What Mac is best for Aperture 3

mac fangirl wrote:

And sierra dragon -- how is your new laptop rig working out with aperture? Do you miss desktop performance?

I have desktop performance. 🙂 The 17" 2011 MBP with SSD knocks the socks off my 2006 Mac Pro in every regard except internal storage capacity, and Thunderbolt renders that issue moot. Various performance tests are at BareFeats.com. Aperture is a joy.

IMO for a photog the only benefits of the iMacs are 4 RAM slots instead of two, and price; and the iMacs have two huge downsides:

• The glossy display (that some find acceptable) and

• Lack of mobility.

And once you include SSD (IMO a necessity) the iMac price is not that great. I was going to add a 7200 rpm drive in the optical drive bay of my MBP but I like the SSD so much I may put a second SSD there.

IMO desktop graphics work needs two displays for best productivity, so when comparing costs I compare SSD iMac + external display versus

SSD laptop + external display. Looked at that way the marginal cost difference to achieve portability with full desktop performance is IMO way worth going for the MBP.

Note too that at the moment it looks like iMac drive replacements may be Apple-only, and that adds some cost since I have replaced drives in every box I have ever owned.

HTH

-Allen

Allen thank you for your kind and thoughtful reply. Now you have me headed back towards the laptop/external display solution, exactly where you landed. I was never really headed towards an iMac because it is a closed system without portability. But the tradeoff of laptop with external display vs Mac pro has been my primary struggle.

Do you find it annoying to deal with multiple external drives with your laptop setup? Are you using a powered hub and does that keep the external drives from booting off? And does the SSD drive make a significant difference in application performance, not just boot time?

I think I am going to do just what you did!!!! But I would go with the fifteen inch ssd laptop plus external display. I already have a 2010 17 inch laptop but it just doesn't seem as easy to tote around as I had hoped. I would leave that in one location as my desktop replacement and use the fifteen inch laptop with monitor in another location, using that computer as the field computer when needed.

I think I have a plan now, thanks to you! Telling me it beats the performance of the 2006 Mac pro is exactly what I wanted to hear!

And yes I too hate glossy displays. At least with the laptop/display combo I could check matte against glossy and have two screens to boot!

Would welcome any additional thoughts you might have as I struggle with this decision. Many thanks!

mac fangirl wrote:

Do you find it annoying to deal with multiple external drives with your laptop setup?

Yes it is annoying (perfect word). In that regard a tower is way nicer. But iMacs and MBPs suffer equally from the external drives annoyance. I do not use a powered hub, I use powered drives; daisy-chained FW800 or eSATA.

And does the SSD drive make a significant difference in application performance, not just boot time?

Yes. SSD rocks! Note I have not rigorously tested this, just my impression. I suspect an SSD helps the battery life too.

...yes I too hate glossy displays. At least with the laptop/display combo I could check matte against glossy and have two screens to boot!

I suggest buying the matte option on the MBP. Visual differences between displays in a two-display setup can be annoying. 🙂

Good luck!

-Allen

At the risk of derailing your decision making - I am moving from MBP to iMac mostly for Aperture.

So I'll present my contrary approach. It may not suit you!

I don't like the multiple external drives tethering my MBP. It might just as well be a desktop. I use it with an external monitor because the 15" display is inconveniently small for me. So the MBP is doubly tethered!

My 27" system on order has SSD and 2TB drive. I will still have tethered drives for TimeMachine, vaults and other backup, but they'll be permanently tethered since the iMac is a desktop.

I will use two external monitors with the iMac. Two for Aperture, and the rest on the third.

The reason for 2TB drive is initially for performance and later for capacity. The Masters will be there.

The Aperture Library will be on the SSD with the system and apps

Agreed that if one will never be mobile then a desktop box is logical. In that case I would get another Mac Pro with quality non-glossy displays, e.g. NEC 2490. Glossy displays like iMacs literally hurt my brain.

However if one will ever be mobile, the issue of two-computer laptop to desktop workflow (which I did for years until recently) is a definite PITA. Using a MBP as the sole repository of a single Referenced-Masters Aperture Library is just (IM0) a way nicer workflow now that the MBPs are strong enough. Managed-Masters make no sense to me because building, storing, and backing up an uneccessarily huge database is simply not good computer practice, and Masters should be backed up before import into any images management program like Aperture anyway.

Tethering is annoying only when the MBP is mobile. If used as a desktop (like my 2006 C2D MBP is being used) then tethered drives are pretty innocuous. Even my Mac Pro was routinely tethered to drives for off site backup, but the 4 internal 1-TB drives (two in RAID0) were a definite convenience. Today eSATA drives allow MBPs used in desktop mode to have individual 1-3 TB drives or 1-6 TB of RAID0 at $100/TB, no problem.

-Allen

In my opinion, if you are serious about your photography and the use of Aperture 3, get one of the newest iMac models. If the computer has to be portable, then get one of the newest MBPs, the bigger display, the better.

If ultimate portability is a must, then, yes, the 13 inch MBP will do, but for image editing, faster and bigger is better. Only you can decide if something less is "good enough."

I have an early 2010 22.5 in. iMac, and though it's okay with Aperture, I really would like one of the new ones, and with the 27" display. But, no can do right now.

Gradient wrote:

In my opinion, if you are serious about your photography and the use of Aperture 3, get one of the newest iMac models. If the computer has to be portable, then get one of the newest MBPs, the bigger display, the better.

If ultimate portability is a must, then, yes, the 13 inch MBP will do, but for image editing, faster and bigger is better. Only you can decide if something less is "good enough."

Well said.

The thing that I would add is to remember that for the desktop Mac Pros remain the strongest most versatile boxes available, and MPs do not force one to use a non-replaceable glare display. And they too are due for an update.

Personally I cannot imagine doing without portabiity. In my case bigger (17" matte) is indeed better, because I use the laptop to display pix to clients both at the shoot and in the process of ranking images.

-Allen