What's the difference?

[imjoee]

I'm looking at the lowest end models. The 21.5" and the 27" iMacs. Is the 5400 noticeably slower than 7200 or is there not a difference? I'm looking to keep the Mac for at least 4 years. I'm a photographer and do a lot of 1 minute video downloads and uploads.

 

[Serban]

I think there is not so much difference BUT if you can buy the base 27" iMac i suggest you to buy the 21.5" iMac with Fusion Drive

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the difference in price between 21.5 and 27 is 500$, Fusion drive is 250$ OR you can put 600$ and buy a nice 512 SSD for the 21.5"

 

[tekmoe]

imjoee, I concur with Serban and would say as long as you go for the Fusion drive you will not have to worry about performance issues. I opted for the 1TB and it is plenty fast. I was in Lightroom/Photoshop all day yesterday and the only time I experienced any slowness was when I started running out of RAM (Page Outs in Activity Monitor started climbing) and even then it wasn't bad at all. If you decide to not go the Fusion route, I don't think the speed increase from 5400rpm to 7200rpm is going to be overly apparent compared to, say, going from a mechanical drive to a solid state drive anyway. Either way, go for the Fusion if you can !!

 

[Bear]

I'm looking at the lowest end models. The 21.5" and the 27" iMacs. Is the 5400 noticeably slower than 7200 or is there not a difference? I'm looking to keep the Mac for at least 4 years. I'm a photographer and do a lot of 1 minute video downloads and uploads.

There is actually a noticeable difference in performance between a 5400 and 7200 RPM drive. In my case the system with the 5400RPM drive was newer and had a faster processor, so what I experience was purely drive speed issues. Both were on the same version of OS X and had the same amount of ram. And the newer system was loaded from a backup of the older system, so everything on both systems was identical.

My question for you is have you gone in to a store and tried editing photos on both systems - you may decide you really want the 27" or you may decide that the screen size doesn't matter.

 

[imjoee]

I think there is not so much difference BUT if you can buy the base 27" iMac i suggest you to buy the 21.5" iMac with Fusion Drive

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the difference in price between 21.5 and 27 is 500$, Fusion drive is 250$ OR you can put 600$ and buy a nice 512 SSD for the 21.5"

Hmmm, definitely changed my decision about the 21.5 and the 27. But I do like a lot of real estate. I have to research what exactly a fusion drive is so I can do a comparison with the iMac models, thanks

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There is actually a noticeable difference in performance between a 5400 and 7200 RPM drive. In my case the system with the 5400RPM drive was newer and had a faster processor, so what I experience was purely drive speed issues. Both were on the same version of OS X and had the same amount of ram. And the newer system was loaded from a backup of the older system, so everything on both systems was identical.

My question for you is have you gone in to a store and tried editing photos on both systems - you may decide you really want the 27" or you may decide that the screen size doesn't matter.

I actually have not yet tried editing anything yet. But I have a 27 7200 2010 iMac at home I currently use which isn't too bad, I'm just looking to upgrade

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imjoee, I concur with Serban and would say as long as you go for the Fusion drive you will not have to worry about performance issues. I opted for the 1TB and it is plenty fast. I was in Lightroom/Photoshop all day yesterday and the only time I experienced any slowness was when I started running out of RAM (Page Outs in Activity Monitor started climbing) and even then it wasn't bad at all. If you decide to not go the Fusion route, I don't think the speed increase from 5400rpm to 7200rpm is going to be overly apparent compared to, say, going from a mechanical drive to a solid state drive anyway. Either way, go for the Fusion if you can !!

I will definitely look into a fusion drive, I have to do some research about it so I know exactly what it is. Thank you for your reply