Mac advice

[billgers]

I'm hoping that I can get some thoughts regarding my next computer. I am working with an early 2008 Mac Pro and although it is still perfectly functional, I can see the end is coming. For example, it can't run an OS newer than El Capitan, but I see that if I want to upgrade to Kontakt 6, I'll need at least Sierra. I assume that these issues will become increasingly common. Frankly, I'm pretty amazed that I can use an 11 year old computer since there was a time that that seemed an impossibility. Nevertheless, I would like to get in front of this before it becomes a bigger issue.

I don't compose full-time anymore and usually just do a handful of paid projects a year. I don't use ginormous orchestral templates, but I do often have 5-10 VI's open at a time and perhaps 30-40 tracks of MIDI on a bigger project. I don't record a lot of live audio.

I'm trying to decide between a top-end mac-mini, a top-end imac, an imac pro and possibly even the new mac pro. I am used to the flexibility of the mac pro, but not sure I need it going forward and not sure I need the power of the new mac pro. I don't really need new monitors since I have a couple of older ones, but perhaps there is something life-altering about a fancy new monitor on an imac. I might be perfectly happy with a mac mini, but I would like to understand what compromises I would be making and I'm curious if people use those for serious studio work. I also would like to understand how my existing 828 firewire would fit into the setup or would I have to ditch it. As for budget, I can afford any of the options mentioned, but I tend to be a "bang-for-the-buck" guy and I don't want to pay a lot of money for something that is complete overkill. I've never spent more than $2,500 on a computer in my life, so the new mac pro and imac pro definitely give me some sticker shock. In any case, there's my story, feel free to weigh in.

[HCMarkus]

The Mac Mini is probably perfect for you. The top of the line CPU makes for a very strong machine, and I think an adaptor would allow you to convert a Thunderbolt port to Firewire. So you would be talking an investment, but not a complete overhaul of all your gear. I should mention,I traded in my 828mkII a while ago and have enjoyed the very cool drop-in replacement MOTU offers now, the 828es. It works with USB or TB.

I've recommended to others that they consider adding aftermarket memory (1/2 the price as Apple charges) and go with a smaller internal SSD bolstered with fast external USB3 or TB PCIe storage.

FYI, there are hack that allow you to run more current versions of Mac OS on your current machine. Drop by the Mac Pro Forum at MacRumors.com if the idea intrigues.

[mikehalloran]

I agree on the Mini for what you are looking to do.

Storage upgrades took a steep price reduction last week on the Mini and iMac Pro. Those reductions hit the Refurb Store a few days later. 256GB RAM is a single chip—above that, you get twin blades in a RAiD 0 which is faster than anything external. This is the same storage as the iMac Pro and new Mac Pro coming out in September.

Yes, RAM is less at OWC but it’s a tricky install on these—Refurb Store prices on BTO Minis are about the same as buying aftermarket RAM. Again, same RAM as the iMac Pro and new Mac Pro (except the 24 & 28 core versions). Only the Mac Pro will be easy to swap.

There’s a 6 core i7, 64GB RAM 2TB in the Refurb store right now for $2,629.
https://www.apple.com/shop/product/GMW2 ... 22c7475ea0

You can get excellent 27” 4G monitors under $300. The Mini has an HDMI port and you can hook up 2 more to the USB-C ports with USB-C to HDMI or DisplayPort cables ($10-–$16). Those same cables let you hook up monitors you already have.

DP is not GPU intensive. Unless you are doing work in Photoshop, Lightroom or FCPx etc., the onboard video is fine. If you are doing graphics/video that would compel the use of external GPU, consider moving up to the iMac Pro. The base model is $4,249 in the Refurb Store. There are three more under $5K at the moment including one with 64GB RAM and 2TB storage.
https://www.apple.com/shop/refurbished/mac

[HCMarkus]

Let me pile on to MIke's comment... if you are thinking 4k, you can use a 4k TV to great effect. I have a 40" Samsung in my studio. Cost was $300 at Costco. At least to my eyes, any smaller 4k display just means I'll be scaling things up so I can see 'em. Although getting that display was a bit of a challenge under Sierra, under Mojave, it's a piece of cake. Plug it in HDMI to HDMI, put the TV in Gaming Mode, and go.

Although the refurb store helps with the price and, yes, the internal SSD is tough to beat for speed, you can still save a bundle with a little DIY (presuming interest and a smidgeon of aptitude).

[billgers]

Thank you to both of you for the very thoughtful responses. Naturally, I now have some follow up questions, even more so since I am a Luddite.

1) Have you heard anything about fan noise issues from the mac minis? If so, are there any models that are supposed to be better/worse than others?
2) Is there any appreciable performance difference between the year-old i7 in the refurb store and a brand new i7?
3) I was thinking of getting 32GB ram, but I see the refurb model has 64GB. Would I notice the difference? If so, how? More VI's? More audio tracks?
4) Would you recommend pulling the trigger soon so that I have tried-and-true Mojave versus getting Catalina and dealing with what I assume will be some compatibility issues?
5) My monitors are 8 year-old Del 21". How would my experience improve if I upgrade those to something newer/bigger?
6) HCMarkus mentioned a FW-TB adapter. Would a TB dock also work to achieve this? If so, it's weird because I feel like I'm back in the days of having a USB dongle attached to my powermac but with faster speeds. I'm still trying to understand the advantages of TB other than speed.
7) What would be the advantage of that 828es over my current 828FW with the adapter?

Thanks!

[HCMarkus]

Thank you to both of you for the very thoughtful responses. Naturally, I now have some follow up questions, even more so since I am a Luddite. Thanks!

1) Have you heard anything about fan noise issues from the mac minis? If so, are there any models that are supposed to be better/worse than others?
?

2) Is there any appreciable performance difference between the year-old i7 in the refurb store and a brand new i7?
Same model? No difference.

3) I was thinking of getting 32GB ram, but I see the refurb model has 64GB. Would I notice the difference? If so, how? More VI's? More audio tracks?
Unless you are dealing with huge VI sample sets, I don't think you will see a difference.

4) Would you recommend pulling the trigger soon so that I have tried-and-true Mojave versus getting Catalina and dealing with what I assume will be some compatibility issues?
Not a bad thought.

5) My monitors are 8 year-old Del 21". How would my experience improve if I upgrade those to something newer/bigger?
Sometimes bigger is better. 4k displays are pretty cool; lots of data can be simultaneously displayed. That said, two monitors like you have work great!

6) HCMarkus mentioned a FW-TB adapter. Would a TB dock also work to achieve this? If so, it's weird because I feel like I'm back in the days of having a USB dongle attached to my powermac but with faster speeds. I'm still trying to understand the advantages of TB other than speed.
TB is PCIe on a port.... sure works nice with external PCIe SSDs. It allows a small computer like the Mini to connect to devices at PCIe speed, like ye ol' Mac Pro updated. If a TB dock has a FW port, that could very well work.
Firewire was always said to have lower latency than USB for audio monitoring thru the computer and VI monitoring while recording. Interfaces that connect directly via TB (like the 828es and some other MOTU AVB interfaces) promise the lowest possible latency.

7) What would be the advantage of that 828es over my current 828FW with the adapter?
[/i]Probably lower latency. Latest converters and mic pres. Really flexible routing with 2 headphone outs, two sets of speaker outs (one set supports surround) and a great built-in hardware mixer. [/i]

[mikehalloran]

1. Not hearing any complaints about fan noise.

2. Exact same computer except that you cannot customize it further. You can still add AppleCare to extend the warranty to 3 years.

3. Would you notice the difference? Hard to say. You can have more apps open and some plugins are more RAM hungry.

4. Now that the price went down, this is a good time to buy. At some point, they will come preinstalled with Catalina.

5. It's quite probable that the energy savings will pay for new monitors. I'm serious. If your Dells are hot to the touch, forget probable — modern monitors are cool to the touch and use far less energy. You don't have to do it right away, though. I had my 23" eMachines hooked up a couple of months before I found my 27" LG 4Ks. However your Dells hook up, there's an adapter or cable.

6. Ok, you can use an Apple FW–TB adapter ($30) to a TB2 dock ($179 up) to a TB cable ($40) to the Apple TB2–TB3 adapter ($50) + drive(s). That is the chain. I do it but don't recommend it for many reasons including cost and external drive speed. Probably best to explore in another thread.

7. What HCM says.

[mikehalloran]

Everything you need to know about the Refurb Store Experience.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/re ... t-27540790

[bayswater]

I recently got the new Mini to replace an old coal powered iMac. I'm happy with it.

I put 32G RAM from OWC in it myself. At the time the Apple upgrade price was just stupid, but I think it has come down a lot since then. I don't recommend installing the RAM yourself unless you have a lot of similar experience. You pretty much have to do a complete disassembly, and there are a couple of steps where you can do real damage, and I don't think the OWC videos are clear enough on how to avoid these risks. The Mini is designed for Apple techs to do the upgrade, not the rest of us.

Like others I got a 4K monitor. I have a 32" but I'd suggest bigger if you have room. At full res on a 32" screen there are some things in DP that are just too small. The new DP screen scaling helps. Graphics on this Mini are not spectacular but good enough for DP and Logic. If you do full 4K video editing, don't expect to get better than 4 frames a second unless you get an outboard GPU.

The 4 TB3 ports are a joy. Hook up a load of stuff of various vintages and it all just works. The compatibility with old USB 1 and 2 stuff, and the hubs and drives I had on the iMac is painless.

Fan noise: I haven't heard any, even with my 500 track test project. It's sometimes difficult to tell the Mini is actually on.

One of the issues I had was with Bluetooth. My trackpad and mouse from the iMac don't get along well with the new Mini. Maybe bluetooth version issues, I don't know. And there are conflicts between USB3 and wifi that I was only able to resolve by going to 5G wifi.

[billgers]

Thanks guys! You may have sold me on the mini. Hard to believe that I may replace my ageing beast with one of those tiny things, but such is tech progress.

[billgers]

A couple of additional questions came to mind regarding storage.

At the moment, I've got a dual-boot drive with Snow Leapord and El Capitan (I can't even remember now why I made it dual-boot - perhaps to have one for 32 bit and one for 64 bit? I know there was an important reason to do it at the time) and I also have an external 1TB spinning HD.

If I get a mini with a large internal SSD, would I be better off moving my samples to the new SSD even though they would then share that with my OS or would I be better off leaving the samples on their own drive? If I leave them on their own drive, can I buy an enclosure for the existing internal drive and just hook that up or do I need to clone to a new external drive?

Thanks again for all the help!

[HCMarkus]

If I get a mini with a large internal SSD, would I be better off moving my samples to the new SSD even though they would then share that with my OS?

Yes.

[mikehalloran]

No.

The days when there was a benefit to having samples on a separate drive ended with the introduction of the G5 and its SATA bus and drives. Oh, you'll read tons of anecdotal evidence based on "I've read..." but facts and experience do not bear this out.

If you need more room, yes, get an external for your samples but, if not, there's no reason to. I only have 2TB on board and have a SATA III external—not nearly as fast as an NVMe based external but I experience no slowdown as a result.

Vienna Ensemble Pro is a special case as it often benefits from being run on a slave machine—which your old MP would do well if you have the need. Interestingly, during the WWDC presentation for the new NEW Mac Pro, Apple promised that the need for a slave machine for was over without actually mentioning VEP but it was very clear that's what they had in mind.

[bayswater]

If I get a mini with a large internal SSD, would I be better off moving my samples to the new SSD even though they would then share that with my OS or would I be better off leaving the samples on their own drive?

I got a 500G external SSD for all the sample libraries rather than using the internal drive. You might need something bigger but that's enough for what I do. I think the one I use for samples is just a USB 3, not a TB3. Even so, my test project with 128 MIDI tracks playing 32 instances of Kontakt, with the sample lib on this drive, is handled easily.

An early reviewer of the 2018 Mini said his external TB 3 SSD ran even faster than the Mini's internal SSD which at the time was the fasted he'd come across. He was able to put OS X on it and use it an alternate startup drive. Although Mike disagrees, I decided on that basis to stick with a small startup drive and add externals as I need more space.

[HCMarkus]

No.

The days when there was a benefit to having samples on a separate drive ended with the introduction of the G5 and its SATA bus and drives. Oh, you'll read tons of anecdotal evidence based on "I've read..." but facts and experience do not bear this out.

If you need more room, yes, get an external for your samples but, if not, there's no reason to. I only have 2TB on board and have a SATA III external—not nearly as fast as an NVMe based external but I experience no slowdown as a result.

Vienna Ensemble Pro is a special case as it often benefits from being run on a slave machine—which your old MP would do well if you have the need. Interestingly, during the WWDC presentation for the new NEW Mac Pro, Apple promised that the need for a slave machine for was over without actually mentioning VEP but it was very clear that's what they had in mind.

I am pretty sure MIke & I expressed concurring opinions, but maybe read the question differently. If there is any question, I meant "yes" as in "yes, you can put everything that will fit on your internal Mini SSD."

If money is at all concern, external SSD drives such as bays mentions will save you a bundle and be plenty speedy. I would be so inclined. Extra RAM and SSD capacity are places where the Apple Tax hits hard, yet can be legally avoided. I'd spec my Mini as follows:

3.2GHz 6‑core 8th‑generation Intel Core i7 (Turbo Boost up to 4.6GHz)
8GB 2666MHz DDR4
Intel UHD Graphics 630
128GB SSD storage
Gigabit Ethernet (10/100/1000BASE-T Gigabit Ethernet using RJ-45 connector)

$1,099.00

Add 32GB RAM under $200
Add 1TB External SSD capacity - Samsung T5 (under $200) or X5 ($400)

for total cost of under $1,500 to $1,700

Same specs using Apple RAM and SSD: $2,300

Sincerely, your RAM/SSD CPA