Need help and feedback in purchasing

[leah_kushner]

<p>The time has come. I need a new computer. I use multiple programs (photoshop, raw, lightroom, indesign, dreamweaver, adobe bridge, microsoft suites, internet windows, video editing, etc. ) all at the same time. It has been a disaster. I have taken to using my desktop and laptop side by side. Currently, I am using a PC, quad-core, 4gb memory but am considering<br>

Either moving to Mac Pro 8 or 12 core with two screens, 16 gb memory, etc. It is expensive. Plus my home-office consists of a network of 5 other PC's. Apple says I can network using a new program which will convert any PC document into MAC. In the past, when I edit photos using a MAC ( I have access to Epson 3880, 4880 printers) or work in Final Cut Pro and then come home I can not work on the photo or video. I split my external hard drive into MAC and PC. </p>

<p>My question is this. Would you recommend staying with a PC. What product? What hardware? 6 core, 8 core, how much memory, recommendation. I want a computer I do not grow out of but can expand. I also need to be able to back-up and network. Has anyone worked with Time Capsule? <br>

I would like to hear your opinions regarding Mac vs. PC, what specific computers and hardware, graphic cards, etc. would you recommend. Sometimes I think I have a handle on this stuff and then they go ahead and invent new products on me. <br>

Would someone please hold my hand through this process? Thanks so much.</p>

</p>

[leicaglow]

<p>Hi Leah, You should refrain from posting your email because spammers will get you. Maybe a moderator will have mercy on you and get rid of it. People can get a hold of you through your Photo.net email on your profile page.</p>

<p>With all the software you use, it would be very expensive to move most of it to the Mac, with all the new licensing... as well as a PITA. I would for sure get a 64 bit Windows professional OS and load as much memory in it as you can. In fact, if your computer isn't too old, you might be able to upgrade to a 64 bit OS (XP, Vista, or 7), and just buy a bunch of memory. The processor is usually not the bottle neck in these systems. 4 gb is just not enough memory for the kinds of stuff we do now days. I would probably suggest a Dell. Buy as much as you think you are going to need as far as the processor.</p>

<p>I am not pro or con either Mac or Windows (I use both). I'm just giving feedback from a cost standpoint and hassle standpoint. For my Mac, I just tie it in through the wireless networking (router) without any issues. As for backup on my Mac, it just goes to external firewire drives, and backup to the cloud (see a recent thread on the details of backup), just like my PC workstation. How old is your PC system? Any hope in salvaging it? Often a new, big drive will speed things up too. In that case, leave your programs on your original drive, mount the new drive for all your data, and switch your software's scratch disks to the new drive.</p>

[Uhooru]

<p>I use and love macs, I use time machine on my laptop, but I just back up photos on the iMac to external drives. But here I would agree with Michael in all regards. I will say your current processor is pretty powerful, but you do have a lot of things running at once and 4GB of ram is insufficient. Is your OS 64 bit and what is the limit of the ram you can add? A quad core is a relatively recent CPU and I would think you could add more ram. Ram is a relatively cheap investment. None of the photography editing programs require an expensive video card. Your video editor might require more depending on what you are doing and what your current card is. You might consider a ram upgrade and see how your computer operates. Running 8 - 16GB might make it seem like a whole new machine. The other thing is I assume you have more than 1 drive, on your computer for your data. I don't know if you have eSata ports or firewire for data backup. But keeping your working data on another fast drive on your system will speed things up. So there is a lot of unknowns. Cheapest try is to just add ram.</p>

[acedigital]

<p>I agree, upgrade to Windows 7 Pro Edition with 8 GB Ram and you should see a marked improvement in processing. And try and control your "ADD" with running 27 programs at once LOL!<br>

Video especially eats resources, you may also want to add higher speed disks (access time) to improve system response time. You can make these changes to your system (perhaps with the help of a local computer shop) for under $500. If you have to upgrade the OS (say from XP) it may be easier to just:<br>

1. Add the new RAM<br>

2. Backup your data (photos/videos to an external drive - 2TB drives can be had for under $150<br>

3. Reformat the main C: drive and load a fresh copy of Windows7 - upgrading from XP is apparently a pain in the butt ($150)<br>

4. Re-install your software programs - there are 64 bit versions and if you already have a license you may not need to re-purchase them, check with the vendors, but 32 bit runs fine on Win7 as well.<br>

4. Add the additional RAM ($ under 100)<br>

I would start with step 1, although if you are on WINXP (no longer supported by MS) it only uses up to 4GB of RAM anyway so an OS upgrade would be in order.</p>

<p>Let us know what you decide!</p>

 

[bkkstudios]

<p>I have similar setups and have tried every variation known to mankind.</p>

<p>I've settled on a souped up PC desktop (12GB RAM, 8core, Radeon 4870x2 graphics card) with 2 RAID 'D' Disks and 1 'E' Disk (not RAID). All photos are thus sync-matched on the RAID'd D disks, and once a month I do backup to the E disk. Simple, and it just hums. I've had this for 1y and I can't imagine needing an upgrade for at least 2 more years.</p>

<p>For laptop, I had I think 3 at one point, the best money could buy, and have now given up on all PC laptops and gone to Mac due to screen quality, noise, and overall feel. I recently put Parallels and Windows 7 on my MacBook Pro. So I can run programs that have dual licenses in native Mac, or, if only 1 license, then use Windows on the Mac for that package. So far, so good. Parallels is quite impressive in how smooth this is now. I will never buy a PC laptop again.</p>

<p>In this config I move file back and forth between Mac and PC and have had no issues so far.</p>

<p>For a 3rd backup, I use a QNAP NAS with RAID'd disks, and the Mac and Desktop PC can access that. This is for a truly secure system, i.e., 2 backups in the desktop, and 1 backup externally on the NAS in a physically different location. But a trivial 2TB external disk with SATA that you move around is just as good and simpler/cheaper. In my humble opinion, you need the real-time backup (a RAID'd disk) and a non-real time backup (an external drive in a physically different location, i.e., not on top of the PC for example).</p>

[leah_kushner]

<p>I currently have 2quad CPU 2.4 with 4 gb RAM 32-bit. HP<br>

with HP 24", 1920 x 1200 resolution. I have blue ray, DVD burner, CD, TV tuner,<br>

I also have 17" HP laptop with quad 2.2 4gb ram, 32-bit<br>

Both using Vista Utilmate.<br>

I run two external hard drives.<br>

I have a small laptop 13" travel laptop with Windows 7.<br>

All of these are almost 3 years old and ready to be reformatted and passed on to my kids. We have tried using Buffalo Technology ( 4 RAID) networking which never worked. <br>

What kind of networking systems do people use? <br>

Our family has 6 computers on our system ( including 1 MAC PRO laptop which isn't mine) My oldest daughter is a law school student with undergrad in broadcast journalism and uses Final Cut Pro. <br>

I realize we have a lot of variables. I was about to purchase another Creative Suites 5 so replacing it in MAC is not that big of a deal. I am using Microsoft Office 2007. I just don't want to waste money. I would rather pick up a great Epson printer or another lens for the difference between a MAC and PC, if that is the case.<br>

Question: What brand PC computers are you using? I have a mixture of Dell's and HP and stuck to them because of the warranty but I am now totally open. I just don't want to use a new company that might be gone tomorrow. <br>

Can I tell you how much I appreciate all this? I just did. </p>

 

[bkkstudios]

<p>I think I described my choices, but for your specific questions, it sounds to me some good ideas would be a NAS for sharing disks between the 6 PCs (eg, shared music, movies, photos), and a lot more RAM on your desktop and laptop (like 12GB or so). Pretty good chance you could put your 2 disks in that NAS.</p>

<p>For laptops I had bought the most expensive HP 18" laptop made and still found screen quality and feeling not great. My MacBook Pro outshines it 100x, although I acknowledge it's price is annoying. While you might not have thought of it, the 13" MacBook Air is a beautiful device. I don't know if it has the power for CS5 or not, but it is really a wonderful laptop.</p>

<p>MS Office 2007 is fine. I upgraded to 2010, but it is totally unnecessary in retrospect. CS5 is a good upgrade, I'm sure you know that. Windows 7 64-bit is a must now.</p>