Recommended Specs for New Mac

[Kit-V]

With the evolution of AI-powered apps like LR, PS & Topaz Photo AI, it is time to replace my aging Intel-powered iMac 27 with a new Mac. Although I certainly understand the logic in "buy as much computing horsepower that you can afford", I am still interested in our thoughts regarding the recommended computer specs for photo processing. Thank you so much.

[Benny Profane]

My new Mac Mini4 Pro with 24 gig ram seems to be quite enough to handle 3-4 gig PS files. My only issue is using ancient spin drives to work off of at the moment, which slows things down, but, they are reliable and cheap.

[Jonathan Cross]

My new Mac Mini4 Pro with 24 gig ram seems to be quite enough to handle 3-4 gig PS files. My only issue is using ancient spin drives to work off of at the moment, which slows things down, but, they are reliable and cheap.

I have an M1 iMac, and soon realised that I needed external SSDs.  They are so much faster than spinning hard drives. Why spend money on a fast machine then throttle it with slow drives.  1000MB/s external SSDs are both small and getting cheaper.  Just be aware that USB Gen 3.2 2x2 SSDs will not run at full speed on Apple. Look at the small print in the specs.  Do make sure your cable from SSD to machine has the correct USB speed rating.

When I made the transfer to Apple chips it became apparent that they use memory much more efficiently. I have 16GB RAM but have no problem running LR and PS at the same time with 400MB images. I am not sure that I need more than 1TB internal SSD when running external SSDs. I can keep 300-400 GB worth of images on my internal 1 TB SSD quite happily and 3TB+ of images on a portable SSD.  I am thinking of keeping my LR catalog and images on a 4TB portable SSD so that I can process on my iMac or MacBook Air. I do not use the cloud. If I upgraded now, I would get 24GB RAM.

YMMV according to your file sizes and workflow and whether you process large video files.

Jonathan

 

[Kit-V]

Thank you for the responses. Currently I am looking at a Mac Studio M2 Ultra with 32Gb or 64Gb memory. Since my photos use about 615Gb on my internal drive, a 2Tb SSD should be fine at least for now. However, thinking ahead it might be prudent to transfer all of my photos to an external SSD drive. Since I have never done that before, that raises a question. Is it advisable to also transfer my Lightroom catalog & previews to the external drive along with the photos? Thank you.

[Benny Profane]

I would advise you to have all files on an external drive, and, back that drive onto another drive periodically. Saddest day in your life is when your drive fails, and takes years of work with it.

Take it further and copy everything to a third drive, and keep that off site. You never know.

[Kit-V]

Benny, My thoughts exactly regarding back-up drives. I have been a proponent of the practice for years.

As far as copying the LR catalog & previews (along with the photos) onto the external drive, I need to explore the advantage of doing so, compared with leaving the catalog & previews on the internal drive. Seems like people have different thoughts on this.

[kers]

I fully agree with a good backup practice.
I have a backup and an archive with 16 Harddisks ( double, stored on two locations)
Good thing is : Harddisks seem to be very reliable; i check them every other year completely and i only had one that needed replacement in 15 years.
( when buying new harddsiks check them thoroughly before using it- had more problems there)

Backup and archive disks don't have to be fast, but working disk do. At this moment there are already PCI- 5 connected SSd's that can do 12 GB a second.
Apple probably uses the more common PCI-4 disks with 7GB/sec.
So it would be wise not to use old fashioned harddisks ( 0,2 GB/ sec) to uses as a working disk since thea are 35 times slower.


PS i use softraid- verify and certify ( on new disks) to check them- takes a long time since they read and with certify R+WR the entire disk

[Jeremy Roussak]

Thank you for the responses. Currently I am looking at a Mac Studio M2 Ultra with 32Gb or 64Gb memory.

I bought a Studio M2 Max with 64GB memory and a 2TB SSD last year. I'm very pleased with it. As I don't do video, it didn't seem to me that the Ultra had much to offer over the Max, and it was an awful lot more expensive.

While I agree, of course, that an obsessive backup routine is hugely important, I have the impression that keeping at least recent work on the internal drive makes sense, as it's likely to be rather faster than any external storage. I have a Time Machine backup, a copy of all my images on an SSD which I keep elsewhere (although admittedly in my house) and I backup to BackBlaze.

Jeremy

[Eric Brody]

You might want to await the M4 Studio rumored to arrive in the spring before sinking big bucks into a machine that will be obsolete in a relatively short time. If you need it right away, that’s a different story. Good luck.

[Benny Profane]

You might want to await the M4 Studio rumored to arrive in the spring before sinking big bucks into a machine that will be obsolete in a relatively short time. If you need it right away, that’s a different story. Good luck.

Obsolete to me is when you can't load the latest OS, and the newer software that will provide the latest bells and whistles in productivity. Pretty sure anything you buy today will be fine for at least five years. I hope.

[langier]

I concur with Jeremy.

I have a MacStudio M1, 64/2TB.

Work in progress stays on the internal drive but ingesting to an external 4TB SSD...

HDDs are cheap, fast, reliable and large so it make little sense not to back up to a couple of them, storing at least a copy off site which is what I do.

For my system, I've also set up a separate TimeMachine back-up on a 2.5-inch drive which comes in handy occasionally when I toss a file I shouldn't have.

In over two years, my system has been fast and I've had no problems running PS, Topaz AI and the NIK Collection and on files that have had to be saved as PSB format as they were too large for TIFF or PS saving--lots of layers or lots of pixels in panos, stitched and stacked images.

For many 32/TB should be enough. Even my MBP M1 with 16GB has had little issue in processing files when I'm on the road for the most part. However, in the studio having more RAM and storage just makes work a little more efficient.