Newbie Question

[JD Shaw]

Planning on purchasing first iMac in a couple weeks (mid-2017/27 inch). General family use. No games. Is there any reason to upgrade from base 8 gb RAM? I'm going to go with 256 gb or 512 gb SSD vs. fusion. Thanks in advance.

 

[redheeler]

There is no reason to order it with more RAM, because if you discover you need more you can easily upgrade yourself, for less money, and at any time. One of the last remaining Apple products with user-accessible RAM slots.

 

[gian8989]

Planning on purchasing first iMac in a couple weeks (mid-2017/27 inch). General family use. No games. Is there any reason to upgrade from base 8 gb RAM? I'm going to go with 256 gb or 512 gb SSD vs. fusion. Thanks in advance.

Go with 521gb ssd and 8gb ram. For general family use i don't think you will need more than 8GB ram right now and to upgrade it is very easy.

Do you store videos and photo in the iMac or do you use an external hdd?

 

[willmtaylor]

I agree. For most tasks, you won’t max out your RAM, and it’s user-replaceable in the 27” iMac while the harddrive is not.

You could always buy an external hard drive after the fact, but this is less preferable as you’d have to manage what info is on each drive.

 

[JD Shaw]

Go with 521gb ssd and 8gb ram. For general family use i don't think you will need more than 8GB ram right now and to upgrade it is very easy.

Do you store videos and photo in the iMac or do you use an external hdd?

Photos only. No videos. No external hdd.

 

[gian8989]

Photos only. No videos. No external hdd.

I usually don't suggest fusion drive and since you only have photos 512GB should be enought. You can always add an external ssd like samsung t3/t5.

 

[KUKitch]

Agree with the 512 and the 8 GB RAM - so much more cost effective to upgrade after the fact

 

[Foxglove9]

8 GB is more than enough for your needs