Help with picking a system, Macbook Pro vs. iMac

[chscag]

Chris is correct regarding the new MacBook Pros and the MacBook Air. The SSD is soldered to the logic board which means that if it fails, the entire board must be swapped out. It's not only the SSD that is soldered, but also the memory modules.

And yes, I agree that if you buy a new MBA, it's probably a better investment to spend the extra $300 for a larger SSD and faster CPU. Right now, other than an iMac, the MBA is the only Mac computer that I would consider buying.

 

[krs]

I tend to prefer the Mini for my desktop Mac (MacBook Air for portable), but on the 2018 version the SSD is also soldered to the logic board.

I'm currently on macOS El Capitan but have run Mojave on the 2012 Mini on a test basis installed on an external USB 3.0 drive.
Worked fine obviously.

I'm wondering, if I had a Mac Mini with a soldered SSD and the SSD portion failed, would I still be able to use that Mini booting up on an external drive or is the internal SSD drive somehow still required when using an external drive?

 

[chscag]

I'm wondering, if I had a Mac Mini with a soldered SSD and the SSD portion failed, would I still be able to use that Mini booting up on an external drive or is the internal SSD drive somehow still required when using an external drive?

I don't think it matters. You should still be able to boot from an external bootable source. It shouldn't make a difference if the drive is soldered in place or not.

 

[Lifeisabeach]

I don't think it matters. You should still be able to boot from an external bootable source. It shouldn't make a difference if the drive is soldered in place or not.

Correct. On these Macs with a T2 chip, the ability to boot off an external drive is controlled by the firmware and you will have to authorize the system to allow it. More on that below. The saving grace with the Mac mini is that at least if the internal SSD goes belly-up, booting off an external SSD connected by Thunderbolt or USB-C will be as good an option as booting off the internal drive, from a performance stance and a practical one since it's stationary. it obviously is not so practical on laptops.

About Startup Security Utility - Apple Support

 

[krs]

It shouldn't make a difference if the drive is soldered in place or not.

I thought there might be a possibility that the CPU accesses the SSD IC's differently when the chips are soldered directly on the motherboard compared to accessing the SSD via some interface (like SATA on the traditional hard drives) and that some of that direct interface circuitry is also used when accessing an external drive.

 

[pigoo3]

One more Mac noob question, my 34" monitor has both HDMI and DisplayPort. Should I get Thunderbolt3 (USB-C) to HDMI or DP or does it matter?

I think I would tackle this in 3 ways:

1. Check the 34" monitor manual specs to see what resolutions are supported with each option (HDMI and/or Displayport). If they are different...and one technology offers a resolution you prefer...then go with that option.
2. Check what resolutions are supported by the 27" iMac...and cross reference this with what the 34" monitor manual indicates.
3. Explore how much each cable/adapter costs. If one is significantly less expensive than the other...I would probably go with that one.

Hopefully this leads to an easy solution,

- Nick

 

[AirBear]

I think I would tackle this in 3 ways:

1. Check the 34" monitor manual specs to see what resolutions are supported with each option (HDMI and/or Displayport). If they are different...and one technology offers a resolution you prefer...then go with that option.
2. Check what resolutions are supported by the 27" iMac...and cross reference this with what the 34" monitor manual indicates.
3. Explore how much each cable/adapter costs. If one is significantly less expensive than the other...I would probably go with that one.

Hopefully this leads to an easy solution,

- Nick

Downloaded the Manual for my 34" Samsung CF791. It wasn't as much as I thought, it supports 3440x1440 either with HDMI or DP. Adapters are less than $15 for either. The iMac's 27" supports 5120x2880 and my old 28" monitor is 4K so supports 3840x2160. Initially I may just keep the 28" as 2nd monitor and run the iMac's 27" as primary. The Samsung really is more for wide screen gaming. It has multi-screen support which I don't think the Mac will support while Windows will.

Thanks Nick

 

[AirBear]

Just ordered the 3.7Ghz iMac with i5 CPU, 580X GPU & 2TB Fusion. Picking it up tomorrow from a local BestBuy along with cable to connect the 4K monitor. Probably would have been fine ordering the base model @$1799 but this gives me more options for the long term.

One more question (I hope), is the 8GB RAM sufficient or should I go ahead and order more? I still think in Win10 terms and 8 is marginal, 16 preferred.

Once again thanks for all the help and advice.

 

[pigoo3]

Just ordered the 3.7Ghz iMac with i5 CPU, 580X GPU & 2TB Fusion. Picking it up tomorrow from a local BestBuy along with cable to connect the 4K monitor. Probably would have been fine ordering the base model @$1799 but this gives me more options for the long term.

Congrats on deciding & pulling the trigger. I think from the beginning of the thread you were leaning more towards a desktop computer rather than a MacBook Pro.

Purchasing an iMac you get the best "bang for your buck"...and I know you might have been a bit hesitant getting a 27" iMac. Trust me...Apple has always had some pretty awesome displays...I think you're REALLY gonna like the 27" iMac display!!

One more question (I hope), is the 8GB RAM sufficient or should I go ahead and order more? I still think in Win10 terms and 8 is marginal, 16 preferred.

8gig of RAM is ok for now. No real rush to upgrade...since the RAM is user upgradeable. See how it goes...very easy to order more when it makes sense...and pop it in!

- Nick

 

[krs]

One more question (I hope), is the 8GB RAM sufficient or should I go ahead and order more?

On the Ram - just check Activity Monitor after you used your new iMac for a while and you can see if you should get more RAM.

I

 

[AirBear]

On the Ram - just check Activity Monitor after you used your new iMac for a while and you can see if you should get more RAM.

I

I've got 3 web pages open (MS Edge), Apple TV and Text Edit sitting idle in the tray and it's showing 6.43 of 8GB RAM used. CPU load is negligible. I'll probably invest in some RAM, but I need to look at some other stuff first.

Had a major issue tonight that made the iMac unbootable. Could not get into recovery console or Internet recovery. Luckily I still had the Mac Mini and used it to make a USB Flashdrive bootable with Catalina on it. With that I was able to boot up and use Time Machine. I posted about it in the hardware section, or I should say it was moved there for me.

Made the iMac primary in front of me and moved the 28" 4K monitor to the left. The better resolution was not a big deal, I have both monitors set at 3008x1692 on Scaled. The default was much less than that and was a nuisance when moving a browser window between monitors. The iMac 27" had much higher res than the default on the 28" 4K.

So far I'm happy other than the error causing the boot issue. Getting the 3.7Ghz i5 was probably overkill but I can sure see a difference in how fast web sites load and refresh now.

 

[pigoo3]

After quite a long conversation regarding this purchase...the first thing you're supposed to tell us is...you got the iMac today!

I've got 3 web pages open (MS Edge), Apple TV and Text Edit sitting idle in the tray and it's showing 6.43 of 8GB RAM used.

Don't pay attention to this...pay close attention to the "Memory Pressure" graph. It will show Green (low/ok), Orange (moderate), Red (high)...for Memory Pressure. Apple computers are designed to take advantage of installed RAM.

If you installed 16gig or 32 gig of RAM...you would very likely still see a large "Memory Used" value. I have 16gig of RAM installed in my MacBook Pro...and the "memory used" value = 12.43gig. If I had 32gig of RAM installed...I'm betting "memory used" would be close to 24gig. All of this with exactly the same apps open...and same computing tasks being performed.

As mentioned above...Apple computers are designed to take advantage of installed RAM (which may be different from how Windows computers you're familiar with may handle RAM).

Made the iMac primary in front of me and moved the 28" 4K monitor to the left. The better resolution was not a big deal, I have both monitors set at 3008x1692 on Scaled. The default was much less than that and was a nuisance when moving a browser window between monitors. The iMac 27" had much higher res than the default on the 28" 4K.

Remember your 27" 5k iMac has a retina display. This means higher pixel density for greater clarity & sharpness (2x the pixel density).

Native resolution on a 27" iMac is 5120 x 2880. What this means in terms of actual display "real estate" is...a 27" iMac at it's native resolution of 5120 x 2880...has the same display real estate as a non retina monitor at a resolution of 2560 x 1440.

What's also kind of cool about the 27" iMac retina display is...you can go into System Preferences > Display...and switch from the "Default" resolution setting...and choose the "More Space" setting. This will give you even more display real estate for viewing more open windows or open documents at the same time. Of course everything will become smaller...and a little less sharp (but still very good). Kind of cool to do if you wanted to view high resolution images closer to or at their actual resolution...or being able to see massive amounts of stuff...like multiple Word documents (more than 2)...or a single ginormous Excel spreadsheet.

Have fun with it!

- Nick

 

[AirBear]

I got the iMac today ;P Had to go downtown to get it, they were getting scarce. Downtown store had 1, next one was over 30 miles away and they only had 1. Picked up a Thunderbolt 3 to HDMI/USB/Thunderbolt 3 pass thru adapter at my local store. Could have ordered for home delivery but I prefer to support the local stores even thou the money goes into the same pocket.

Thanks again for the memory pressure info. It's pretty low right now, maybe 25% if that much.

Also thanks for the Retina pixel explanation, I was wondering why the res showed so low. And I did play with the "More Space" setting on both monitors. What I'm doing now is running the Retina at "Default" and then the 28" 4K in scaled with the 2nd from the left which is a match to the Retina according to the graphic. I frequently drag webpages over to the 2nd monitor and it's nice to have it at more or less the same res. I did play with the max "more space" but talk about overkill.....

 

[pigoo3]

What I'm doing now is running the Retina at "Default"...

This is what I would do as well...since this is where it looks the best.

I did play with the max "more space" but talk about overkill.....

For everyday use it is overkill (stuff is just too small on the display). But kind of cool to have the ability when the occasional computing task comes along where a larger work space on a single display is needed/nice.

- Nick

 

[krs]

Don't pay attention to this...pay close attention to the "Memory Pressure" graph. It will show Green (low/ok), Orange (moderate), Red (high)...for Memory Pressure. Apple computers are designed to take advantage of installed RAM.

What exactly does "Memory Pressure" actually measure?
The term itself has no technical meaning for me, it seems to be an Apple invention.
I always thought it was an indication of memory swap which is what I tend to look at to see if I need more RAM, but Swap is a separate indicator in Activity Monitor.

BTW - I did read the Apple Support page How to use Activity Monitor on your Mac - Apple Support
but all it says is:

Memory Pressure: The Memory Pressure graph helps illustrate the availability of memory resources. The graph moves from right to left and updates at the intervals set in View > Update Frequency. The current state of memory resources is indicated by the color at the right side of the graph:

Green: Memory resources are available.
Yellow: Memory resources are still available but are being tasked by memory-management processes, such as compression.
Red: Memory resources are depleted, and macOS is using your startup drive for memory. To make more RAM available, you can quit one or more apps or install more RAM. This is the most important indicator that your Mac may need more RAM.

...which doesn't answer my question.

 

[pigoo3]

The term itself has no technical meaning for me, it seems to be an Apple invention.

I think the term "Memory Pressure" (or any similar term) makes sense if someone knows what goes into it. Just like any unfamilair term or word or phrase...until someone knows what that word/term/phrase means...it will always seem confusing.

The concept of Memory Pressure isn't really an Apple invention (we've always had computing parameters that put "pressure" on the amount of RAM installed in a computer).

What probably is more of an "Apple Invention" could be the coining of the phrase "Memory Pressure"...which as a single term & concept...is probably more easily understood by the average computer user...compared to terms like "App Memory", "File Cache", "Wired Memory", Compressed Memory", "Virtual Memory", etc. Terms the average user would be way more confusing & not understood.

I think the term "Memory Pressure" (and the green, orange, and red status indicators)...is an excellent...simple...and straightforward way of communicating the status of installed RAM in a users computer (compared to the terminology used previously).

I always thought it was an indication of memory swap which is what I tend to look at to see if I need more RAM, but Swap is a separate indicator in Activity Monitor.

I'm 99% sure "Swap"...is included in the determination of "Memory Pressure". I'm sure the other parameters indicated in Activity Monitor (Cached Files, App Memory, Wired Memory, and Compressed...as well as other info)...are also used in determining "Memory Pressure".

Memory Pressure I believe is supposed to be a quick & easy single term for the average user to understand how the RAM in their computer is functioning.

- Nick

 

[pigoo3]

BTW - I did read the Apple Support page How to use Activity Monitor on your Mac - Apple Support
but all it says is:


...which doesn't answer my question.

Seems to be an pretty good explanation to me. Maybe you're looking for a more detailed (super specific) expanation of Memory Pressure...which the average user is not necessarily interested in.

Apple's Memory Pressure explanation may not be the "PhD Version" you're looking for...but it does explain things in a pretty clear manner for the average non-professional user to understand.

- Nick

 

[krs]

Thanks for your comments

I think the term "Memory Pressure" (or any similar term) makes sense if someone knows what goes into it. Just like any unfamilair term or word or phrase...until someone knows what that word/term/phrase means...it will always seem confusing.

The concept of Memory Pressure isn't really an Apple invention (we've always had computing parameters that put "pressure" on the amount of RAM installed in a computer).

I have been involved with high tech for more than 30 years,first as a designer and then in various management positions, but I have never even heard of the term "pressure" used with respect to the amount of RAM installed on a device.
Mind you, all my professional involvement was with industrial products, very high speed ATM (as in Asynchronous Transfer Mode) switches and routers as well as OC-192 and up transmission, not with consumer products like a PC, so perhaps that explains why "Memory Pressure" is not a familiar term.

Still,for me at least, it would be nice if Apple defined what parameters go into the algorithm that drives the "Memory Pressure" indication.

I have the tendency to not close down applications after I'm done with them and wonder if that has any negative effect - like the non-responding Excel issue I brought up in another thread.
At the time, I had about 15 applications open, closed all of them except a few I use constantly, but that didn't seem to make any difference.
Memory Pressure shows green on my Mini with 16 GB of RAM.

 

[ferrarr]

Memory Pressure shows green on my Mini with 16 GB of RAM.

What about graphics ram? That’s the usual bottleneck.


Sent from my iPad using Mac-Forums

 

[pigoo3]

I have been involved with high tech for more than 30 years,first as a designer and then in various management positions, but I have never even heard of the term "pressure" used with respect to the amount of RAM installed on a device.

You're looking at things from a professional perspective...and probably looking for a much deeper explaination.

I think the easy answer is...Apple is taking various RAM utilization parameters (parameters that have been around for years & years)...and combining all these measures into a single easy to understand term for the average consumer to utilize.

Apple probably came up with an algorithum that takes into account all the individual important RAM utilization parameters...and came up with a single "Memory Pressure" value...which is how the Memory Pressure graph is created.

Also remember that there are things that can be done with RAM in 2020 (caching, swapping, etc.)...that wasn't possible 30 years ago in 1990. In 1990...4 to 8 megabyte of RAM was a TON of RAM in a consumer level computer. Now having 16gig of RAM is no biggie.

All those computing activities that needed to be swapped in & out of RAM or written to a slow hard drive in 1990...can now reside in RAM for a lot longer time in 2020. Resulting in RAM doing a lot more now in 2020 than just RAM did in 1990.

- Nick