Brian

You are right, you will get mixed answers. Around that time, Apple was changing things and their 27" models could go up to 32GB, but didn't list it. The rule of thumb is, if your iMac has a DVD SuperDrive built in, it can go up to 16GB. The 27" models that don't have the DVD drive can support 32GB. Now, I'm sure someone out there tried installing 32GB and it worked, for whatever reason. That said, I can not in good conscious recommend trying it if you have a DVD drive in your unit.

I would head to Crucial.com, run their scanning tool. After you run it, you should see a page with your options. Look  at purchasing TWO 8GB kits. Of course, it depends on what your current setup is. If you only have 4GB, chances are you have two 2GB Sticks. Those sticks would need to be pulled and 4GB sticks would need to be installed in their place. To get 16GB, you'll need four 4GB sticks in all the slots. If you have upgraded RAM in the past, we will have to talk about what's installed.

Specifically, this WD drive caught my eye:

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1148572-REG/wd_wdbdtb0120jsl_nesn_my_book_pro_12tb.html

As soon as you want drive mirroring, where one drive auto-copies to another, the costs increase. A RAID setup usually isn't cheap. Of course, you could purchase a few G Drives and use SuperDuper to copy things over. That will run you about $600 or so total.

Give this thread a read.

I like APC's stuff. This is what I use:

APC BE750G Back-UPS 750VA 10-outlet Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS)

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000Z80ICM/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awd_XA3WwbYFC8G3X

It's a common problem with Yosemite and El Capitan. The drives will randomly unmount. There isn't a fix I know of. 

Now for part 2. WD must use the world's cheapest cases and ports. Often with their externals, the HD itself is fine, it's just the crappy USB port that they use...you can't just get to it. 

What I'd recommend doing is taking the WD EHD to a Mom & Pop computer shop and see if they can transplant the HD into a new case. 

Now it's hard to see the knob on the top, as the photo is kinda blurry. But this camera was EXTREMELY POPULAR in the US in the 1950's. It's the "Canon Digital Rebel" of its day.

1950's Kodak Brownie Camera

Yeah, they know that all Mac users have Safari, so they target that browser. The only time I've ever gotten those type of pop-ups is when I'm using Safari. It's even more funny when I'm using Firefox and a "Windows Pop-Up Appears doing a "Scan" while using Firefox on my Mac. It's so bogus it's not even funny.

I don't need no stinking 100% Crop. 

It's a 1950's Kodak Brownie Camera. 

Unless you WANT problems and pain, if you are into that sort of thing, STAY ON MAVERICKS!! 

I know, it keeps popping up telling you that you should upgrade. Don't. Because you'll be in here bitching within a week and no, Apple won't let you downgrade at this point. It's a one-way thing. 

So these are affecting Macs now. LOL. It's bogus. But in all seriousness, STOP USING SAFARI!

It is the browser that is exploited with this crap. It also takes Apple forever to update it. Please use something like Firefox. Since you are here, chances are you do something with Photography. Firefox is Color Managed. Chrome is not. 

Here is the "I have more money than Donald Trump" Edition. This is a MAXED OUT MAC PRO. If you were editing full length movies, working for Pixar or doing other high-intensity graphic projects, this is the machine to do it with:

 

After AppleCare, the final cost is: $10,026.00. Plus shipping and tax. Of course, if you wanted to, you could finance it for 18 Months, if you are approved. The monthly payments would be around $600 a month to have it paid off before the 18 Month Penalty fee. Now it doesn't seem so bad.

Oh, don't forget all the extra External Thunderbolt HDs you'll need. Those suckers aren't cheap either. Plan on a extra $5000-$10,000 on top of this Mac Pro.

Now here is the "I JUST WON THE POWERBALL AND HAVE MONEY TO BLOW" Edition. I went for broke and picked all the high-end options. Personally, if you are spending this kind of cash on a iMac, I'd love for you to send some of that money my way. I take donations.

Without further ado...

That's right. $1 shy of $4100. That whole $1 makes it "Affordable." LMAO!! 

Add AppleCare for $169 and we are at $4268. Don't have to worry about upgrading anything with this configuration, you have the best and most expensive options installed, at least as far as the iMac line goes.

Here is "The Performance Model." This configuration is more aggressive and goes against what I would buy myself, but for those that are looking for a bit more "Umph" and don't care what my thoughts are; here is the "Performance" iMac:

 

Purchase Apple Care for $169 and we are at $2968 plus shipping and tax. Combine that with a 16GB Upgrade kit from Crucial.com (About $80 as I type this) to take it from 16GB to 32GB, and you have a sweet editing machine for about $3050.

This is the "Best Bang for your Buck" iMac. If I was on a limited budget and wanted to purchase a iMac, this is what I would get. I WOULD AVOID THE 21.5" iMacs LIKE THE PLAGUE!! The reason is you can't upgrade a 21.5" iMac after the fact. Well at least not easily. By the time you purchase the $1499 iMac and upgrade the RAM to 16GB, you are at $1699. For just $100 more, you can get the stock 27" iMac and have the ability to upgrade it to 32GB yourself for about $200.

This is the stock 27" iMac with Retina Screen for $1799:

Purchase AppleCare for an extra $169 and we are at $1968, plus shipping & tax.

Part three: For a bit of fun, I decided to choose the high-end 27" Retina iMac and max out all the choices.

The Cost?

Plus AppleCare. Plus Shipping & Tax. So for around $4500-$4600 or more (Depending on where you live...) you can have a tricked out 27" iMac. That is insane to spend that much money on a iMac, in my personal opinion. For that money, I"m looking at the Mac Pro line. 

So the bottom line is this: Apple really wants you to "Go Big or Go Home." If you choose to purchase a Mac today, be prepared to spend more than $2000, even with the base 27" iMac for $1799.

Now, in keeping with tradition, I will configure three iMacs for various budgets and post them in the next few comments.

Why not the $1999 version? Because there isn't a major difference between the two. You see, Apple is charging you an extra $200 to have full upgrade options and they throw in a few minor tweaks to help sell the higher price-point. With the $1799 iMac, you get what they give you...for the most part. Sure, you can get different hard drives and extra RAM, but to get all the choices, you need to pay an extra $200 more. For me, that's like paying a restaurant and extra $50 to order a steak "Medium Well" instead of what they decide for me. Or that I should pay more, just to have the choice between Iceberg Lettuce or Romain in my Salad.

Of course, for that extra $200, you get a Fusion Drive instead of a Traditional HD, and a slightly upgraded video card. Most of the time, since Adobe can't seem to figure out how to play nicely with Apple's video Drivers, we are un-checking "Use Graphics Processor" in PS' Preferences in order to prevent weird problems. (i.e., black-box problems while zooming in, fix issues with the Liquidfy tool, etc. Plus all the other weird behavior that doesn't seem to get fixed...only after to we tell Photoshop to ignore the video card does it stabilize.  In which case, the extra "features" of the upgraded video card are lost...

In addition to the video card upgrade, you get a 1TB Fusion Drive. Now Fusion Drives are fast. I will give you that. The main problem that I have with them, is you do not get a choice on what side of the HD the files reside on. It's up to the HD and Operating System to decide what goes where. Only after a period of around 30 days or so, will the HD move files from the Flash Memory Side to the Traditional HD side. I'm too much of a control freak and like to decide what goes where. Especially if something bad happens to the HD, you have no idea WHERE the files are and for me, that's very uncomfortable.

So for those who can live with these issues that I have, the $1999 iMac is a fine purchase. That said, if you are just taking the default choices and not upgrading the CPU or getting a larger HD, then stick with the $1799 iMac.

The only program that I know of that will automatically do it for you is "SuperDuper."

SuperDuper

You can give it a test drive by copying one HD to another for free, but if you want to schedule that feature, you'll need to pony up the $28 to have it turned on.

5 hours ago, BrittanyBlake said:

Hi Brian,

I had the link saved to your recommendations for purchasing an iMAC ages ago and I am wondering if that is still around? I can't find it.

 

Unfortunately, Apple changed everything. So that document that I created ages ago doesn't apply today. Well, not exactly anyway. The theme of the document is the same.

• I would still purchase the stock 27" $1799 iMac
• Purchase AppleCare for and extra $169
• When you get your iMac, head to Crucial.com and run their scanning tool. It will take you to a page with your options. You are looking for a 16GB kit to take it from 8GB to 24GB. Currently, the price for that kit is around $80.

I haven't heard of too many problems, but that could be due to more PS users than PSE users when it comes to Macs. For the best chance of things working, a current version of PSE is your best bet. 

Are you looking to upgrade for the sake of upgrading? If you have an older Mac and are running Mavericks, I HIGHLY  RECOMMEND that you stay there. Yosemite & El Capitan have introduced all sorts of little quirks and problems, so unfortunately...I really can't give you a straight yes or no answer. 

The other thing you could do, and you aren't going to like this, is we create a bootable thumb drive with the Mac OS, boot from it, Nuke your HD and re-install everything. I do realize that this is curing the patient by killing them, but a fresh OS on a clean HD is always the best option. Upgrading from an older OS can leave you open to problems.

When did you notice this problem happening?

It sounds like a kernel extension is hanging up somewhere or is corrupted. The possible solution will have to be done from a command line via the Terminal, but I'm not 100% convinced that this is the problem. I'd start by running a Malware Scan and maybe shut down some of the auto-load apps, like the Adobe CC Updater/Control Panel thing, Dropbox, Amazon Cloud Service, stuff like that. Basically close all the things next to the clock, then try rebooting. If it gets better, then we know that a software package is hanging up things. If not, it's probably something to do with El Capitan. Oh...what a PITA El Capitan is. I'm hating this OS more and more each day.

Malwarebytes for Mac

It's a program called CleanMyMac.

i use it weekly. 

Oh, the quickest way to speed up your Mac, is to clean ALL THE FILES AND FOLDERS THAT ARE ON YOUR DESKTOP. Seriously, the more crap you have on the desktop, the slower it runs. Combine that with a hard drive that is more than 75% full, and you have one slow Mac. 

So purchase CleanMyMac and run it. 

Clear stuff off the desktop 

Delete those 1000's of images that will never see the light of day...

...and your Mac will thank you. 

Photography, like most other things, YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR. 

Now I'm sure you are wondering why spend $1800 on a lens. That's a lot of money for people who are on limited budgets.

I say to to you: Why not? 

That $1800 lens will last you 10 years or more, if taken care of. Sure it has its quirks around the 4 year mark if it's heavily used, but it's nice having a 5 year warranty. Just think of how many $1000-$2000 camera bodies you will go through in 10-20 years? I'm thinking somewhere around 4-6. So let's say 5 to split the difference. Five bodies at $2000 a pop is $10,000. Could be more, could be less, and we haven't included shipping and tax. 

So after $10,000...$1799 doesn't seem so bad with something lasting a decade or more. Camera bodies only last you about 3-4 years...they plan it that way, gets you in the market quicker.

Gone are the days of inheritaning Grandpa's Nikon F2 and some lenses that get you through college and beyond. Today's camera bodies are computers that think they are cameras. People are looking for their "Forever Camera," the manufacturers want you to buy the latest and greatest every 12-18 months. That's why marketing pushes so hard about the new features of the latest camera body. It's easy to sell. Easy to convince you that ISO 51200 is what you need to be a good photographer. 

It's such a vicious cycle.  

"Eh." I'm probably the last person that will recommend 3rd party lenses. I'm saving up and will buy the original Nikon 24-70. Not the version II, the one for $1799. 

Sigma can be hit or miss. If you get a good copy, you will sing praises and question why would anyone spend close to $2000 for the OEM equivalent. If you are one of the lucky ones that goes through 3-5 lenses to get a good copy, you'll be mad at yourself on why you wasted so much time and energy. 

Then there is that whole pesky resale value thing. You'll be lucky if you get $500 if you sell it. There were a few different models of that Sigma 24-70, and believe it or not...the older version was better. The new one sucked and they can't give them away. I'm thinking for a 24-70 that's new AND that cheap, it's one of the sucky ones. 

Personally, I'd get the Nikon one for $1799.