t0tor0 Posted March 4, 2011 Share #1 Posted March 4, 2011 Advertisement (gone after registration) hi all, i am thinking of getting a mac mini to run lightroom or aperture. i am just wondering if the performance is going to be ok so want to check here if anyone is using lightroom or aperture and running on a mac mini. one of the reason i am thinking of this route is that i can get an Eizo monitor. The iMac and Macbook Pros have not much calibration options so it is only either a mac pro (which is out of my budget) or a mac mini. perhaps will wait til they update to a mac mini which can offer quad i7. i have been using aperture since it launched and use raw files. also scanned tiff from 135 and 120. recently tried lightroom as i feel that aperture 3 is taking too much processing power from my processor. (or my library is too big?). lightroom seems to be much more efficient. please share some experience here! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advertisement Posted March 4, 2011 Posted March 4, 2011 Hi t0tor0, Take a look here Mac Mini to run Lightroom or Aperture. I'm sure you'll find what you were looking for!
FredSF Posted March 4, 2011 Share #2 Posted March 4, 2011 Well... the most processing power you can get, the better. Now, it depends on what you want to do, but a Mac mini seems lite. I would think you'd shoot .dng, and in that case chances are you'll spend a lot of time watching progress bars. Invest more, after all, you already have. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
esquire53 Posted March 7, 2011 Share #3 Posted March 7, 2011 I tried Aperture 2 on my brothers mac mini and it is slow to load pictures in particular the M9 ones. Once you load the picture on screen modifying settings isn't too bad. It is not the day to day workhorse. Maybe the 64 bit version and Aperture 3 has a better I/O performance. Also you are limited to one screen and 500Gbyte HDD. cheers Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
sanyasi Posted March 7, 2011 Share #4 Posted March 7, 2011 I am currently using an iMac (two years old) and have been giving a lot of thought to my next computer. I went so far as to speak with a consulting/sales firm that advises exclusively on Mac systems for the non-consumer market. I was thinking about a Mac mini, but they concluded that for my photography work that the Mac mini would not be powerful enough. It is a matter of degree--how long to you want to wait for photos to load and process--so I don't think there is a right answer. For me, I want the processing more instantaneous. I have decided to go with the Mac tower (mac pro or whatever they are calling it), but I am waiting a bit. Mac just refreshed their power notebooks, adding Thunderbolt or something sounding like that. Apparently this will have a huge impact on transfer rates. A Mac rumors site indicates that the Mac towers are coming up on a refresh based on past experience and I want to see if they add this new Thunderbolt to the system. If I recall, it can transfer up to 10gb per second--but check to make sure. However, before getting to excited, we need to determine if existing cards can support that speed, as well as external hard drives. Your choice of the Eizo is spot on. I have had one for three or four years and would not use anything else. I apologize for suggesting you go out side of your budget, but I thought you might benefit from the thinking of someone who had explored the mac mini. Maybe an intermediate step would be to buy the power laptop and connect the Eizo to it. Best Jack Siegel March 7, 2011 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
deirdre Posted March 8, 2011 Share #5 Posted March 8, 2011 I'd make sure you had as much RAM as your system can handle; that'll prevent it from hitting disk as frequently. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
JMacD Posted March 8, 2011 Share #6 Posted March 8, 2011 The mini is just not good enough at the moment. If you were buying two months ago, the iMac would be the best choice. But at this moment the new MacBook pro is the best choice. Thunderbolt is a wonderful improvement in speed for external storage. But in a few months they will probably add that to all their offerings, eventually the mini. Forget the tower or Mac Pro unless you have money to burn. Diglloyd now shows the new MacBook pro is as fast as the Mac Pro tower and twice the spped ofwhat the old MacBook pro could do. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
sanyasi Posted March 8, 2011 Share #7 Posted March 8, 2011 Advertisement (gone after registration) You say Thunderbolt is a wonderful improvement in speed. I don't doubt your statement, but could you elaborate in terms of what you are using? For example, do you see the speed improvements with existing hard drives? Is there a special cable that you use to connect the hard drive to the computer, or is it USB or firewire? If a special cable, do they make adapters for existing external hard drives. In short, I've seen a lot about Thunderbolt and speed, but do you get the benefits with existing equipement? Thanks Jack Siegel March 8, 2010 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
sanyasi Posted March 8, 2011 Share #8 Posted March 8, 2011 I took a look at the Macbook Pro specs online. At the current time, I see two issues. First, I want support for two external monitors. It appears that the Macbook Pro only allows you to connect one external monitor. Second, it looks like you need new hard drives to benefit from Thunderbolt. This is a matter of time, but I only see two that currently support it--a RAID system from Pegasus and a LaCie external hard drive that I read about last week that will not be out for a couple of months (I think the article said June). Given my two external monitor requirement, I will wait for the Mac tower upgrade, which I assume will come this summer and include Thunderbolt. As for money to burn, one man's kindling is another man's $4,000 lux lens. No doubt the upgrade to the Mac towers will reflect the improvements to the Macbook pro, or Apple won't be selling many of the new computers. Best Jack Siegel Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rick in CO Posted March 8, 2011 Share #9 Posted March 8, 2011 I have a Mac Mini with 4GB RAM and am running CS5 without problems. It obviously is not as fast as a Mac Pro tower but it is better than an early version MacBook Pro it replaced. I switched so I could get a TFT monitor and it was the best single hardware change I've made to date. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tom Johnston Posted March 8, 2011 Share #10 Posted March 8, 2011 i'm using the mini, hdmi version 2010, with only 2GB of ram and i have it hooked up to a sony 32" 1080p hidef monitor; i use PS5 and it works fine for my purposes, though i plan to expand the ram to 8GB soon. i process m8 raw files. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
JMacD Posted March 8, 2011 Share #11 Posted March 8, 2011 Jack, I am still laughing about your call on me regarding money to burn. You got me. I used to have money to burn, but most of it was burned by my camera systems. The thunderbolt might let you daisy chain two monitors? I would expect so, but the adaptive are probably not ready today. The MacPro tower will probably have more than one thunderbolt port when it gets it. To answer your question about what I have, I have external hard drives that will become backups when I have a thunderbolt equipped computer. I got an iMac last summer and FireWire 800 is not optimal for my 4T external drive. I am considering letting OWC upgrade it to eSAT, which is not an option for a laptop. The slowest part of my workflow is watching LR3.3 say "loading" but that's with the internal drive. And the iMac does drive a second monitor. I would like to upgrade my portable computer but for me, I want to wait until I see a Air have some of what the MacBook pro delivers. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
nick.edwards1 Posted March 15, 2011 Share #12 Posted March 15, 2011 Hello t0tor0, I also have run Aperture since v1.0 - I have a Power Mac G5 1.8 (retired) and MacBook Pro 2.33. I have decided to change from Aperture to PS and Lightroom. I have replaced my G5 with a Mac Mini 2.66 with 4g of ram and a 500g hdd. I am running PS 5 and Lightroom 3 on my Mini and finding it an excellent machine for my needs - it is very quiet and much is 'snappier' than even my MacBook Pro. I am a keen amateur and would definitely make the same choice again. I did originally consider a Mac Pro, but for me the Mac Mini has more than met my expectations. I, like you, am intending to get an Eizo monitor (to replace my ageing Apple Cinema Display). I was speaking to one of the people from Eizo last week on this subject and he, for his personal use, favoured an adequate cheaper computer that he changed relatively frequently together with a good ColorEdge monitor which he aims to keep for 5 years. I had also reached the same conclusion hence why I purchased the Mac Mini. Best regards, Nick. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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