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I could see buying a Mac Pro for video production or scientific/engineering simulations and data analysis where top performance and ability to run long (hours or days) number crunching applications were important. And for that RAID 1 or 5 and ECC memory would improve reliability to reduce the likelihood of crashing and losing possibly days of work. And for this a top of the line Mac Pro makes sense as well.

That said, I can't see paying what would end up being thousands extra for photo processing, some home videos, and "goofing off". Hey, a Mac Mini was being used. Ignore the prestige/braggingrights factor and think of the camera gear that could be bought for the difference that might actually increase one's income!

As far as I'm concerned, the iMac is a "pro" system. It's every bit as good as the business Dell computers I had bought before switching to a Mac.

The 27" i7 iMac will give far more performance than is needed. I've got one and Photoshop flies. In fact everything flies. The high resolution display is fantastic. You can keep the 24" monitor as a second monitor (I've got an old but quality 20" to the side). I've got 8GB of RAM but haven't gone over 4GB used. For me photography is a serious hobby but the system is used professionally for programming, and electrical engineering course development which includes recording demonstrations of running CPU intensive CAD software in a Windows virtual machine. Multiple cores and high speed are a must for smooth videos.

As was pointed out, RAID is no substitute for backups. You never want a backup scheme where the backup data is stored internal to the computer because power supply problems can wipe out every drive at once. And then there is theft/fire/whatever to consider. I use an external drive for TimeMachine but have a separate server computer (consider it as a NAS for this example) for archival data. I make a separate image backup of the iMac once a week to alternating external drives, and a quarterly entire network backup. Backups are kept offsite. In the event of a harddrive failure I can boot from a backup and be back up in hours (including retrieving the drive, and copying the most recent work from the TimeMachine drive. If the iMac completely fails I've got other Macs I can plug the drives into to access current data.
 
I do a lot of photo work too and the Mac Pro is a great tool for redundant backups. Duplicative backups, and a separate drive for the large Aperture library makes everything super fast. Expansion for RAM, drives, etc. makes it a machine that you can easily keep for 5-7 years - upgrading as needed.

Bay 1: OSX
Bay 2: Aperture Library
Bay 3: Aperture Vault 1
Bay 4: Backup Drive for Time Machine and Vault #2

I also use a DroboPro for triplicative backups, just in case the whole Mac Pro gets fried (yep, I'm paranoid about losing data!)

images
 
coughfirewire.or.usb.externalcough. Yeah it won't be as fast but to say that an iMac is hosed if the boot drive nukes is just false. Infact, any intel based mac can boot from usb or firewire provided they are appropriately formatted and have a good installation.

What about the isight? Monitor problems? Graphics card problems? Hard drive problems? DVD problems?

These all require the machine to be sent into apple, while you could easily recover from this with a mac pro.

This is part of the reason I bought it. Others are upgradability, gaming, price and expandability.
 
I could see buying a Mac Pro for video production or scientific/engineering simulations and data analysis where top performance and ability to run long (hours or days) number crunching applications were important. And for that RAID 1 or 5 and ECC memory would improve reliability to reduce the likelihood of crashing and losing possibly days of work. And for this a top of the line Mac Pro makes sense as well.

That said, I can't see paying what would end up being thousands extra for photo processing, some home videos, and "goofing off". Hey, a Mac Mini was being used. Ignore the prestige/braggingrights factor and think of the camera gear that could be bought for the difference that might actually increase one's income!

As far as I'm concerned, the iMac is a "pro" system. It's every bit as good as the business Dell computers I had bought before switching to a Mac.

The 27" i7 iMac will give far more performance than is needed. I've got one and Photoshop flies. In fact everything flies. The high resolution display is fantastic. You can keep the 24" monitor as a second monitor (I've got an old but quality 20" to the side). I've got 8GB of RAM but haven't gone over 4GB used. For me photography is a serious hobby but the system is used professionally for programming, and electrical engineering course development which includes recording demonstrations of running CPU intensive CAD software in a Windows virtual machine. Multiple cores and high speed are a must for smooth videos.

As was pointed out, RAID is no substitute for backups. You never want a backup scheme where the backup data is stored internal to the computer because power supply problems can wipe out every drive at once. And then there is theft/fire/whatever to consider. I use an external drive for TimeMachine but have a separate server computer (consider it as a NAS for this example) for archival data. I make a separate image backup of the iMac once a week to alternating external drives, and a quarterly entire network backup. Backups are kept offsite. In the event of a harddrive failure I can boot from a backup and be back up in hours (including retrieving the drive, and copying the most recent work from the TimeMachine drive. If the iMac completely fails I've got other Macs I can plug the drives into to access current data.

Sure the iMac i7 might be powerful enough, now. What about in 2-3 years?
 
Sure the iMac i7 might be powerful enough, now. What about in 2-3 years?

Amazingly enough, it will still be able to do the same things it does today. I replaced a 3 year old 2.16GHz C2D iMac with the i7. Performance-wise it was still adequate, but I lusted after the 27" display and the future ability to utilize 4 cores and the extra RAM. The reality of the new system is that in the worst case I can barely utilize half of the 8GB of RAM and the only thing I've got that can come near using all the CPU power is Handbrake. Today it is overkill.
 
Sure the iMac i7 might be powerful enough, now. What about in 2-3 years?

It will still be faster than a current MP.

Thats kind of the thing about photography (and even design to an extent) -- a 14MP RAW file is going to be 60 megs today and 60 megs big 2-3 years from now.

Running a second screen on an iMac has been possible for years.

If it was my money:

Stock 27" i5 iMac = $1900
4 more gigs ram = $100
1 1TB USB 2 drive for internal drive backup using Superduper. = $100

For ultimate protection, RAID 5. Keep *all* working files (photos) on this drive.
1 External FW800 RAID 5 box = $305
http://www.provantage.com/promise-technology-ds4600~7PROM1C5.htm
4 1TB WD Black drives + $400
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...136284&cm_sp=DailyDeal-_-22-136-284-_-Product

About $3000

In 2-3 years, sell the 27" i5 iMac for $1000 and buy the new 29" i25 iMac for $1900 (which of course, will be faster than the MPs that come out in the next couple of years)

Yeah, there are other options to that $700 drive setup, like a FW800 1.5TB or 2TB single drive +USB 1.5 or 2TB single drive would be half that (you need drives, one to backup the other) instead of a RAID 5.

After trying to "hang on" to my "pro leve" G5 towers, I just realized that its more efficient just to upgrade every 3 years instead. At the end of this year everyone in my studio will get new 21 and 27" iMacs with i5's.

Heres my setup http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1417918/officed.jpg
 
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