System Advice: MBP / Lightroom / NAS

[dnadrifter]

Hi All,

I am looking for advice on a system. I know this is a long post but for those of you willing to read it and comment I would be most appreciative.

I currently have a Mac Pro 2.66 Quad Core, 16 Gb RAM (2009) with calibrated IPS monitor in our home office. OS and programs on one drive, data on another. I run lightroom, photoshop, imovie etc. I am not a pro, or super heavy user, but I do enjoy photography, using SLR RAW files and editing them. I have been waiting for the 13" rMBP for awhile so I could do misc email, web, and some photo stuff in the family living area on a small light computer.

The more I read about built in memory, built in hard drives, and the inability of lightroom to be easily used across different computers I started second guessing this plan.

Given the performance of the 15" MBP now, relative to my 2009 Mac Pro, I started wondering if I should ditch the Mac Pro and go exclusively with a MBP. It certainly would be nice to just have everything on one computer and I could then move between family areas, being on the road, or hooked up to my external monitor/keyboard in the office when I wanted to. I then started looking for options to access all my photos and movies without having them on the actual laptop because of space limitations and started to learn about NAS.

I have put some options I am considering below and would love any feedback you can provide, whether it is on one of these three or something else all together.

1) Keep Mac Pro for photography stuff/main computer and use a rMBP/MBP for other

2) Get a 15" MBP and use it exclusively. Access image files and data from a NAS.

3) Get a 15" MBP and use it exclusively. Access image files and data from a large 2.5" USB 3 external drive that I could easily grab for the road or to go to family living space. (when space eventually fills up I would have to move some off this drive)

Thanks. Any help is much appreciated.

 

[Maggot FF]

Go for 2 or 3. Sell the mac pro and keep your screen for color calibration if you don't get satisfied with a calibrated rMBP screen. I say rMBP because I think the form factor will please you more, and it's overall a great work station that will fulfill your needs for a few years.

With my rMBP in place, I only use my stationary for the really heavy windows games. And I don't play those that often anyways.

 

[dnadrifter]

Go for 2 or 3. Sell the mac pro and keep your screen for color calibration if you don't get satisfied with a calibrated rMBP screen. I say rMBP because I think the form factor will please you more, and it's overall a great work station that will fulfill your needs for a few years.

With my rMBP in place, I only use my stationary for the really heavy windows games. And I don't play those that often anyways.

Thanks for your opinion. Still not sure about the rMBP though...thats a slightly different decision though than the one I am asking about.

 

[snoylekim]

Thanks for your opinion. Still not sure about the rMBP though...thats a slightly different decision though than the one I am asking about.

I have a setup where I use a combination of a Windows Desktop ( I7-3770, 16G, Tricked out) for the heavy lifting for photo processing and video rendering, etc .. I can access this from my Retina via home network .. The retina is used for MS Office, Photo and doc distribution , web stuff, etc ..it's a bit of overkill from the processing side , but can't argue with having two excellent calibrated displays in the house .. I use lightroom on the Windows PC, and Aperture on the Retina as a 'staging area' ..
The retina is capable, from a processor/CPU standpoint , of easily handling the photo and video processing, but since I do some batch processing and some longer video renderings occasionally, I prefer the desktop because of the enhanced cooling and extra disk/ssd storage and memory .. Plus it's wired to the external storage versus wireless transfer, which makes a difference with video files ..
Hope that's not too long winded ..depending on how much processing you'll do, it might make sense to hang on to the Pro , and use the retina as you stated ..

 

[dnadrifter]

I don't do that much video processing...mostly just photos. I am starting to think that a MBP will handle most of what I need it to, with the benefits of a laptop outweighing the negatives compared to an additional desktop.

 

[snoylekim]

I don't do that much video processing...mostly just photos. I am starting to think that a MBP will handle most of what I need it to, with the benefits of a laptop outweighing the negatives compared to an additional desktop.

The rMBP will be more than enough, then .. You will need some additional adapters, perhaps ( Thunderbolt to Ethernet for cabled NAS..) , and not sure what you'll need for the external monitor, but from reading through this and other threads, I'd avoid HDMI and use displayport to ?? .. You'll also need to recalibrate to account for the different graphics card(s) in the rMBP ..