New iMac or Wait?? Apple vs. Intel [Solved]

[Pitch Black]

I’ll let you know in about a week…

Seriously though, I’m upgrading before my 2015 RMBP totally dies, because I have to keep an Intel/Mojave/32-bit system around so I can still access the last 15 years or so of projects - client work as well as my own.

It’s funny, the thing I’ll miss most is… Supatrigga!

[H20nly]

Oof scary. What’s the biggest issue forcing you to need the 32 bit? I’m assuming plugins??

It would be nice if you could P2V it and run it as a virtual machine, but even then I’m not sure how that would hold up with plugins on older projects on the newer hardware the virtualization would run on. In PC land, for work, we do crap like that all the time with old Windows servers and desktops, but they’re usually housing some decrepit old database of some sort that runs on .NET 1.0 They’re never Macs and their primary function was never audio

It might be worth looking into it though… If you can virtualize the Mac, you could likely run it on a Synology backup appliance

[H20nly]

@Paddy - found this article that seems to imply virtualization of your Mac to a Synology is doable

https://nascompares.com/answer/can-i-in ... -synology/

There’s additional information I found while searching a bit, but this one seems to speak to the older nature of your computer. I’m sure there’s plenty of caveats… but 15 years is a lot of work. Happy to offer any assistance I can with it if it seems like a workable solution for you.
Price wise you’re looking at about $800-1000ish dollars US for the Synology and the drives. If it works though, the drives will be in a RAID configuration… so you should be able to get another decade easily out of it as long as you have a spare drive or two in case one fails

[Pitch Black]

Yes, one big issue is plugins, but it’s also the whole ecosystem from various eras. Thanks for the info, and also thanks very much for the offer of help!! But to me it seems easiest to just keep the old systems around.

I currently have 3 viable mac systems of various vintage:

A 2001 TiBook that will run OS9 (I was using OS9 professionally until around 2005 - I’m usually a very slow adopter/changer when it comes to OS updates - if it ain’t broke and it’s doing everything I need I don’t f’n touch it!)

A 2006 Core2Duo MBP (the last time I bought a brand-new mac) that runs Snow Leopard.

A 2015 RMBP on Mojave.

That’s just the reality of being a professional musician/producer/composer for 30-odd years
You never know when a client will call you out of the blue and want to revisit something.

With the resale value of the old machines being next to nothing it’s just easier to hang on to them.

Don’t get me started on floppies for an Ensoniq TS-12 and Jaz drives for Akai S3200 & S6000…

[H20nly]

I dunno which is more “floppies” or “TiBook”

I’m gonna roll with Tibook…

Glad to help if I can. Goodness knows I’ve been helped here before… by you a few times specifically. Having said that, if it works for you, then your system is the best system.

Enjoy your new rig.

[Pitch Black]

Hey Mr. 2Only, I just wanted in case you hadn’t seen it to draw your attention to this thread

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=244317

I posted about my experience with the transition to the new M1 system - honestly it went very smoothly for me, including going the cheat’s way of using Migration Assistant.

The Mojave->Monterey “forced march” was surprisingly smooth, I think there’s a good chance that your system might migrate more smoothly than you think (32bit apps n plugins notwithstanding). I certainly know my Mojave-based ecosystem was kinda the end-point accumulation of bringing a lot of Intel-based stuff forwards from 2010-era hardware and software. And then the jump to M1 carries it forward again… If that makes sense?

The question probably boils down to how many “obscure” or small-dev plugins do you have that might have fallen by the wayside over the years.

Did you put an SSD into your current machine?

[H20nly]

Hey Mr. 2Only, I just wanted in case you hadn’t seen it to draw your attention to this thread

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=244317

I posted about my experience with the transition to the new M1 system - honestly it went very smoothly for me, including going the cheat’s way of using Migration Assistant.

The Mojave->Monterey “forced march” was surprisingly smooth, I think there’s a good chance that your system might migrate more smoothly than you think (32bit apps n plugins notwithstanding). I certainly know my Mojave-based ecosystem was kinda the end-point accumulation of bringing a lot of Intel-based stuff forwards from 2010-era hardware and software. And then the jump to M1 carries it forward again… If that makes sense?

The question probably boils down to how many “obscure” or small-dev plugins do you have that might have fallen by the wayside over the years.

Did you put an SSD into your current machine?

Hey thanks for the link and thinking about me. Much appreciated.

I'd be coming from High Sierra.
I decided to forgo installing the SSD because it's a fair bit of effort with an iMac... and the risk vs. reward factor was so diminished by the fact that Apple won't let me upgrade the OS any further. I'm at the bottom of the system requirements list for most DAW related software because of my OS rev.

So that's when I decided to throw money at it and got stopped in my tracks by the M1; hence this thread. As impatient as I'm growing, I knew that shelling out the amount of cash it would take for a new 27 inch iMac to spec with an Intel processor was just purchasing regret as a pre-installed feature. I'm not afraid to spend money on a good product, but I'm not keen on paying for obsolesce that's already clearly in motion.

The good news is, the plugins I use and care about are all already 64 bit. When Live 8 went 64 bit, I made it a point to upgrade the plugins that could be upgraded and walk away from the rest. I used very few plugins the first few years that I used Live, so it wasn't a big loss. Once AAS released a 64 bit version of String Studio I was home free.
Izotope, Waves, and Arturia account for something like 98% of my 3rd party plugins.

[Pitch Black]

I knew that shelling out the amount of cash it would take for a new 27 inch iMac to spec with an Intel processor was just purchasing regret as a pre-installed feature. I'm not afraid to spend money on a good product, but I'm not keen on paying for obsolesce that's already clearly in motion.

This is wisdom.

You're going to be blown away when your 27" M1 iMac finally arrives!

HOLD ON MR FRODO!!!!

[H20nly]

[Machinesworking]

Just saw this, had a lot of similar concerns. I'm waiting on a couple people to chime in online about their experience with the M1 Max 64Gb RAM monster to find out if I made the right choice just getting the M1 Air. For most of us, orchestral work isn't going to get above 64GB much, it's the guys doing TV and film work that need the big setups with VEP and multiple computers etc.

So I think I did make the right decision because I'm also concerned about having a permanent backup solution and have been wracking my brains trying to figure out whether a two tier DAS and NAS aproach is the best, or just get a 4TB SSD for the Air, and back it all up to a big expensive NAS. The issue is NAS is just starting to become a viable solution for keeping older songs and even sample libraries, (I don't think streaming them is a solid idea yet though too much latency), and so that looks great, but it's just approaching Thunderbolt 4 in a few months when Qnap release their 4 bay TB4 box. At this point 10TbE ethernet is the fastest solution and requires a TB3 to 10TbE adapter and it cuts the signal down. So with a laptop, non PCIe 10TbE card you're probably looking at around 400-650mbs in a 4 bay raid, which isn't bad at all, 2.5" SSD speeds, but you will hit 800-1100mbs with a straight TbE solution. So, I'm waiting for the release of the Qnap TB4 4-Bay NAS for a permanent backup, and I should just buckle down and get the 4TB NVME In a OWC TB3 enclosure, that gives you 1500mbs or so sample streaming etc.

If anyone read through my blabbing on this, TB4 isn't that important at all for Apple hardware, they already can read at 40Gbs TB4 speeds with "TB3" but for the rest of the computing world TB3 is stuck at 20Gbs, so the new TB4 Qnap should theoretically be fast enough over Thunderbolt to not bottleneck when converting to TB internally, i.e. the default for NAS is ethernet, not USB or TB. So it's possible to load things off of it at 1,100+mbs. To be fair here, for my needs I'm going to be using HDs and they top out at around 200-250mbs apiece, which makes getting to around 14-1500mbs which would be a matter of a ridiculously huge NAS, like 8 bays. You will not achieve 1000mbs with 5 HDs unless you do raid 0 which is just stupid when you have enough disks for raid 5 etc.

Here's a link on the TB4 Qnap if anyone is a complete nerd like me about this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCiKHMU_OI0

[H20nly]

@Machinesworking - I haven't used a QNAP in a few years. We used to have them at my old job doing I.T. in the medical industry. I switched jobs and now work for an MSP that specializes in networking. We typically use Unitrends and as of recently we've been using Synology a lot for file storage - at least when the customer comes to us for a recommendation. If they have anything else in place, we typically support that too. We also work with Dell and HP disk arrays, but those are massive amounts of money and well beyond a musician's needs (unless they're running HyperV or VMWare or work for a label/studio with lots of artists signed)

Anyway... the "N" in NAS is for network (network attached storage)... As such, most of the units I've seen (including everything I mentioned above) use the NIC (or NICs) for data transfer. Point being, with a Cat6 cable and relatively small and inexpensive switch you can get speeds to up 10Gbps, assuming the rest of your network supports it... or at least your computer when connected to the same switch as the NAS.

Even with a standard gigabit NIC you can get 1000 Mbps. So I don't see a lot of value in having a NAS that supports Thunderbolt. I suppose you can plug a laptop into it, especially if you don't have an Ethernet port/NIC. That seems kinda kludgy to me though. Except for the NAS models with only 2 drive bays, it seems like a big block of hard drives isn't something you need at the end of your typical 2 and 1/2-ish foot Thunderbolt cable. It's hardly portable in a good way and is probably better left in an always dry corner or under a desk raised an inch or 2 off the floor.

The higher speeds of Thunderbolt sound nice on paper, but if you've ever seen a massive backup job run over a 10g network...it's jaw dropping speed. So my point is that I'm not sure that it adds value to a typical home network or music studio setup - at least, not to the point of having to wait for NAS manufacturer to implement it *and* up the price of the unit for it.

Don't get me wrong, not trying to rain on your geeking... just throwing it out there that 10g NICs are bad ass too and often come standard - except on low end model NAS units. Even a tried and true 1 gig NIC moves the shit outta data at full speed and would be more than enough to move files across to and from your DAW.

Is there a bottleneck issue you are running into?

If you're still shopping around, I would definitely recommend checking out Synology units. There's a lot of bang for the buck there once you get out of the basic consumer grade models. Their cloud storage is stupid cheap too, so someone that travels from continent to continent could theoretically load their entire sound library and all their sets to the cloud, then just pull down what they need after the plane lands.

[H20nly]

dupe

[Machinesworking]

@H2Only

So the raw end of it is yeah, 10GbE is pretty damed fast, but all of it clocks in at a lot less than the number might tell you. especially because for a laptop or most Macs you're running it through a converter to Thunderbolt anyway. It's all in mbs at this point.
To put in in perspective, i.e. stuff you already know but just to say it out loud:

Typical spinning platter
3.5 HDs 85-240MBs

2.5" SSDs- 400-600MBs

NVME M.2 drives- 1,500-3,500MBs or more.

Thunderbolt 3 over 10GbE - 6-800MBs

Thunderbolt 4 over 10GbE should be almost double 3.

10GbE is probably stupid fast in a dedicated network with 10GbE PCIe cards built right into the computer, but that's not really an option for an Apple laptop.
So right now you can get adapters for TB3 to 10GbE, but they're TB3, which is throttled a bit outside the Mac environment. The best way to put it is Thunderbolt 4 is Mac Thunderbolt speeds for all other hardware. Pretty much what I'm trying to shoot for is 1500MB/s speeds out of a NAS which for the $2,500 and under market is limited. This prevents it from being replaced in the future. I have no illusions that a NAS that isn't a 20k machine in a high end office building will hit the NVME ranges speed wise working as a DAS, but well over 1100MB/s should be possible. Thing is it seems it's not really outside of TB4.

Anyway here's Qnaps tests anyway, got to figure out where Synology do their version.
https://www.qnap.com/en-uk/product_x_pe ... e=6&II=356

[H20nly]

This one doesn't have 10G NICs, but it has 2 and (I'm pretty sure) it can use them both at the same time... I can confirm if it interests you at all. I have access to about 8 of them. We have a few clients with the rack mount ones, so I might be getting my feature sets mixed up.

https://www.synology.com/en-us/products/DS920+#specs

We use that model a lot at client sites that need a lot of storage for a good price.

I wonder if there's some type of switch that can support Ethernet and Thunderbolt?? That would be a cool thing. Of course, the money you save on the NAS would probably get slurped up by the cost of a switch that can do that.

I need a solution for myself. I have about 100 DVDs I'd like to RIP and be able to watch off the unit. I've been meaning to do the research, but at the end of the day I need a spare thousand bucks and shit ton of time to be able to set it up... so the I've been kicking that can down the road for a few years.

[H20nly]

This wasn't exactly what I was thinking about but...

https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MD46 ... et-adapter

and

https://www.owcdigital.com/products/thu ... et-adapter

food for thought. Gotta eat my lunch... it just showed up