Hi guys I need some help my imac has gotten a bit old and i'm looking to buy a new one i'm interested in the mac pro 2008 model as I have around £1000 to spend or would it be better if i got a new one like a mac mini or something i play a lot of music and use windows for my university course i dont want to buy a 2008 and i find in year or so it's out of date any sudgestions thanks
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What do you mean with "play music"? Do you actually play a musical instrument and use your computer for recording and mixing and composing, or do you just let iTunes (or another music software player) play music files?
Because if it is the latter, a Mac Pro is a bit overkill, the power consumption alone will be seen on the next power bill.
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Because if it is the latter, a Mac Pro is a bit overkill, the power consumption alone will be seen on the next power bill.
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A Mac mini can do that. You can add another 750 GB HDD into it if you want.
Or you could look at refurbished iMacs, but for your purposes there is no need for a Mac Pro, as you can also use external HDDs for storing music, which still would use less power than a Mac Pro.
And sharing files with Windows is not dependant with what Mac you use, but the OS.
Or do you want to run Windows via Boot Camp?
And how much storage space do you need?
Yes, you can have two HDDs or two SSD or one HDD and one SSD in the Mac mini. And yes, the Mac mini are good. And you can have one HDD/SSD running Windows, the other HDD/SSD can run Mac OS X.
And you can use a fast Firewire 800 HDD (though USB 2.0 will more than suffice for music playback, even uncompressed music) to store your music onto and have it accessible by both OSs.
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Overview of the four major file systems (called "Formats" in Mac OS X) used on Windows and Mac OS X, compiled by GGJstudios. You can use Disk Utility to format any HDD to your liking.
Any external hard drive will work with PCs or Macs, as long as the connectors are there (Firewire, USB, etc.) It doesn't matter how the drive is formatted out of the box, since you can re-format any way you like. Formatting can be done with the Mac OS X Disk Utility, found in the /Applications/Utilities folder. Here are your formatting options:
FAT32 (File Allocation Table)
- Read/Write FAT32 from both native Windows and native Mac OS X.
[*]Maximum file size: 4GB. - Maximum volume size: 2TB
- You can use this format if you share the drive between Mac OS X and Windows computers and have no files larger than 4GB.
- Read/Write NTFS from native Windows.
- Read only NTFS from native Mac OS X
[*]To Read/Write/Format NTFS from Mac OS X, here are some alternatives:- For Mac OS X 10.4 or later (32 or 64-bit), install Paragon (approx $20) (Best Choice for Lion)
- For 32-bit Mac OS X, install NTFS-3G for Mac OS X (free) (does not work in 64-bit mode)
- For 64-bit Snow Leopard, read this: MacFUSE for 64-bit Snow Leopard
- Some have reported problems using Tuxera (approx $36).
- Native NTFS support can be enabled in Snow Leopard and Lion, but is not advisable, due to instability.
- AirPort Extreme (802.11n) and Time Capsule do not support NTFS
- Maximum file size: 16 TB
- Maximum volume size: 256TB
- You can use this format if you routinely share a drive with multiple Windows systems.
- Read/Write HFS+ from native Mac OS X
- Required for Time Machine or Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper! backups of Mac internal hard drive.
[*]To Read/Write HFS+ from Windows, Install MacDrive
[*]To Read HFS+ (but not Write) from Windows, Install HFSExplorer - Maximum file size: 8EiB
- Maximum volume size: 8EiB
- You can use this format if you only use the drive with Mac OS X, or use it for backups of your Mac OS X internal drive, or if you only share it with one Windows PC (with MacDrive installed on the PC)
- Supported in Mac OS X only in 10.6.5 or later.
- Not all Windows versions support exFAT. See disadvantages.
- exFAT (Extended File Allocation Table)
- AirPort Extreme (802.11n) and Time Capsule do not support exFAT
- Maximum file size: 16 EiB
- Maximum volume size: 64 ZiB
- You can use this format if it is supported by all computers with which you intend to share the drive. See "disadvantages" for details.