Brian

The first thing I want you to do, if you haven't already, is turn on the feature that allows you to see HDs and other "Mounted Devices" on your Mac Desktop. Open the Finder. The easiest way is to click the Smiley Face on your DockBar: Then head to the Finder Menu and select Preferences: Once there put checks next to these items and change the bottom to "Macintosh HD" if you want: From there, just click the Red Circle in the upper left corner to apply the changes. After you make this change, things like the Macintosh HD, any External Drives, Memory Cards from Cameras that are in a Card Reader and even portable DVD Disks will all appear on the Mac Desktop. This makes accessing them a breeze and is one of the things that has always puzzled me on why this feature isn't turned on by default. For example: Part 2 First, as you saw in my example above, your new EHD should appear on the desktop, though it may not. Here is an example of currently Mounted Devices on my iMac. You should see something similar if you followed my steps above: Now the fun begins! Let's get that new Hard Drive prepped for use on the Macintosh!! Click your Applications Folder, then open Disk Utilities. Head to Applications Menu >> Utilities >> Disk Utilities. This is where your Disk Utilities might look slightly different. Anyway, here is mine: While in your Disk Utilities Module, please make note of any additional Hard Drives listed in the left column. Pay special attention to the Hard Drives listed under the "External" Section. For this process, it is much safer to only have one EHD Mounted / Listed! It is imperative that you Eject and Remove ANY EXTERNAL HARD DRIVES THAT YOU DO NOT WANT TO ERASE!!! Your Disk Utilities Window should appear as follows, with only ONE External HD listed: You can Eject the EHD from Disk Utilities, just click the little up-arrow/line next to the drive you want to remove. Continue on to the next page in this thread >>>>>>>

Yeah, that usually happens when you copy a file that was on a NTFS Drive and moved to another format, like FAT. You will see this a lot if copying stuff to a thumbdrive. Nothing bad will happen per se, it's just that the file properties will be lost if copied back to a NTFS. So before putting anything on this new drive, we need to make sure WHAT partition type it has. If it's an external hard drive and you are using Windows, IT NEEDS TO BE NTFS and not FAT32 (Unlikely) or the stupid exFAT that Manufacturers are using. Worse yet, using Manufacturer's software that "Preps" the drive for you also screws you up. All you need is the Windows Disk Management App that is built into Windows. Right-Click on the Start Button, select Disk Management and with the new EHD installed, take a screenshot and post it here. I wanna see how that new drive is setup.

If you do end up going with a M1 Mac, you will need to be using the latest-and-greatest version of Photoshop CC. No PS CC2019 for you. CS6? Ha! Forget it.

I wouldn't worry about it that much. It has to do with the cluster sizes and how the data is stored on the drives. Unless the two drives were completely identical, and you had a dramatic size difference, then I'd be worried. But you copied a 8TB Drive to a 12TB drive and things are a little different? That's a typical thing to happen.

But that's not IPS. I hate the "It's just as good as..." way of thinking. No, it is not. You can buy and external IPS screen and use that to edit on. But I know, "Portability!!" "I can't be chained to my Desk!! I MUST BE FREE!!!" or "I need to edit by the Pool or in the Car on my way to Vacation / Holiday!!" Yes, I've heard ALL of these before and the members were dead serious too.

What I would do 1st: Simplify!!! Let's take Carbon Copy Cloner out of the equation. Stop trying to Automate things at this point. You need a solid foundation before using programs that do that sort of thing. You have a brand new EHD, yes? We need a place to copy your existing files to but make sure that drive is a MacOS Extended (Journaled) Partition Type. We do NOT want exFAT! After you get all of the files copied to the new EHD, and your files placed in folders that are organized (now is the time to do this,) you are going to completely delete ALL Partitions off that WD Drive (Honestly, I want Carbon Copy Cloner gone from your system, it's going to get in the way,) then.... Create a new MacOS Extended (Journaled) on the WD EHD via the Disk Utility. When it's done formatting, it will ask you if you "...want to use it for Time Machine?" TELL IT YES! Then Time Machine should start and do a first backup. This first one takes awhile. Go watch Netflix or something. I'm honestly not worried about the old Time Machine Backups Unless you are, in which case you could copy those files to the new EHD and put them in a separate folder. Make sure the TM drive (the old WD drive) comes up as "Time Machine" on the Desktop. If you don't have the HD on your Mac Desktop, let me know. After you have a dedicated Time Machine Drive and now a dedicated Data Drive, you then can think about doing Automated things with Carbon Copy Cloner. What you do not want to happen is have Carbon Copy backup your Data Drive to the Time Machine Drive. Time Machine only needs to backup the Macintosh HD. IF you have things get dumped onto the TM drive, bad things will happen. Time Machine Drives need to be all by themselves, dedicated backing up the internal "Macintosh HD." If you want a clone of your DATA drive to another Data Drive to be kept off-site, you need to purchase a 3rd EHD and have the Data Drive Clone to the Off-Site Data Drive. Make sense? I think this is the source of your problems, you need more EHDs than you think you do. For your situation, you need at least 3: One dedicated TM Drive and Two Backup Data Drives, with one being the clone of the other. Now, you do not need to spend another $500 or whatever on the off-site drive, it just has to be at least the same capacity or slightly larger. Since all you are doing is cloning the main Data Drive weekly at the very least, it's not a "Production" drive, it just holds data off-site in case of a major disaster. Now if you don't want to go this route, that's fine...then don't bother with the Cloning Program. Just save directly to the Data EHD. Keep things simple.

Yeah, Adobe changed things on me, I need to update that article. This is what mine looks like: Try it. If it doesn't work, or causes issues, you can always change it back. This is the real secret on how I fix things; I poke around. LOL!! Honestly? I would actually bring it to a Genius Bar, have them Nuke the HD and install a fresh MacOS. But I'm thinking now with the current Macs, you should be able to delete the existing partition, then re-install a fresh MacOS. If you are still having problems after the fresh install of the OS, I'd return the Mac. Or if you are running out of time you might want to contact Apple about returning things. One thing I'd like to point out: Do not mention the Crucial RAM!!! Apple will have a "Field-Day" and blame everything on the Crucial RAM sticks. Mouse battery died? Oh...that's the Crucial RAM causing issues. Mac won't power on because it's unplugged? Oh...the Crucial RAM caused that! Apple's Tech Support needs to tow the company line. Even though Apple buys their RAM from Micron, who are the ones that make Crucial's stuff, because it doesn't have a stupid sticker with an Apple Logo, it's the Crucial RAM's fault.

You are hitting all the check-boxes. As you can see, that whole IPS thing is a bit of a pain when it comes to laptops.

You might want to contact them and see if it is a true IPS Display. I'm just seeing this: Since IPS Display Panels cost more, manufactures will usually brag about this and mention it in their technical specifications. I'm just seeing "Wide Color Gamut" which is a little vague. The rest of the laptop is fine and is "better" than the other one.

First, take out the original Apple RAM and see what happens. I'd also re-seat the Crucial RAM. We need to isolate is it the Crucial RAM and Apple RAM not playing well together? That is usually the video card working harder. How many images do you have open? Do you have a high MP camera? Are you editing in 16-bit mode? Photoshop uses the Video GPU and Video RAM for a performance boost. You might want to see if "Use Graphics Processor" is checked in your Performance Settings. Actually, since this is a new Mac, follow these instructions: Setting up Adobe Photoshop

Just like The Beatles' White Album, you need to keep buying calibrators. It's only money, right?

m.2 technology is the better one compared to SSD. That said, that m.2 Kingston Drive is a "Run of the Mill..." or a "Meh" option. It works, yes. Would I like a Samsung EVO m.2 drive? YES. The absolute biggest thing when shopping for a laptop for photo-editing, is you need to choose one that has a IPS Display Panel. That's the hardest thing to find. The second thing that is the most difficult to find, is a laptop that has a dedicated GPU and dedicated Video Memory. Granted, many of the "Gaming" Laptops have this option, so it's not as difficult as it once was, but it is still something you need to be on the look-out for. This unit comes with a NVIDIA RTX 3060 6GB GDDR6. Which isn't too shabby. Combine that with how fluid laptops are; companies used to have a "Spring Line" and a "Fall Line." Apple still does this. All of the other manufactures seem to have gotten away from this model. In fact, Give it 4-6 weeks and that model you are looking at will be gone and replaced by another model. Well, maybe 90 days or so, since parts are still difficult to get from China. So that's why I don't go creating "Buy this laptop..." pages, the stuff will be discontinued a week after I find one that's "Good for Photo Editing." I just don't have time to babysit "What to Buy" Links. Honestly? That laptop really checks all of the boxes and you really should consider buying it. That blasted IPS Display Panel is like trying to find a Proverbial Unicorn. You just don't come across that many models with that screen. Plus, a 1TB HD is a 1TB HD.

Ummm....maybe? I have no idea. The Spyder5 is getting a "bit long in the tooth" in 2022. With the recent sales of them, I suspect a new line of Calibration Devices are going to hit the market at some point in the near future. So try it, the worst it will do is make your screen all wacky and you will have to un-do what you did. This is why physical test prints are so important when calibrating.

NVIDIA is coming out with the 4000 series cards soon, like the RTX 4070, et al. This is forcing the scalpers who are hoarding cards to finally lower their prices, so I have seen things like this happen...where you can snag a deal. A friend of mine actually scored a computer similar to that one for about $1700 a month or so ago, so it is possible. Oh, don't worry about the NVIDIA thing, you aren't a competitive gamer, you are editing photos. Photoshop loves the NVIDIA RTX 3070 card and that's the one I'd buy if I were buying a computer right now. Enjoy your purchase.

BUY IT!

It's not bad. I would change a few things: You want Windows 10 Pro 64-bit. Unless you have a OEM Copy (Key) handy, you are going to want an Operating System. I like Windows 10 Pro. You want at least 32GB of RAM. 16GB is the absolute bare-minimum these days. I realize costs are an issue, but welcome to 2022 pricing. It sucks. Period. I'm not a fan of the Kingston m.2 drive. It's "fine," but it seems you don't have a chance to pick something else, like a Samsung m.2 drive. I know this sounds silly, but I'd also spring for the extra $35 and get the higher-grade thermal paste. It's a laptop and something like this you want to be a once-and-done thing. Heat is the enemy with laptops. The 3 year warranty seems to be on sale, and it worth getting. Why? Because I have a feeling this laptop you will get 3-4 years out of. Hopefully it lasts longer though.

OK, it seems you have a DisplayPort Version 1.4 and a HDMI Port Version 2.0. Between the two, I'd use DisplayPort with a 4K screen. Here's the reason that I don't "Like" 4K...it's because you cram 3840px x 2160px in the same physical area as a 27" display with a 2560px x 1440px. So what happens? Everything is much smaller. Umm...yeah. So what happens? It's too small to see menus and text and such, so what do you do? You tell windows to display things at 125% or 150% just to make it easier to see things. So why not just buy a 27" display that has 2560px x 1440px? Because that in a sense is what you are doing. Of course, Apple out of all the manufactures has really perfected 5K and up-scaling and you don't have this "things looking too small issue." The Windows work-around with making everything 125% bigger isn't bad, but Apple just does it better. My opinion? I'd buy that Dell UltraSharp 27 Monitor - U2722D and be happy.

Try deleting the folders in the Finder, not in Bridge and let's see what happens. If it still won't delete, chances are you have a permissions issue and it might be better (and faster) to copy the contents off of the original drive that you are having problems with, and re-format the drive. Of course, before you do something like that, make sure all the files transferred over correctly.

It's a Windows thing... Don't worry about it.

I like this one better: https://deals.dell.com/en-us/productdetail/ds2n The reason is the Anti-Glare Hard Coating. Now, before you go out buying a new monitor, do you have a DisplayPort (Video Port) or at least a HDMI Port on your computer? How much dedicated video memory do you have? 4000K isn't all that it's cracked up to be, especially when editing photos.

You are going to have to get a driver from Dell or just deal with it. Try support.dell.com and have it do a scan and see if there are any driver updates.

First off, let’s verify your new EHD is MacOS Extended (Journaled) and not the stupid exFAT for the partition type? An you verify this in Disk Utilities and post a screen shot here?

I have 64GB with my 2017 iMac and have no issues editing large Raw files taken with my D850. 64-72GB is really nice to have for editing photos with today’s modern Photoshop. Just think, Apple would have charged you $1000 to only upgrade the RAM to 64GB!

You are in a very good position to add RAM. What I would do is PURCHASE THIS 64GB KIT, and install them into the slots that the existing RAM are occupying. Then install the existing RAM into the slots are currently empty. When it’s all said-and-done, your will have 72GB of RAM. Plenty of YouTube videos demonstrating the process of removing/adding RAM into a 27” iMac.

Pay attention to the details with the used Mac Store Do NOT buy one with a “Fusion Drive.” 1TB SSD or bust! As mentioned above, at least a 1TB main drive. A video card that has at least 8GB of dedicated Video Memory. Cards that are 8GB are usually the “better ones” that play nicely with Photoshop Intel i7 or i9 is “fine.” Honestly, the video card choice is more important than the CPU. Well, stay away from the Intel i5. Too slow, you want an i7 or i9. AVOID THE 21.5” Macs!! 8GB of RAM is fine, with the 27”, we can upgrade things for A LOT less money than what Apple charges and you will get more in the end as well. Look for a 2020 27” iMac, maybe even a late 2017. AppleCare is a requirement. Not only do you get a Warranty, but AppleCare is worth having since Apple is the only ones that fix their hardware. What you see in the used Mac Store is what they have. They don’t have multiples of the same computer. Think of it as a Yard Sale. If you see one you like, can afford it, BUY IT because it may not be there in an hour.