Apple Macbook Suggestions Please

[ianforber]

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On 9/6/2023 at 7:21 PM, Orguy said:

Thanks everyone for all this valuable advice. Quite a great, useful forum this is!

You’ve convinced me: Macbook Pro with M2 chip. 16GB, maybe 32 RAM??

Now as to internal storage - do you think 4TB is overkill vs. 2TB? As I said, I plan on storing all my Q3 photos onboard (as well as backed up externally, of course). I kept my previous Macbook Pro for 10 years so I appreciate the concept of overkill initially, to avoid regrets later. I blew through 512GB pretty easily on my old Macbook.

Let me know how you get on - I am in a similar position. I currently have a 2017 MacBook Pro 15” with 8GB of RAM and a 250GB hard drive, which was all I could afford at the time. Even though I keep all my photos on external SSD drives and most of my documents are in the iCloud, the laptops is telling me that I only have about 30GB of storage left. I’m thinking of just biting the bullet and getting a new MacBook Air or Pro with an M1 or M2 chip and 1TB or 2TB of storage. 

Ive not had a problem with performance. I don’t multitask and run Capture One and maybe one plug-in at a time (usually a Topaz or Nik Effects programme). they can take 30 secs or so to process my Q2 and M11 files and return to Capture One, which I can live with.

i have had a problem recently though. I downloaded the latest versions of Nik Effects (6.3.0) and found that about half of them, including Silver FX, won’t open either as plug ins or standalone apps. I’ve raised a ticket with DXO but has anyone else had this problem?

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[jaapv]

As a temporary solution you could use CleanMyMac and Gemini2 to free up memory space.

https://cleanmymac.com/

https://macpaw.com/gemini

have been using them for over ten years and they really work.

[Orguy]

32 minutes ago, jaapv said:

As a temporary solution you could use CleanMyMac and Gemini2 to free up memory space.

https://cleanmymac.com/

https://macpaw.com/gemini

have been using them for over ten years and they really work.

Is cleanmymac really ok? It looks like malware or something like that to me, but I honestly dont know and I’m wary. They do keep trying to get me to upgrade with the trial.

1)Does it really do good, and not harm?

2)Did the free version suffice, or did you need to pay up for the paid one to get benefit?

3) Ditto for macpaw

[idusidusi]

1 minute ago, Orguy said:

Is cleanmymac really ok? It looks like malware or something like that to me, but I honestly dont know and I’m wary. They do keep trying to get me to upgrade with the trial.

1)Does it really do good, and not harm?

2)Did the free version suffice, or did you need to pay up for the paid one to get benefit?

3) Ditto for macpaw

Cleanmymac (Ukrainian) seems to be fine, I have used it for quite awhile. It does what it says on the tin, but I am no expert. Macpaw I know nought of.

[jaapv]

In fifteen years that I have used it there has been not one instance of malware-like behaviour. MacPaw the same. As far as I am concerned and aware both companies are above reproach. The couldn’t exist for so long otherwise. 
https://www.pcmag.com/reviews/cleanmymac

https://www.trustpilot.com/review/www.macpaw.com

[ianforber]

Good to know. I too have avoided these cleaning programmes for fear that it’ll junk the computer. I’ll wait until I get the Nik Effects sorted before doing a backup and launching cleanmymac 

[Orguy]

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I

Thank you everyone. Your valuable opinions and experiences made me decide not to go cheap with a Macbook Air. I use my computer as a laptop, and I dont travel with it so it lasts a LONG time. Not a place to be cheap, I decided. More below on how my old Macbook Pro died!

Warning: regarding running out of storage as I did with 512GB on my old Macbook Pro. I kept getting low memory warnings and I kept deleting stuff to stay under. Finally the Mac died, wouldnt start up. Three trips to Apple Genius Bar with 3 OS reloads taking many hours. Then, it died a fourth time and became unfixable they said. Kernel error? If it says 30GB left that’s what mine said. Hours later dealing with Genius Bar I had a dead Macbook.

Lesson learned.

I went to B&H (for the  Payboo no tax option) and asked what was in stock. I decided again that cheaper was false economy. So I got their limited what was in stock, “future proofed” 16 inch Macbook Pro M2 64 GB ram (gasp) with 4TB. I also bought an external I/O hub to deal with all my USB-A devices, and I’m glad I did. Not inexpensive for a computer these days, but for something I use for hours a day for years, how expensive is it really?

Oh my gosh. I thought my old Macbook Pro was very nice but this is amazingly better in many ways. What a beautiful product. Glad I spent the money (except I probably didn’t need to get 64GB?). Anyway, I wonder in the future if 4TB storage may not seem so excessive? I know insufficient storage  killed my previous Mac.

[Erato]

Import -- System bus, memory bandwidth and CPU bound.

Welcome, dear visitor! As registered member you'd see an image here…

Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members!

 

Export --System bus, memory bandwidth and GPU bound.

 

Editing / Rendering -- System bus, memory bandwidth., Memory / GPU bound.

FYR.

Edited September 18, 2023 by Erato

[theseahawk]

On 9/6/2023 at 3:10 AM, Simone_DF said:

… I use an external 2TB SSD hard drive to store my Lightroom catalog and all photos. They are cheap and fast. This way I can unplug the hard drive and launch it from any Mac with Lightroom installed. 

Can you describe your back up regimen for the LR catalog and photos with this arrangement? Do you manually back up your 2TB ssd drive to another one or do you have it integrated into Time Machine? 

[Simone_DF]

5 hours ago, theseahawk said:

Can you describe your back up regimen for the LR catalog and photos with this arrangement? Do you manually back up your 2TB ssd drive to another one or do you have it integrated into Time Machine? 

I'm using a different route.

I have a Synology NAS, and a 1:1 copy of my external hard drive on the NAS. Synology provides an app that syncs the content of any folder, so I just pointed it to the external hd, and any time it will detect a change, it will automatically sync it to the NAS in my living room. I can do that from anywhere in the world.

At the same time, I also use BackBlaze as a cloud backup, and made sure the external hard drive, which is permanently connected to my Mac, is part of it, so I basically have two copies, one physical and always available (NAS), one cloud.

You can also point Time Machine and backup your Mac on the NAS, but I'm not using it.  

[marchyman]

I also keep my images on a 2TB SSD.  My LrC catalog is kept on the internal drive of my Mac Studio.   Both drives are backed up to an 8TB Time Machine disk.   In addition, I use Carbon Copy Cloner on an irregular basis to make an additional backup of the 2TB SSD to third portable drive.  The LrC catalog is backed up by LrC weekly.  I do try to remember to remove the older backups once in a while.  One of these days I'll automate that process so I don't keep more than about 4 catalog backups.

[jaapv]

On 2/21/2024 at 2:48 AM, theseahawk said:

Can you describe your back up regimen for the LR catalog and photos with this arrangement? Do you manually back up your 2TB ssd drive to another one or do you have it integrated into Time Machine? 

Time Machine won’t back up external drives. If you want to back them up to iCloud you must copy them in a folder on your main drive ( assuming you have the space) and then transfer the folder to iDrive. 

[theseahawk]

Thanks. I was talking about whether Time Machine would back up an external drive to another external drive. @marchyman stated just above (and in reply to my thread on best way to migrate LR when the media library is moved to external ssd) that he’s doing this. A post on Apple discussions details the steps. I’m backing up my external drives with my media library to a second ssd using Carbon Copy Cloner, as well as with Backblaze. I may switch that task to Time Machine but CCC has a number of added features that are useful. 

[dpitt]

Edit: Had to look up how to use TM to back up external drives

Edited March 1, 2024 by dpitt

[dpitt]

4 hours ago, jaapv said:

Time Machine won’t back up external drives. If you want to back them up to iCloud you must copy them in a folder on your main drive ( assuming you have the space) and then transfer the folder to iDrive. 

I had to look it up, because it is confusing...
When you want TM to backup external drives, all you have to do is go to the configuration of TM/Options...

Then in the exclude pane, you will see all your connected drives. Just remove any of these from this exclude list, and next time time machine will also backup this drive.

[jaapv]

That is the way it is configured on my mac.No excluded drives However no backup drives in my iDrive...😒

[dpitt]

@jaapv

I am running Mac OS Sonoma 14.3.1 now.
TM is configured to include an external drive. It is now copying 300GB extra to my also external backup drive.

Maybe this does not work with iDrive, but it seems to work with physical drives.
Just to make sure I will wait until this is done and then make some changes to the external drive

 

Edited March 1, 2024 by dpitt

[marchyman]

5 hours ago, theseahawk said:

I’m backing up my external drives with my media library to a second ssd using Carbon Copy Cloner, as well as with Backblaze. I may switch that task to Time Machine but CCC has a number of added features that are useful. 

Both?   My photos drive is backed up to time machine.  I also use CCC to back it up to a third drive, albeit not automatically.

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[theseahawk]

1 hour ago, marchyman said:

Both?   My photos drive is backed up to time machine.  I also use CCC to back it up to a third drive, albeit not automatically.

I should have said that I’m backing up my external drive with my media library (that is, photo files) to another ssd using CCC. Then, yes, including a redundant backup of the media drive to Backblaze. The logic being I have the local backup in case of mechanical or corruption issues on the media drive that sits next to and remains plugged into the iMac. The Backblaze backup is there in case the entire computer/room/house “failed.” 

Edited March 2, 2024 by theseahawk

[dpitt]

14 hours ago, jaapv said:

That is the way it is configured on my mac.No excluded drives However no backup drives in my iDrive...😒

As promised. Double checked. I now have one external drive (USB) that is backed up by time machine to an other external USB drive. Just by using the method below. Maybe it does not work with iDrive, but it works with physical drives.

14 hours ago, dpitt said:

I had to look it up, because it is confusing...
When you want TM to backup external drives, all you have to do is go to the configuration of TM/Options...

Then in the exclude pane, you will see all your connected drives. Just remove any of these from this exclude list, and next time time machine will also backup this drive.

 

Edited March 2, 2024 by dpitt