code to set them up ?
 
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