Chuck Pike
Level 1 (0 points)

Q: I am planning of buying a Imac 27 and am coming from a PC.

All of my photos are loaded onto external drives, and have almost filled a 2 t drive with photos.  I have back up of all my photos on a second external, that is a mirror image of the first drive.  I also have have one that is a mirror of the first drive that is kept off line and kept in another location.  How well will the fussion drive work vs a straight ssd drive with my current set up?  I am retired, and this is a major expense for me, and I do hope that this set up will give me years of service. So, should I buy the fussion with a 3 T hard drive, or the 256 flash drive. Now if I were on one of the photo web sites and read a question about should I buy this or that camera, I would say that person needs to do more research.  Well, that is what I am doing here.  The people on Dpreview say I am going to love my Imac 27, I just need to know more about Apple.  I have used PC for 25 years as a CAD designer.  My IT person is going to flip out once he knows I have moved to a Apple computer.  He will have no more work.

iMac, moving from PC to Imac

Posted on Sep 13, 2013 8:01 AM

by baltwo,Solvedanswer
baltwo baltwo
Level 9 (62,256 points)
A:

Only you can determine if youi want to bother with a fusion HD. I don't and I'd go with the cheapest option for max storage: 3TB Serial ATA Drive @ 7200 rpm [Add $150.00]. So, for starters, peruse http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1408, http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2518, and http://www.apple.com/support/macbasics/

Posted on Sep 13, 2013 2:01 PM

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Chuck Pike

Q: I am planning of buying a Imac 27 and am coming from a PC.

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  • Helpful answers

  • by baltwo,Solvedanswer

    baltwo baltwo Sep 13, 2013 2:01 PM in response to Chuck Pike
    Level 9 (62,256 points)
    Sep 13, 2013 2:01 PM in response to Chuck Pike

    Only you can determine if youi want to bother with a fusion HD. I don't and I'd go with the cheapest option for max storage: 3TB Serial ATA Drive @ 7200 rpm [Add $150.00]. So, for starters, peruse http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1408, http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2518, and http://www.apple.com/support/macbasics/

  • by Ralph Landry1,

    Ralph Landry1 Sep 13, 2013 2:08 PM in response to Chuck Pike
    Level 8 (41,782 points)
    Sep 13, 2013 2:08 PM in response to Chuck Pike

    The big boost of the Fusion Drive is in the startup speed due to the SSD portion.  That will not have much affect on interaction with an external hard drive.

     

    I agree with Baltwo...it is smarter to put money in a large internal higher speed hard drive.  The iMac is a great machine, and the speed of the faster hard drive makes for a great overall experience.

     

    Only thing I would add, since the 27 inch allows for user ram upgrade, you get more ram for your money going to Mac suppliers like OWC, http://www.macsales.com and Crucial, http://www.crucial.com

  • by baltwo,

    baltwo baltwo Sep 13, 2013 2:25 PM in response to Ralph Landry1
    Level 9 (62,256 points)
    Sep 13, 2013 2:25 PM in response to Ralph Landry1

    Oh! One othter thing, I'd opt for the 3.4GHz Quad-core Intel Core i7, Turbo Boost up to 3.9GHz for an additional $200 USD. That, with the 3TB HD and max RAM should give you what you really need. Fusion and SSD things only complicate matters and the lack of them won't affect your machine's performance.

  • by Baby Boomer (USofA),

    Baby Boomer (USofA) Baby Boomer (USofA) Sep 13, 2013 3:27 PM in response to Chuck Pike
    Level 9 (57,623 points)
    Sep 13, 2013 3:27 PM in response to Chuck Pike

    http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2477  Mac Basics: The essentials

     

     

    New to Macs/My First Mac

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    2ue5vgy.gif

  • by Ralph Landry1,

    Ralph Landry1 Sep 13, 2013 4:05 PM in response to baltwo
    Level 8 (41,782 points)
    Sep 13, 2013 4:05 PM in response to baltwo

    Absolutely, faster processor and speedy large hard drive, you get the most bang per buck.

  • by DRU66,

    DRU66 DRU66 Sep 29, 2013 10:26 AM in response to Ralph Landry1
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Sep 29, 2013 10:26 AM in response to Ralph Landry1

    I am in a similar situation.  My 2007 iMac HDD is dying and it is time for an upgrade anyway.  I want the simplest solution to store and access music files and raw and edited photo and video files in addition to day to day computing activities for two users  Despite all the positive feedback for fusion and internal SSDs, I was thinking of getting the 3TB internal drive and putting everything on there and then using a thunderbolt external drive or drives for a time machine and/or bootable clone backup.  I currently have all media file on an external drive, but backing up from the iMac internal files and external media files at the same time is awkward at best.  The internal 3TB to external would seem to be the simplest solution especially since I also need a small boot camp partition.  It would also limit making the thing like an octopus.  An internal SSD only (256 or 512) would seem to work, but then I need two external setups for sure, one for media and a duplicate for backup.  Boot speed is not a huge problem.  Based on what was recommended above, sounds like I should follow the same advice and get the internal 7200 HDD and backup directly to an external setup.  Any thoughts or better suggestions?

  • by anthonyfromglen ellyn,

    anthonyfromglen ellyn anthonyfromglen ellyn Sep 29, 2013 11:18 AM in response to Chuck Pike
    Level 1 (20 points)
    Sep 29, 2013 11:18 AM in response to Chuck Pike

    All this advice to buy the cheapest “big” HD doesn’t make sense to me. You are buying a $2K+ computer (that is also sealed) – not a $500 Dell or HP machine. While it possible, it’s not easy or cheap to upgrade the HD after you take it home. Get the 1GB fusion drive option and you won’t believe have fast it is. You can then buy an external drive for a backup and storage.