what to do????????
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- BaskerviIle
So, I work in my job on a highpower beast of a g5 tower. I never really did that much freelance work at home. I have an old (ie circa 2001) g4 tower which is v slow but I still keep because I've got lots of old work on there.
I bought a mac mini in 2005 to use exclusively for recording music and it's been great for that, but now I'm starting to do some freelance work at home and my only option is to use the mac mini, which is a little slow but ok (1.5 ghz, 512mb ram, 75Gb hd). I now have an ipod touch so I'm wanting to rip movies from dvd for that etc so my music and video are taking up space too.
I'm rapidly running out of hard disk space only about 5GB left.so do I:
a) buy an external hardrive and store all my files, music, video etc on there and use the 75GB hard disk space for apps.
b) buy a 'proper' mac that has more ram, and a massive HD built in so that I can do real design work and music on it.
You can get a 1Terabyte HD for £200 if I just stuck that on my mac mini and never unplugged it could I use it with itunes etc easily?
Otherwise it means spending at least £1000 to get a decent mac, quite a big difference in spending.
any advice would be welcomed
- TheBlueOne0
Buy a proper machine.
- I know you wanted to hear a different option, but...TheBlueOne
- skt0
you can't do print work on a big hard drive.
- creative-0
Time to bite the bullet and buy a decent Mac
- detritus0
Whatever you do decide, get an external anyway, man - you need to have some sort of local backup. If you've got a bit of cash to splash - I'd recommend forking out for a nice big external RAID drive (one with two drives, both storing the same data) - that way you can have lots of storage and, Camden fire or Peterbrough earthquake aside, you've got a certain amount of on-site assurance.
- So you're looking at £1200...TheBlueOne
- nah, get an offsite tape backup.skt
- so your looking at £3000skt
- ian0
Buy a decent mac, but £200 for a terabyte hard drive is good, get one of them too.
- detritus0
Nah, tBO - from a coupla hundred quid..
- 'nah'.
I'm so fucking street.detritus - Dammit! Don't give me your damn brit monetary system with your quids and fags and shit..TheBlueOne
- haha, skt - sorry - I wasn't mocking you - must've just picked up on your 'nah' above and plonked it in there..detritus
- Quidditch fag?detritus
- 'nah'.
- rafalski0
Ehh.. Mini doesn't have firewire 800.. Getting an external drive won't hurt anyway, i.e. this kind:
http://www.hardwarezone.com/news…Also you might like to do this:
http://www.ambor.com/public/mero…
..or at least upping ram to 2GB if you haven't already
- rafalski0
I'll buy your mini for a hundred. That'll get you started on the way to your new machine..
- Randd0
I use 2 internals and one external; one internal and one external for backup
- PIITB?TheBlueOne
- I've been wary of internal backup since my PSU blew up last year..detritus
- that's the reason for the external; backup the backupRandd
- Fariska0
External HD:
http://www.pcworld.co.uk:80/mart…
- rafalski0
You can get a proper macbook pro 15'4 2.2 for 930 sterling (refurb), it's a steal.
http://store.apple.com/Apple/Web…
- ephix0
or a brand new one for 937 sterling if you pass through hong kong ;)
- BaskerviIle0
dammit.
I knew that was what you were all going to say but didn't want to admit to needing a new machine. Oh well, better get saving.
Which brings the question, which of the many macs out there do I purchase. I quite like the idea of getting one of the all in one imacs, since my crt monitor is too bulky.
- rafalski0
Either get the macbook pro (to use as a desktop machine with monitor) or check the refurb store daily in the morning - a 20" 2.0GHz imac was €999 today, which is like 700 sterling. Up the RAM to 4GB and voilla!
You might consider one of the towers, but it's a diff price tag.
For apple refurb quality inquiries use filter feature - beaten to death and there is a general agreement they're like-new.
- Dancer0
Ok heres what I think (it maybe be usless info but hell I've got too much work to do that my head hurts just thinking about it):
The main question is how much £££ do you wanna spend.
I would buy an external drive as a short term solution – you will continue to use this for back up so no harm there and £200 for a Terabyte is good. I would buy an external raid drive but am unsure of the benefits as I am not that techy.. can anyone shed any light?
Max the Ram out as well on the Mini
I would then buy a good monitor 24-30 inch
Finally when you have saved the £££ go to America on Holiday with the missus and buy a MBP ideally in June July as Apple are expected to launch a decent updgrade (or so I hear).
Buying a tower is a bit excessive these days unless you are doing serious recording, 3D rendering, or video work.
Good luck and Hi!!!
- pascii0
Buy a MacBookPro and take it to work ;-)
- moth0
Dancer is the only one speaking sense in here.
Apart from being mac users (which is the first problem), the rest of you seem to have some kind of complex about the amount of clout you need to get your job done. Max the RAM on the mini, get a good, decent speed external hard disk, and if you've got money left over ditch the CRT and pick a dell LCD. And you know what? It'll all just fucking work hunky-doryilly unless you decide you're going to study evolutionary artificial intelligence and simulate the bang-bang backwards.
But ultimately all you friends here will scorn because your mac is about 2 years old and you'll end up buying a new one anyway.
- AndyRoss0
What are you asking me for?
- creative-0
At the end of the day it's dependent on how much you want to spend. I have a 4 year old PowerBook G4 in which I increased the RAM and hard drive storage which does me fine. If you have the funds and opportunity to buy a new machine go for it, if not stick to what you've got and buy storage.