Best iMac Configuration for Photo editing

[ohsnaphappy]

Yes, I store my originals (1.5TB) on an external Thunderbolt Dual-Drive RAID and my LR catalog too. However, If I buy a larger SSD I could put my LR Catalog (200GB) on it in order to speed up day to day use that primarily uses LR's Previews (stored in the catalog).

Maybe the 512 would be enough..?

The imac's read speed is right around 2gb/s. No thunderbolt drive can offer that kind of speed. So I'm guessing you'd see pretty decent gains by putting everything on the imac's ssd. The cheapest "2gb/s drive" you're ever going to find is offered by Apple. That's why I'm getting the 1tb ssd.

 

[arbitrage]

200 Gig LR Catalog??? I have well over 100,00 images in mine and my entire LR folder (catalog, settings, previews) is only 30 gigs...

But more to your point, the LR catalog should absolutely be on the SSD

He may be quoting the Preview file size in that 200GB. My Previews were up to about 100GB at one point before I killed the file and started growing it again with just my new imports. The reason is that I transfer the Catalogue and Previews to my smaller 12rMB for travel and transferring the giant Preview file is a PITA.

Back to the buying decision, I still haven't placed my order (sucks to be in Canada these days with our $) but this is what I'm probably going to get:

4GHZ i7
8GB RAM wich I will add another 16 or 24GB to aftermarket
4GB G395X (this is my one hesitation), maybe will just get the 2GB 395
512GB SSD (I have this size in my rMB and rMBP and like this price point)
Magic Trackpad 2 (will stick with my Magic Mouse from 2009 iMac as it is not a favourite of mine and newer one seems to be almost the same)

That comes to just over $4000CDN so an expensive beast but similar to what I paid in 2009. However, getting a 5K display in that price makes it more reasonable I guess....

And can someone confirm that the 5K iMac can run my 2009 iMac in TDP as my second screen? Thanks?

Any more opinions on the 395 vs 395X for LR use? I guess hard to predict LR's future with respect to Graphics use.

 

[AppleDroid]

200 Gig LR Catalog??? I have well over 100,00 images in mine and my entire LR folder (catalog, settings, previews) is only 30 gigs...

But more to your point, the LR catalog should absolutely be on the SSD

I have a 2013 MP and that's how I have it setup: Lightroom catalog/settings on my SSD but all of my actual files are stored on a 12TB OWC Thunderbay 4 which tops out at around 500MB/s. I've seen some good write-ups that show housing the photos on the SSD for Lightroom shows next to zero speed increase while editing.

 

[Textureboy]

He may be quoting the Preview file size in that 200GB. My Previews were up to about 100GB at one point before I killed the file and started growing it again with just my new imports. The reason is that I transfer the Catalogue and Previews to my smaller 12rMB for travel and transferring the giant Preview file is a PITA.

Back to the buying decision, I still haven't placed my order (sucks to be in Canada these days with our $) but this is what I'm probably going to get:

4GHZ i7
8GB RAM wich I will add another 16 or 24GB to aftermarket
4GB G395X (this is my one hesitation), maybe will just get the 2GB 395
512GB SSD (I have this size in my rMB and rMBP and like this price point)
Magic Trackpad 2 (will stick with my Magic Mouse from 2009 iMac as it is not a favourite of mine and newer one seems to be almost the same)

That comes to just over $4000CDN so an expensive beast but similar to what I paid in 2009. However, getting a 5K display in that price makes it more reasonable I guess....

And can someone confirm that the 5K iMac can run my 2009 iMac in TDP as my second screen? Thanks?

Any more opinions on the 395 vs 395X for LR use? I guess hard to predict LR's future with respect to Graphics use.

My specs were pretty much the same with 1TB SSD.

Our CDN dollar is horrible. Student education pricing helped a lot...