Using two Macs together

[Alameda]

I have had a MacBook Pro M1 for a while now. I work from home with business travel about once or twice a month.

I am thinking of upgrading to the M5 Pro. But the trade-in price is so low that it might be better to get a Mac Mini or Studio instead, and just take the MacBook Pro when I need to travel. Is there a way to keep the two systems synchronized, so I can just grab my laptop and work with all of the files from my desktop system? Or should I just use the laptop as a desktop system, as I have for many years?

 

[!!!]

Is there a way to keep the two systems synchronized, so I can just grab my laptop and work with all of the files from my desktop system?

Depends on the type of work you're doing. If it's video editing, you'll need an external hard drive. If it's programming, git will do. If it's basic officework, iCloud syncing should suffice.

 

[4sallypat]

I use One Drive from Microsoft for all files I need synchronized between my PC desktop & laptop, Mac desktop & Mac laptop, and iPad.

 

[benwiggy]

I use Resilio Sync, which I have set up to synchronise the Documents folder(s) of my MBP and Mini. It works even when I'm travelling, and doesn't involve any cloud server, and no subscription. There are a variety of other 'sync' apps that do the same thing. You can configure which folders you want to sync. (Obviously it's unwise to sync the user Library and prefs, because much of that is specific to the machine.)

 

[wonderings]

!!! asked a great question. What work are you doing and do you really need to upgrade from an M1 to an M5? You can definitely use the laptop as a desktop, you can get stands and dockets and run 2 screens, laptop and a larger screen. My work setup is a 5K screen plugged in to my M1 Max via the thunderbolt USB-Cable. The cable connecting to the screen also powers the laptop so super clean and low clutter. Lots of cloud options for keeping files synced, some mentioned here already. Dropbox is another good one.

 

[Alameda]

!!! asked a great question. What work are you doing and do you really need to upgrade from an M1 to an M5? You can definitely use the laptop as a desktop, you can get stands and dockets and run 2 screens, laptop and a larger screen. My work setup is a 5K screen plugged in to my M1 Max via the thunderbolt USB-Cable. The cable connecting to the screen also powers the laptop so super clean and low clutter. Lots of cloud options for keeping files synced, some mentioned here already. Dropbox is another good one.

Does anybody really NEED to upgrade to an M5 Pro Mac? I do not need to. But it would benefit me.

I use my computer for work and for photography. For work, my system often bogs down when I am running all of the MS Office apps and a bunch of Google documents all at once. And, unfortunately, that is fairly common. I often have to pull open very large analyst spreadsheets and reports to analyze marketing data and prepare reports from the data. It is a little difficult to explain my work but basically these huge reports tell us A, B and C and my boss usually wants to present "Q" or whatever he thinks I can somehow divine from this data. So it's more than just using a pivot table; I need to slice together data across several reports to come up with a defensible result, then I have to present it graphically and paste the pretty picture into a Google slide. I have a feeling that my biggest enemy in this is my 16 GB of memory, but I get really busy doing this and don't stop to check the performance monitor in the midst of this.

In photography, I shoot a few thousand 45 megapixel RAW photos, and i cull through them and edit them using DxO PhotoLab. The M1 is pretty good but exports with noise reduction could be a little faster and I can't preview the noise reduction in real time, which I think I'll be able to do with a really fast M5 Pro.

I do have another task which involves running AI software locally on my Mac and of course the faster the better.

I don't want to go nuts but I'll probably buy a machine for around $2,000 to $2,300, something like that.

 

[wonderings]

Does anybody really NEED to upgrade to an M5 Pro Mac? I do not need to. But it would benefit me.

I use my computer for work and for photography. For work, my system often bogs down when I am running all of the MS Office apps and a bunch of Google documents all at once. And, unfortunately, that is fairly common. I often have to pull open very large analyst spreadsheets and reports to analyze marketing data and prepare reports from the data. It is a little difficult to explain my work but basically these huge reports tell us A, B and C and my boss usually wants to present "Q" or whatever he thinks I can somehow divine from this data. So it's more than just using a pivot table; I need to slice together data across several reports to come up with a defensible result, then I have to present it graphically and paste the pretty picture into a Google slide. I have a feeling that my biggest enemy in this is my 16 GB of memory, but I get really busy doing this and don't stop to check the performance monitor in the midst of this.

In photography, I shoot a few thousand 45 megapixel RAW photos, and i cull through them and edit them using DxO PhotoLab. The M1 is pretty good but exports with noise reduction could be a little faster and I can't preview the noise reduction in real time, which I think I'll be able to do with a really fast M5 Pro.

I do have another task which involves running AI software locally on my Mac and of course the faster the better.

I don't want to go nuts but I'll probably buy a machine for around $2,000 to $2,300, something like that.

Of course not. There might be some specific and unique cases where moving to a Pro might be beneficial. I use an M1 Max for work using Adobe CC (Indesign, Illustrator and Photoshop). This is the first question to be asked when thinking of upgrading, what do you do with your computer and need it to do. Then you judge based on that.

 

[Alameda]

Of course not. There might be some specific and unique cases where moving to a Pro might be beneficial. I use an M1 Max for work using Adobe CC (Indesign, Illustrator and Photoshop). This is the first question to be asked when thinking of upgrading, what do you do with your computer and need it to do. Then you judge based on that.

Thank you. After thinking through this I think it will be better to just trade in my MacBook Pro and get a faster one. It seems like it will be a real hassle to keep two systems synced and I don't think there will be a lot of benefit. I also like the fingerprint recognition on the MBP and I won't get that with a Mini or Studio unless I switch to an Apple keyboard, and I like my Logi keyboard.