iMac Recommendation--- Help

Hello,

Thanks in advance for the recommendations. I'm looking to purchase my first mac computer. ( I own 2, 3 and mini iPads and iPhone 5) So i'm a little familiar with Apple.

I want the 27" iMac, I mainly use Adobe Photo Shop CS6 and Lightroom 5, Surf the net, emails and spreadsheet. No gaming or movies.

I was looking at the i7 version, 16GB.

My question should i go with 1tb Fusion or 256 Flash and why?

Should i buy direct from apple or ?

Any other recommendation would be great.

Thanks, Jim

jwm9289 said:

My question should i go with 1tb Fusion or 256 Flash and why?

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What are your storage needs? After you install all the apps you need...will 256gig be enough for other "stuff" (movies, music, photos, videos, files from CS6)?

The flash drive will be faster (opening files & apps, booting the computer, saving files)...but less storage than the 1 Terabyte drive.

jwm9289 said:

Should i buy direct from apple or ?

Click to expand...

Apple. You really don't save much money or get any additional benefits buying somewhere else. Unless the other stores are more convenient.

- Nick

No movies or games, just photo's. I would rather go with the 1tb Fusion.

The 256GB flash will be nowhere big enough for photo storage.

harryb2448 said:

The 256GB flash will be nowhere big enough for photo storage.

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My biggest worry is freezing up or running slow when using photoshop. I was told by apple to go with the 256 flash over the 1tb fusion and this didn't seem correct to me.

You do have the option of going with a 512GB SSD but that comes without the 1TB SATA drive.


Configure - Apple Store (U.S.)

I'm in a similar situation, and have received 3 different explanations from different Apple Store staff members at various stores. They lead to 3 very different conclusions, and obviously they can't all be correct.

The first explanation is that when you open an image in Photoshop the file will be loaded into the SSD part of a fusion drive, so all processing will be much faster than if you had the standard drive. These people said that there wouldn't be any advantage at all (for Photoshop or Lightroom work) of having an SSD drive instead of the fusion drive.

---> Their recommendation: fusion drive

A second group of staff in Apple stores said this is not the case at all! They said only the apps, system files and regularly used files are processed in the SSD part of the fusion drive, and that an image file being used by Photoshop will be loaded in RAM (so whether I have a fusion drive, an SSD or a standard HDD is irrelevant).

They said the only advantage (for Photoshop) of getting an SSD would be if all my image files were stored on it. The drive would only be used during opening/saving anyway. So according to them, if using externals for storage (as I do), there is absolutely no need to get a SSD - the "SSD part" of the fusion drive will be enough.

---> Their recommendation: (mostly) fusion drive

A third group of staff disagreed with both of the above! They said that once the app (Photoshop) was open, absolutely everything would be done in RAM (both the image file and the running of the app) - they recommended I save money and just buy the standard drive. They said that aside from file opening/saving speed, neither the SSD nor the fusion drive would make "any significant difference" compared to the standard drive, as both the image and the app will now depend solely on the speed of RAM processing.

---> Their recommendation: standard HDD drive

Obviously these 3 different views cannot all be true. If anyone could explain which of the above explanations is correct, it would be much appreciated!

This from the Adobe support forums - suggesting that you don't need either an SSD or fusion drive to get the best processing speeds:

Installing Photoshop on a solid-state disk (SSD) allows Photoshop to launch fast, probably in less than a second. But that speedier startup is the only time savings you experience. That’s the only time when much data is read from the SSD.
To gain the greatest benefit from an SSD, use it as the scratch disk.
Note: Adding RAM to improve performance is more cost effective than purchasing an SSD.

Click to expand...

Very helpful thread on this topic

Very helpful thread on this topic:

Photographer buying 27-inch iMac - which model? - MacRumors Forums