I have a late 2014 imac and found out recently that I could not update the latest Lightroom update on my machine. I am a heavy Adobe user but primarily a still photographer. My old imac had a 1tb fusion drive and 16gb ram. My external 14 tb drive is nearly full. I have been hitting a lot of beachballs of late on my system. I was recently given a good monitor and am contemplating a mac mini purchase. I don't think I will wait for the M3 (who knows when?) but am debating between M2pro and M2 mac mini. I currently fill my 1tb internal drive so a 516 ssd is out of the question. My question is regarding the relative merits of going to 24 gb ram on the M2 versus the 16 gb M2pro with base core configuration? Or is there another machine in this $1300 - to 1500 range (new imac, mba or mbp) that I can hook up to my new monitor and achieve the same or better results? Thanks so much for your help.
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Photographer needs advice
- Thread starter Azurebird
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I went from a high end iMac 2015 5K to a mini M2 16GB/512GB. I use a external Samsung 980 Pro 2TB ssd in a Acasis enclosure for my Lightroom catalog/database and for all my photoshop and illustrator files. I also have Apple's photo and music DB's on a external drive.
The mini M2 16GB/512GB blows my iMac out of the water and I have zero problems running Lightroom, Photoshop and Illustrator at the same time with the regular M2. I would recommend getting at least 512 for the extra speed it provides.
I have a BenQ PD2705U as a monitor which runs with no issues.
The mini M2 16GB/512GB blows my iMac out of the water and I have zero problems running Lightroom, Photoshop and Illustrator at the same time with the regular M2. I would recommend getting at least 512 for the extra speed it provides.
I have a BenQ PD2705U as a monitor which runs with no issues.
Me personally, went from 2017 5k iMac to Macstudio M1Max with 64GB RAM and I have catalog and raw files on an internal 4TB.
Photoshop is a RAM hog, I would suggest 24GB for a mini M2Pro, internal SSD as much as you can afford…
Unfortunately, the Mini M2pro toggles straight to 32gb, skips 24. Hence the quandary. I can't afford the 32 jump right now.
Sorry, not following the mini configurations…
Since you’re using a 2014 right now I assume you will want to use your new one for a number of years too?
Not sure where you’re located, in the US BH has typically good deals, I got my studio there and saved a bunch
I can't believe that my 27" imac performed so well for near 10 years, same with my old mbp. I do tend to wring out every ounce from these things... I write curriculum for a university as well, the educational credit usually offsets the b & h tax savings.
IF you finance thru them, they’ll pay your state taxes, I did that and paid right off… I’m in CA so that was an addl almost 9% off…
Just be aware of their return policy…
I had no issues, and I also bought all my photo gear from them for like 20 years…
That's a beautiful shot!
My wife does portrait photography. She is typically unwilling to spend what she should on technology. She got by with a 2010 mid-range 27" iMac upgraded to 16 GB of ram for 10 years. We got her a 2019 27" iMac, but it is plagued by having a Fusion Drive, which makes it slower than it needs to be. I got her a base model 8/256 M1 MacBook Air for use in her pre-k classroom, and she has actually been using it more for photography work than the iMac these days. Naturally, she constantly has an external SSD attached to the Air.
That M1 Air is far from what I would have recommended for her photography work. She regularly batch edits dozens of images at a time in Lightroom and Photoshop, and no longer has to walk away from the machine when running groups of actions. It has sped up her process significantly, even though it is far from the correct machine.
For still photography, I'm not convinced that you need to jump to the M2pro or M3pro level CPU, especially if it doesn't fit the budget. With the Adobe suite, you can never have enough ram. I'm pretty sure I could give my wife a Mac Pro with 1.5TB of ram and she would still make it swap. That said, a fast SSD really helps when you do swap or use a lot of scratch space. If I were to get her a mini today, I would look at the M2 or M3, bump the ram to 24GB (16GB at minimum), and at least 1TB internal storage. Then I would make sure she had a reliable network attached storage system and a reasonably fast external SSD to use for scratch space. A thunderbolt enclosure for the scratch disk would be nice, but I'm not convinced that it would save enough time during most operations to justify its expense. Just getting away from a system that uses a spinning HDD as part of the central storage will be a massive improvement.
My wife does portrait photography. She is typically unwilling to spend what she should on technology. She got by with a 2010 mid-range 27" iMac upgraded to 16 GB of ram for 10 years. We got her a 2019 27" iMac, but it is plagued by having a Fusion Drive, which makes it slower than it needs to be. I got her a base model 8/256 M1 MacBook Air for use in her pre-k classroom, and she has actually been using it more for photography work than the iMac these days. Naturally, she constantly has an external SSD attached to the Air.
That M1 Air is far from what I would have recommended for her photography work. She regularly batch edits dozens of images at a time in Lightroom and Photoshop, and no longer has to walk away from the machine when running groups of actions. It has sped up her process significantly, even though it is far from the correct machine.
For still photography, I'm not convinced that you need to jump to the M2pro or M3pro level CPU, especially if it doesn't fit the budget. With the Adobe suite, you can never have enough ram. I'm pretty sure I could give my wife a Mac Pro with 1.5TB of ram and she would still make it swap. That said, a fast SSD really helps when you do swap or use a lot of scratch space. If I were to get her a mini today, I would look at the M2 or M3, bump the ram to 24GB (16GB at minimum), and at least 1TB internal storage. Then I would make sure she had a reliable network attached storage system and a reasonably fast external SSD to use for scratch space. A thunderbolt enclosure for the scratch disk would be nice, but I'm not convinced that it would save enough time during most operations to justify its expense. Just getting away from a system that uses a spinning HDD as part of the central storage will be a massive improvement.
I am not very computer savvy, honestly, even though I once wrote a Beginners guide to Photoshop that sells to teachers. I have about 260k images on my old external WD14 tb drive. Will this slow down a Mini mac system? I shudder to think what the large comparable ssd would set me back...My initial thoughts were that the 24gb base model with the 1tb made the most sense for my needs. You seem to agree. Thanks for writing and your response.
The funny thing is, the speed of my old system was never really an issue for me. Processing takes what it takes. It is only when you get to experience the speed that you see how you have toiled. The problem lately is the stalls and crashes...
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As long as you keep the projects that you are actively working on saved on the internal SSD, you will benefit from its speed. If you try to edit files that reside on the 14TB external drive, you will be limited by the rate at which those files can be accessed.
My wife likes to let her drives fill until they become a problem, but this is what I told her about working with the Air.
1. Install the Adobe apps she needs onto the Air.
2. Only keep the few batches of files that she is working on, say her 3-5 most recent shoots, stored on the Air's internal drive.
3. Move completed work and/or upcoming projects onto an external drive.
4. Setup and use an external ssd for scratch space in the Adobe apps.
5. After proofs are uploaded to the cloud, move the current working files to external storage and bring in the next project.
It's a good bit of data management, but would allow her to easily work within the confines of the 256GB internal SSD. With 1TB of internal storage, you get a bit more wiggle room for keeping things stored locally.
Archiving and backing up files to a spinning HDD is fine. There is just a longer wait when you need to move them around. It won't slow down the Mac mini in its normal operations.
With the Fusion Drive in your iMac, it combines a small SSD which is very fast (well actually decent sized SSD, possibly 128GB, in that era) with a very slow 1TB spinning HDD. The system then dynamically moves around caches and files so that often accessed files are on the SSD making many things feel quick, such as startup times. Then when you need to browse the file system, you are doing so at the speed of the HDD. You might notice that opening some directories take a while to load their contents and you get a beach ball because that directory is stored on the HDD and has a lot of files stored in it.
My wife likes to let her drives fill until they become a problem, but this is what I told her about working with the Air.
1. Install the Adobe apps she needs onto the Air.
2. Only keep the few batches of files that she is working on, say her 3-5 most recent shoots, stored on the Air's internal drive.
3. Move completed work and/or upcoming projects onto an external drive.
4. Setup and use an external ssd for scratch space in the Adobe apps.
5. After proofs are uploaded to the cloud, move the current working files to external storage and bring in the next project.
It's a good bit of data management, but would allow her to easily work within the confines of the 256GB internal SSD. With 1TB of internal storage, you get a bit more wiggle room for keeping things stored locally.
Archiving and backing up files to a spinning HDD is fine. There is just a longer wait when you need to move them around. It won't slow down the Mac mini in its normal operations.
With the Fusion Drive in your iMac, it combines a small SSD which is very fast (well actually decent sized SSD, possibly 128GB, in that era) with a very slow 1TB spinning HDD. The system then dynamically moves around caches and files so that often accessed files are on the SSD making many things feel quick, such as startup times. Then when you need to browse the file system, you are doing so at the speed of the HDD. You might notice that opening some directories take a while to load their contents and you get a beach ball because that directory is stored on the HDD and has a lot of files stored in it.
Very nice pic. Dealing with images, and especially with Adobe, you need RAM. Moving forward the 24 GB will be limiting; 16 GB should not be considered. IMO you want the 32 GB RAM Pro Mini if a 64 GB RAM Studio is out of your price range.
Your internal SSD needs to maintain ~2x the capacity of what you put on it (i.e. half empty). Cheapest is to offload things to a less expensive external SSD as feasible. Note that even the external SSDs should not be overfilled; keep them <~80% full.
As you have learned, SSDs (and HDDs) will function at close to 100% full, but performance and longevity are both impacted. Trust me, you do not want to have your SSD break. It is far better to be uber cautious.
Note that the Mac OS will allow a box to function with less than ideal RAM and with over-filled SSDs, but it is very bad form. IMO is is dumb to limit a pricey new box by cheaping out on the RAM.
P.S. I too am a photog.
P.P.S. I strongly agree with your move away from all-in-one to Mini+display.
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Continue to suffer with the old box (and note SSDs may die on you) if you cannot afford 32 GB RAM. Do not hamstring a new box with less than 32 GB RAM.
Encouraging swap is just wrong on many levels (speed, disk wear). Buyers need to plan adequate RAM for their workflows instead. Computers have 4-6 year life cycles, and swapping to disk for 4-6 years because one is too cheap to install proper RAM initially is just wrong.
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In my experience the Adobe scratch disk should be on the internal SSD for speed, and the internal SSD should be sized accordingly when buying a new box. Your #4 only makes sense for those folks who failed to properly size the internal SSD when buying, or when workflows change unexpectedly.
I really wonder how many responses are actually based on experience and not on "I just think"...
Things like photoshop is a memory hog or even the notion that the fusion drive was fast.... all not true.
The fusion drive never proved to have any additional speed and created more problems than it tried to solve.
As I stated I run Photoshop, Illustrator and Lightroom all at the same time without any issues on a mini M2 16GB/512GB (and often Acrobat as well as 2 browsers with many tabs). I only have 270GB of the 512 used as I have all catalogs/databases for applications on external ssd and hdds. My external ssd is as fast as my internal one and so there is zero loss in speed when working on/with files.
Right now I am working on a photoshop file with around 10.000 layers and on a Illustrator file that is crazy complex.
The nice thing about not spending to much is that I won't feel like I need to hang on to this mini for ever because it was so expensive... If money isn't an issue then you can get whatever you need but if it is you just need to figure out how long it needs to last at what price.
As mentioned by me and others swapping internal storage for external is great because you can get way more bang for your buck. One thing to consider though is how many external ports you need... If you need more the M2 pro might be better but I have a 2TB ssd and a 5TB hdd and I still have ports left.
As far as being cautious you simply have to always be sure to make regular backups including backups of you external drives...
Things like photoshop is a memory hog or even the notion that the fusion drive was fast.... all not true.
The fusion drive never proved to have any additional speed and created more problems than it tried to solve.
As I stated I run Photoshop, Illustrator and Lightroom all at the same time without any issues on a mini M2 16GB/512GB (and often Acrobat as well as 2 browsers with many tabs). I only have 270GB of the 512 used as I have all catalogs/databases for applications on external ssd and hdds. My external ssd is as fast as my internal one and so there is zero loss in speed when working on/with files.
Right now I am working on a photoshop file with around 10.000 layers and on a Illustrator file that is crazy complex.
The nice thing about not spending to much is that I won't feel like I need to hang on to this mini for ever because it was so expensive... If money isn't an issue then you can get whatever you need but if it is you just need to figure out how long it needs to last at what price.
As mentioned by me and others swapping internal storage for external is great because you can get way more bang for your buck. One thing to consider though is how many external ports you need... If you need more the M2 pro might be better but I have a 2TB ssd and a 5TB hdd and I still have ports left.
As far as being cautious you simply have to always be sure to make regular backups including backups of you external drives...
Yup. My 2016 MBP aged out on me because of the stalls and crashes due to the limiting 16 GB RAM on board. I put 96 GB in its M2 replacement, even though today 64 GB is plenty for me. OS and apps always demand more RAM as time goes on; always. And I typically keep boxes for 5-6 years before upgrading.
I’d keep your eye on refurbished store and eBay. I’ve recently seen a studio m1 mac for 1600 and the occasional high spec mini for 600.
My experience with PS dates to the 1990s and yes, it is a RAM hog. Why do you think PS built in its own scratch disk? Not a bad thing, because using RAM is a superb way to do work for many reasons.
Sure Mac OS lets folks allows folks like you to do work even when limited by less RAM, but it is significantly less good computer setup/operation.
Your point about short life cycles is totally valid for those folks who plan that way. I have often thought it might make most sense, but personal inertia keeps me on longer life cycles.
Personally I would not touch eBay, but refurbs are a great way to save.
Gary from the Macmost channel on ewetube had an interesting blurb which addressed the processing power between the three different processors (M1, M2, M3), versus the chip size (standard, Pro, Max, Ultimate) that is worth reviewing if anyone is upgrading; the advances between chip sizes dwarfs the advances between processor type.
Regarding RAM/storage allocation, others have covered this better than I could, so no comment.
But as I mentioned on another thread, if you do decide to go with a souped-up Mini, compare its price/features to a base-model Studio before hitting "Buy"; the Studio ended up being the better buy, for me. Good luck!
But as I mentioned on another thread, if you do decide to go with a souped-up Mini, compare its price/features to a base-model Studio before hitting "Buy"; the Studio ended up being the better buy, for me. Good luck!
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