My college might finally upgrade their 24" iMacs!

[dandeco]

Some of you may recall me mentioning Massasoit Community College in Brockton, MA using Mac computers in the Fine Arts building (the only building on the campus with Macs, obviously.) I am currently doing volunteer work with their TV studio. Our editing lab currently uses early-2009 24" iMacs that we got in summer 2009 to replace the older PowerMac G4s (2002 QuickSilver models) and the Dell Optiplex towers used. (The G4s were good though; we even ran Leopard on them!)

They are all the top-of-the-line model with 3.06 GHz Core 2 Duo processors, 4 GB of RAM, 1 TB hard drives (each one has a 500 GB OS X partition and a 500 GB Boot Camp partition with Windows XP Pro) and NVIDIA GeForce GT 130 graphics cards with 512 MB of VRAM.

We use these for our video post-production work, using Final Cut Studio 2 (and occasionally iMovie '09) on each one (on the PowerMacs, we used Final Cut Express), and we also use them for our radio production areas as well (using Audacity and GarageBand.)
They are great computers, but the problem is, the software is pretty much outdated now. They are all still running OS X 10.5.8 Leopard, and have older versions of Safari and Firefox and a few other applications. But this summer, we may finally get around to upgrading the operating systems. Though we will need OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard first, I am not sure if we should just go right with 10.8 Mountain Lion, or wait for 10.9 to come out? (Most of the campus PCs upgraded from Windows XP to Windows 7 in summer 2010.)

Though we have another Mac that really needs upgrading: in the same editing lab, the teachers' workstation has a 2006 Mac Pro! (It was actually purchased in 2007, but still.) It actually still runs OS X Tiger 10.4.11 and has 2 GB of RAM and a 250 GB hard drive!
This we plan to upgrade the RAM and most likely install a second hard drive. As for the operating system, we may only be able to go up to Snow Leopard unless we go for an unsupported Mountain Lion installation (like we did with the 800 MHz PowerMac G4s when we installed Leopard on them!)

I don't know if we're going to get any new machines for a while as our current Macs are really good, and the iMacs can be easily updated to the latest software. Though one of the TV studio directors DID get a unibody iMac for her office (now we need to plan and get at least one FireWire-to-Thunderbolt adapter for the future, as we still use DV/HDV camcorders from time to time!)

Any comments/suggestions?

 

[FreakinEurekan]

I'd go for 10.8 now on the iMacs. It's not expensive, and there's no guarantee that 10.9 will even run on those machines.

 

[class77]

I have that exact same machine, except I have 4 gigs of memory instead of 2. I know that it can be upgraded to Mountain Lion and from everything I've read, it will be eligible for Mavericks. You will have to upgrade the Ram, but everything else should be OK for the OS upgrade. Your real problem may be demands of the video software, so make sure you check their requirements carefully.

Best of luck

 

[dandeco]

Update: One of the iMacs needed to be repaired, so the college IT department did so and installed OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard on it as a result! So now we have eight iMacs in the video lab we usually work in using Leopard, one iMac with Snow Leopard and a Mac Pro with Tiger.

 

[Ddyracer]

I have that exact same machine, except I have 4 gigs of memory instead of 2. I know that it can be upgraded to Mountain Lion and from everything I've read, it will be eligible for Mavericks. You will have to upgrade the Ram, but everything else should be OK for the OS upgrade. Your real problem may be demands of the video software, so make sure you check their requirements carefully.

Best of luck

Mavericks will work on 4gb of RAM so he doesn't have to.

 

[class77]

Mavericks will work on 4gb of RAM so he doesn't have to.

Read the original post, the guy had 2 Gigs of RAM. I was the one who had 4 gigs of RAM. Supposedly Mountain Lion will run with that little, but I wouldn't want to wait on it.

 

[Ddyracer]

Read the original post, the guy had 2 Gigs of RAM. I was the one who had 4 gigs of RAM. Supposedly Mountain Lion will run with that little, but I wouldn't want to wait on it.

Can't exactly blame me, you should have said he needs more RAM for the Mac Pro. Ah, well.

 

[class77]

Can't exactly blame me, you should have said he needs more RAM for the Mac Pro. Ah, well.

How exactly was I unclear in my original post that he needed more RAM??

I have that exact same machine, except I have 4 gigs of memory instead of 2. I know that it can be upgraded to Mountain Lion and from everything I've read, it will be eligible for Mavericks. You will have to upgrade the Ram, but everything else should be OK for the OS upgrade. Your real problem may be demands of the video software, so make sure you check their requirements carefully.

Best of luck

 

[Ddyracer]

How exactly was I unclear in my original post that he needed more RAM??

I answered that in the previous post. But since you don't seem to get it, I said you should have been more clear what system you were referring to in regards to RAM. In your first post you meant the OP's Mac Pro no?

 

[757015]

If you decide to upgrade any of your models through Apple, I recommend contacting a store's business specialists. They can give you some leasing options and offer briefings that are basically presentations that provide you with complete solutions for keeping your machines up to date or ideas for building a complete ecosystem for all of your hardware and software... Third party or otherwise.

If you choose to purchase your macs, accessories, peripherals, and/or iOS devices... All of this builds report and allows you to take advantage of discounts.

In addition, you'll have a team to speak with that's familiar with your setup and history and can recommend answers to your problems.

I've often found the business teams to be made up of the more aspirational employees that provide the best of the best when it comes to customer service!