Everything Apple (the Mac heads thread)

Yeah totally. My current Mac mini with Core Duo and 2gb ram (which I am about to sell) can handle RAW from my D700 fine.

Not much room on an air for storing your files though.. hard drive space and screen real estate on an imac is a real plus if you don't need to moving the comouter around..

I've got a Macbook Air… storage space is scaaaaarce! I've had to buy external usb disk for everything. Even my photo library. It's a pain in the ass if you use it as your main machine and you're storing large files, but if not… it's amazing - fast, light, bla bla… I'd say get an iMac too if you need the storage space.

I'd like one, but I rather wait till SSD become cheaper (like usb memory stick) so I can upgrade to 512GB.

1+ on RAW - i borrowed my dad's Air for a photoshoot as I didn't have a laptop at the time, I think the SSD actually helped a lots.

(first generation Air).

pending on price, i might be interested in your mini ben...

(though timing might be my downfall as I've got a trip to ibiza to pay for)

Selling my Mac Mini. It's the late 2010 model 2.4 Core Duo, 2GB ram 320GB HDD. Preloaded with Photoshop CS3, Lightroom 2, Final Cut Pro, Word and other general stuff.

It's about 7 months old, so still in the 2 years warranty for John Lewis. I'll also throw in the HDMI to DVI adapter for free.

Yours for £400.

I need to transfer all my data over and get my laptop up and running first, so will be ready to be put in your hands by the end of the week.

All boxed.

tl;dr

;)

probably going to be too soon for me...

Just PM'd you Ben. And Nuknow. Going to do some headscratching and count my pennies and get back to you both today. Thanks for all the advice and offers y'all!Sometimes I forget what a nice place this forum can be. Cheers!

because the time spent building/flashing video cards/firmware/getting the wireless to work etc is best spent earning money with a decent machine. if you can't earn enough money to make up the difference between a hackintosh and a mac then change career.

I agree you should be able to afford the right kit if you are using it for work purposes but the hackintosh community has came on leaps and bounds since the days of flashing bios and firmware you can get DVD iso with pre patched kernels and drivers.
Hackintosh are great projects which give people that don't have the money to play with OSX

1+ on RAW - i borrowed my dad's Air for a photoshoot as I didn't have a laptop at the time, I think the SSD actually helped a lots.

(first generation Air).

Did you upgrade it to a SSD? I'm having trouble finding a cheap ZIF SSD

I didn't, he did (64GB which is closer to a 59GB).

That why I want to wait, cheaper option in future, right now a 64GB HD cost £75 which is a lots cheaper than a couple years ago, price are similar to the size of the HD (128GB - £130, 256Gb - £250).

I'm chucking an SSD in a C2D MBP tonight, splashed out on an OWC one (better trim management and OS X compatibility), arrived from the states in 3 days for £6 postage (~£150 total for 115gb), good stuff.

Removing the optical drive too, so there'll be massive non-system files HD mounted in an OptiBay, easy.

I didn't, he did (64GB which is closer to a 59GB).

That why I want to wait, cheaper option in future, right now a 64GB HD cost £75 which is a lots cheaper than a couple years ago, price are similar to the size of the HD (128GB - £130, 256Gb - £250).

if its for a 1st gen mac air add £25-30 for one with a ZIF connection :S

If I'm honest I'd like to put a SSD in my white macbook. I can then use that when I'm away and the Mrs. can use our desktop (which I prefer to use anyway)

If I'm honest I'd like to put a SSD in my white macbook. I can then use that when I'm away and the Mrs. can use our desktop (which I prefer to use anyway)

96Gb :: http://www.ebuyer.com/246998-kingston-96gb-v-100-2-5-sata-ii-ssd-read-230mb-s-write-180mb-s-svp100s2-96g :: £85
60Gb :: http://www.ebuyer.com/280120-ocz-60gb-vertex-plus-ssd-2-5-sata-ii-read-185mb-s-write-oczssd2-1vtxpl60g :: £60

Both of those will have issues once filled and re-written by OS X (until post-Lion updates), bad advice/purchase.

Both of those will have issues once filled and re-written by OS X (until post-Lion updates), bad advice/purchase.

how come?

#doesn'tknowenough

Both of those will have issues once filled and re-written by OS X (until post-Lion updates), bad advice/purchase.

oh really? I have the 96Gb in my MBP and had no issues what so ever on 10.7.1

OS X doesn't yet manage the TRIM of flash drives effectively... Lion was meant to natively support it but third-party manufacturers are still reporting lots of problems. 10.6.8 enables support for some SSD upgrades from Apple themselves, but is only a mini fix and again, has problems.

TRIM can be managed on the SSD itself and manufacturers (that produce both the flash and controller) have mastered this somewhat. Intel and OWC drives for example work well under OS X with no "real world" problems under OS X (especially from OWC who are the only manufacturer to provide Mac support with their SSDs). If you buy "any old" SSD upgrade then you can expect dips in read/write speeds of anything up to 80% once the files are re-written (so a secure erase on a "bad for OS X" SSD would pretty much nullify the SSD upgrade if you're unlucky).

There are third-party TRIM enablers/hacks for OS X but they now seem to be conflicting with the Apple updates, some say the SSD problems under OS X are exaggerated and that you don't really need to worry about the performance hit... I've heard they're similar to running an HD with less than 15% free space under OS X, which again, seemed to be a marginal "real world" problem.

But yeah, for compatibility/support right now, I'd go with an OWC SSD, although I'd also be tempted to take the risk on a different drive if the right bargain could be found.

oh really? I have the 96Gb in my MBP and had no issues what so ever on 10.7.1

Fair dos, are you hitting 230/180 though?

hmm never tried, let me find a drive speed tester

222.73/177.33

Nice, is the drive a few months old? (Do you reckon you've read/written enough largish files to fill the free space?)

yeah its maybe around three months old, I run 4 VMs on virtual box, GNS3 and constantly shifting large database files/installation files as well as movies/music around and seems to be holding up

Good stuff, I'm assuming it's an older MBP with SATA 2? Looks like I could have saved a few bob then, ah well.

I'm hoping for 270/250 and a solid reliable upgrade (over time):
http://macperformanceguide.com/Reviews-SSD-OWC-Mercury_Extreme-115GB.html