Card reader in 21.5" Mac

[Sam165]

Hi Brian,

I have a 21.5" Mac, 2017, 16 Gb memory, graphics Radeon Pro 555 2 GB, 3 GHz intel Core i5 processor - Big Sur, vers. 11.3 

1.  I have been using the slot in back for my SD. card.  Is this ok, or should I get a separate card reader?  If so, is there a card reader you would recommend that includes SD, XQD and CFexpress - all of them?

2.  I also have been using "Pictures" for my photos.  It looks like my HD might be getting towards the full end of 1 TB (318 GB left).  I have one WD 4TB backup which is on Time Machine (my other one quit).  I also use Backblaze.  I think my photos should be on more than one backup to free up my HD.  Would you recommend Lacie backups? Size?  (BTW, I have a Nikon D750 - 24mp camera). Also, I have PS 2021. 

Thanks so much for your help.  I'm trying hard to get more up to speed technically.

[Brian]

13 hours ago, Sam165 said:

I have been using the slot in back for my SD. card.  Is this ok, or should I get a separate card reader?

It's fine to use. The only "Bad" thing I can think of, is if the solder joints are flaky or the slot goes bad, you are either looking at an expensive motherboard repair or switching to an external card reader. For me, it's more of a PITA inserting it into the back of the Mac, and I find that using an external USB 3.0 Card Reader is faster to download my images. At some point, I will get another XQD Reader that also does CF Express, and that reader will use the Thunderbolt 3 port.That said, feel free to keep doing what you are doing, or purchase and external reader and use that. It's a flip of a coin in your situation.
 

13 hours ago, Sam165 said:

If so, is there a card reader you would recommend that includes SD, XQD and CFexpress - all of them?

Right now I'm not happy with your current situation when it comes to your Mac. The 21.5" models are not easily upgraded after the fact, your video card is under-powered for today's modern Photoshop, it's an i5...so in reality, you need to start saving for a new computer rather than forking out the money for a card reader. Why? Because as of right now, I'm sure your computer works perfectly well with your D750, but as soon as you go and upgrade that camera body that has more MP, you will find out just how "slow" your iMac is.

I went through a similar situation when I bought my Nikon D850 and it's 45MP. For the longest time, I shot with a D700 and then was able to get a Nikon D4s for a very good price. My 21.5" 2009 iMac worked "fine." That's because the D700 was from the 2009-era and the D4s was from the 2014 era, so things just "worked." Until I got tired of everyone making such a big deal about my D4s. "Wow! That camera is huge! You must take really nice pictures!!" "That's a nice camera! It's huge! How much did that cost? I'm sure it's expensive." "What type of camera..." blah-blah-blah. Yes, the D4s and it's sister bodies are quite large and even though I got a crazy stupid deal on it, having a Bullseye on the body and f/2.8 lenses really made me self-conscious. So I bought a D850.

Biggest regret / Buyer's Remorse of my life. That stupid camera has costed me so much money. My 2009 iMac came to a screeching halt performance-wise, because my Raw files were closer to 100MB instead of 26MB or so and I also had to buy a larger external HD, a 12TB model, in order to save all of those large images. Then I had to buy two new lenses, because my images were crap in the corners, on-and-on. So before you go blowing money on what you think you might need, at this point I would take a hard look on what you are going to be shooting with in the next couple of years; just having more MP with a new camera body introduces things you never would have expected to spend money on.

Anyway, back to your question. I'm really-REALLY concerned about you using "Pictures" for your photos. That's bad. Really bad. It is much better to copy the files via a card reader to a folder on the HD, internal or external and use a program like Adobe Bridge to cull (even use Photomechanic if you choose to) and then edit the images in ACR. Not only will you get to work with all of the data, there isn't a stupid catalog that Apple's products seem to use. It's worse than a LR catalog. At least with LR, the images are stored in folders on your computer, the edits (and the edit history) in LR is stored in your catalog. Pictures ingests the images and does whatever it does to them. So you will need to go through Pictures and export all of your photos of of it. At least I would. I haven't used Photos and its current form, Pictures, since 2009. So I'm no help since I know that program is evil and can really mess with you if something goes wrong. In fact, I almost never use ANY of the built in software that comes with the Mac!
 

13 hours ago, Sam165 said:

It looks like my HD might be getting towards the full end of 1 TB (318 GB left).

Yeah...you are getting low on space. Are you aware of a program called, CleanMyMac X? it's from Macpaw.com I've been using it for years and it's totally worth the $40 (or whatever the current price is) to keep things cleared out on your internal Macintosh HD. I run it weekly, if not every couple of days.
 

 

13 hours ago, Sam165 said:

If so, is there a card reader you would recommend that includes SD, XQD and CFexpress - all of them?

Well, the SD/XQD Combo Card Reader that I recommend is no longer being made, but I did find this one: GNARBOX XQD 2.0 Reader with UHS-II microSD/SD. There is a XQD/CFExpress B Reader, but I'd hold off for now, you have bigger fish to worry about with your current Pictures and HD situation. See What Card Reader do you Recommend for more info.
 

13 hours ago, Sam165 said:

I also use Backblaze.  I think my photos should be on more than one backup to free up my HD

Ideally, you want to embrace the 3-2-1 Backup Strategy.
 

1. Three separate copies of your important data files.
2. Stored on Two different devices / storage medium.
3. One copy kept off-site in case of fire/flood/theft/extreme situations, etc.
    

You need to be careful with Cloud storage such as Backblaze. It's not as a "Permanent Cloud Storage" as one would think, unless you for out the extra $$$$'s for that feature. You see, if you delete a bunch of files on your HD, within 30 days, Backblaze will delete those same files that are stored on their servers. Surprise!! People have had nasty surprises when they delete stuff and then try to recover files a few months later, so before you go deleting stuff, and you should, make sure you have all of your proverbial "Ducks lined up in a row."

 

13 hours ago, Sam165 said:

Would you recommend Lacie backups? Size?

No. Not anymore. I've owned LaCie Drives and used to recommend them, until I had several users complain about failed drives. LaCie used to be good a long time ago, now I think they are made by Seagate or primarily use Seagate Hard Drives...and not the high-end kind. I've had more problems with Seagate HDs than any other brand in my 28 years of being a computer tech. Well, Maxtor I've had more problems with, but now Seagate owns Maxtor and those same crappy drives just have Seagate Stickers on the drives now. I wouldn't use Seagate HDs even if you paid me. As for which brand I recommend?

Thunderbolt G-Drives, or at the very least a USB 3.0 Version. I have a 4TB USB 3.0 Drive that I use for my Time Machine Backups, and a Thunderbolt 3 12TB G-Drive for my image files. The cool part with the G-Drives is they come Mac-Formatted and include all necessary cables to hook up to your computer in the box. I also tend to purchase the "Enterprise Grade" versions since I want my Hard Drives to be big & beefy and stable as hell. I would never-ever-ever recommend someone purchasing a $79 Special from a Big Box Store. Unfortunately, G-Drives tend to be very expensive. Since they no longer make the 12TB version, here is the 14TB current model of what I'm using.

The sad part is, it's the worst time to be in the market for ANY computer device or peripheral, due to the world-wide chip shortage. Everything seems to be out of stock and costs a few hundred more than their 2019 counterparts. Even "Computers that are Good for Photo-editing," both Mac AND Windows are around the $3000 price-point. That's right, a Windows computer that is meant to run Photoshop really well will set you back close to $3200 or so. I'd never thought I would see the day of this happening.

 

13 hours ago, Sam165 said:

I'm trying hard to get more up to speed technically.

Bottom Line: Don't purchase anything right now, at least when it comes to major hardware. Use what you have. Well, except for getting CleanMyMac X, I would go ahead and get that. Maybe a 6TB G-Drive that can act as your main external storage for now, and then ultimately that drive would become your new Time Machine Drive for a new Mac sometime in the future. The problem is, you have a 21.5" iMac and I know they seem more "Affordable," but the truth is, Apple CRIPPLED that model. Think of it as a "iMac Mini" instead of a full-fledged Macintosh Computer. If you want speed, you are going to need to invest in a 27" iMac, and not just any version; a tricked-out and expensive model. Check out my pinned posts in this group, you will know my thoughts and what to look for. I hate 21.5" iMacs as much as Damien hates Lightroom.

[Sam165]

Thanks for all your information Brian.  To be clear on my end:

1.  3 separate copies means: one on computer, two on external backups with one of those off=site?

2.  Taking photos off of "Pictures" would mean copying to Mac HD and to External HD?

3.  I hear you about the 'big camera, whoa etc".  Makes me want to get a mirrorless but to be honest I'll probably continue with the D750 until it conks out.

I can't thank you enough for your detailed answers.  Cheers!

[Brian]

Three copies of the file. Those three files are stored on two different storage mediums and one of those mediums is off site. This is one of those industry-standard things.

Honestly, this is over-kill for most. If you just back up to a HD, and then copy that HD to another and keep that one off-site, that should cover your bases. OR two different storage mediums could be a EHD, one kept off-site AND Cloud Storage. On servers it's usually a RAID Based HD and a Tape, etc. Basically you want redundancy; again, this depends on how critical your data is and how paranoid you are.

It's not so much as a "Large Camera" in the physical sense, it's THE MEGAPIXELS in those cameras. I could buy a Nikon Z7 II Camera at 45MP or whatever OR a Nikon Z6 II camera. Both are similar in physical size, it's just one is 24MP and the other is 45MP. The more MP, the bigger the Raw files because there is more data contained within the Raw file due to the higher MP. Make sense? If you had a 60MP or 100MP camera, those files would be way larger than one that's 45MP.

When you upgrade your camera body, and it has a higher MP, you will need to have the infrastructure in-place to support the larger files. These days, consumer-grade / entry-level cameras START at 24MP, which just a few short years ago was only available on a Nikon D3X.

As for taking photos off of Pictures, you mean your "Pictures" folder or some sort of program called "Pictures?" I think I misunderstood. That will teach me answering questions at like 1AM in the morning. If it's just your pictures folder, that makes me feel a lot better in your case; I thought you were using one of Apple's stupid built-in programs. If it's just your "Pictures" folder, make sure you COPY AND NOT MOVE / CLICK-AND-DRAG when you back them up on a EHD. Also, the Pictures Folder is backed up when Time Machine does its thing. So you do have a back-up, even though you might not realize it.

Why Copy / Paste? When you Cut and Paste or Click and Drag, you are MOVING the file. If anything were to screw up during the data transfer, it is a lot easier to cancel the process and start over again. If you cut/move, you are deleting the source material as it's doing the data transfer. Understand?

[Sam165]

Thanks Brian.  My Pictures is a Folder and then within that a bunch of subfolders.  I understand about a "bigger" camera (more megapixels) and how that could stall my computer.  Won't do that, until I upgrade computer.  Can't thank you enough for all the info. you have provided me