New Mac advice

[LucieWoods]

Hello Brain, 

I am in the process of buying a new Mac, I am baffled of what to buy. I am a newborn and family photographer. This Mac will be soley used for my business and I will be storing all images externally on hard drives. 

 

Thank you, 

Lucie

[Brian]

Finally!! The forum is fixed and I'm able to respond. It seems the last update really screwed things up. Before we get into what to buy, what is your budget?

The reason I ask is that a stock $1799 27" iMac is fine for photographers. If you want to add a few things to make is a "SuperFast iMac," then that price can quickly jump to $3299 or more. Plus we need to add a few external hard drives and upgrade the RAM to at least 24GB.

Whatever you do, SKIP THE 21.5" IMACS!!! THEY ARE A COMPLETE WASTE OF MONEY AND CAN NOT BE UPGRADED EASILY AFTER PURCHASE!!!  There are slower components in them and you can not upgrade the RAM yourself, as you must take apart the WHOLE DAMN THING to get the motherboard out to add extra RAM. Even if you purchased the $1499 21.5" iMac, by the time you pay for the overpriced RAM from Apple to get it to 16GB, you are $100 less than the stock $1799 iMac. The 27" iMac has better / faster components and can be upgraded to 32GB, so it's more future-proof.

So let's talk budget...

[LucieWoods]

Hello, thank you for your response. My budget is around £3,000 (so $4,000ish)

thanks 

[Brian]

Ok, that's a healthy and realistic budget when it comes to Mac.

Here is the stock "Base Model" that will work fine.

Nothing fancy, and it will get the job done for the most part. Now if you are asking my what I myself would purchase, then take a look at this configuration:

That configuration will cost you £2,489.00, plus tax and you'll also want  to get AppleCare. Basically, you start with the £1,489.00 27" iMac Version and tweak a few things:

• Upgrade the CPU to 4.0GHz
• Increase the RAM to 16GB
• Upgrade the HD to a 3TB Fusion Drive
• Purchase AppleCare

As you can see, it's pretty straightforward. Now for External Hard Drives. I recommend 4TB Thunderbolt G-Drives. It's up to you if you want to purchase one or two drives, but with 4TB...that's a lot of photos. You could also purchase a smaller USB 3.0 EHD, and use that for Time Machine Backups. Something like a 2TB drive should be fine, just as long as you don't fill up your internal main HD, in which case, I'd recommend another 4TB EHD for Time Machine.

[Brian]

Now, why the 4.0GHz and other things? I have a tendency to keep my computers for 7 years or more. In fact, I'm still working on my 2009 iMac and have no immediate plans to upgrade. Maybe late 2017 or 2018. So I tend to go a little overboard with things, as I find them more future-proof. As far as the RAM, yes, Apple charges WAY to much for what it is, but I'm trying to set this iMac up for 32GB. So if we start with two 8GB sticks, and add another two 8GB sticks, we get 32GB total without throwing anything away. (I.E. Having two 4GB sticks installed, totaling 8GB.) If we were to upgrade to 32GB, you would need to remove the existing 4GB sticks and replace them with 8GB sticks.

[Brian]

One more thing: The Fusion Drive is the only difference between the base model and mid-price one (next one up.)  A Fusion Drive isn't worth a $200 up-charge by itself. 

[LucieWoods]

Great, thank you for your advice! I plan to go to the Apple Store one day next week and I will go with this information in hand. Thank you so much, lucie