After talking about it for a year, I finally got a new one to replace my 2010 iMac. There is nothing wrong at all with the 2010 machine, had a load of upgrades done and works flawlessly, but good old Apple choose to not support it, so sooner or later it’s gonna become obsolete not through hardware being dated or failing, but by software refusing to work on it. Good old environmentally conscious Apple.
Anyway, for anyone else stuck with an older machine that they know they will have to upgrade soon, but refuse to be shafted by Apple with their utterly dated more or less unrepairable nonupgradable overpriced present iMac offering, John Lewis have the 2017 models reduced (based model down to £1200) with a two year warranty.
Hardly a perfect solution, as it’s still impossible to get into with invalidating the warranty so you’re stuck with an HDD from the 1990s, but at least now, when Apple f**k you, they’re only putting the tip in.
I’ll live with the Fusion drive for as long as I can, then look at hooking up a USB-C external till the warranty is up, then pull it apart and do the job right.
That’s my latest Imac. I added RAM from Crucial and a La Cie / Porsche USBC drive
Interesting. Tell me more about it.
I’m not sure which external that is, got a link? Did you try with the Fusion first?
My 2010 runs an internal ssd in place of the superdrive, with the original HDD as backup/archive.
Given I’m used to a boot SSD run off the super drive connectors, which I believe is slower than an ssd run as a replacement to the HDD, I’m curious how much of a drop in performance the fusion will be.
Do you boot from the external ssd?
So you boot from the Fusion? How do you find it compared to a proper SSD? I figure slower, but frustratingly so?
I’ve only used a swapped out SSD internal on a 2011 Imac. The 2017 boots much faster than that but it’s got far higher RAM. Not sure if that makes a difference
Good to know.
I’ll just suck it and see. I hear nothing but bad things about the Fusion, and for sure it’s a shocking option for Apple to put inside a “premium” machine, even in 2017, but that’s what it’s got, so that’s what I’ll work with for starters.
I believe the 2017 model comes with 32gb of ssd (reduced I think to 24 in the 2019!), that should at least get the OS and most used open apps onto it. I normally have RW, Infinity Design, Photoshop (v6) Wunderlist, Text wrangler and maybe one or two other smaller apps open at any one time, a reasonable load, but hopefully the Fusion should cope. Otherwise, it’s invest in an external USB-C SSD and boot from that.
The base model 2017 Imac comes with 8gb RAM. I added 2 x 16gb from Crucial. Cost about $130 I think
Yes, I have an extra 32 ordered. £120.
Fucking money pit.
That should be John Lewis’s new slogan.
My local Apple store and John Lewis store are within iPhone throwing distance of each other. If you have a problem with a JL bought Apple product, I have heard that they send you to the Apple Store where you will get to the head of the support queue and will be seen straight away.
JL don’t exist over here, so if I do get an issue I’m hoping I can rock up to the Apple store, who will treat me just like all their other customers: Like total scum. No idea what it’s like over there now, but used to be amazing over here, last time I was in one they got on like they were doing me a favour by taking my money.
Hmmm I really don’t know what you mean about Apple iMac being overpriced and 1990s tech – don’t get the HD or the fusion drive, simple. Seriously, they have the fastest SSDs going around. So fast, it was worth the upgrade to 2TB internal SSD. You won’t be able to upgrade the internal storage, and you won’t get faster via external. And, the iMac 5K doesn’t cost that much more than a screen alone.
Plenty of their stuff is overpriced or just too expensive (e.g. laptops, Mac Pro), but the iMac 2017 model I got was pretty good value and absolutely smashes it. And this is for pro audio. Web is not nearly that demanding, unless, errrrr, you want a cross-fading slideshow. Or you run, say, Rapidweaver, which is slow as shit on anything.
I was referring to the fact that in 2019 the worlds leading consumer tech company are still making desktop machines, that are almost impossible to upgrade yourself, and generally cost almost £2k, with a traditional hard drive installed, with the only way around it to pay an enormously over the odds for a SSD installed at the factory, which still suffers from the same lack of upgradability.
At £1200 it’s just about tolerable. For the replacement at full price, which I think is £1800, it’s a complete rip off. I’m not talking about the just the fact a £2k machine still ships with a platter, but that Apple do everything in their powers to lock you out of fixing/upgrading it.
But hey, that one has been done to death, I’m over it. I got a machine at a price I can stomach, so I’m good.
You can’t upgrade it because their inbuilt tech is cutting edge. What are you gonna “upgrade” it with? I’m talking about SSD here. Have you done any speed tests? I have. No way I’d go external. RAM, sure, should be upgradeable. And in the iMac it is. Soldered on in the laptops is ridiculous, yes. As are glued-on batteries. I just don’t agree with you re iMac inbuilt storage.
All the above reasons are why I’m desperately hanging on to my mid 2010 Mac Pro. At some stage a top spec Mac mini beckons, then hopefully keep this one running as a backup and run software that won’t go beyond Mojave. That should be viable for another 2-3 years if nothing major breaks.
The tricky question is when to buy the Mac mini. I don’t want to be in a position where I am super busy and having to wait 10 days for a custom replacement. Equally I don’t want to pay out big money now on a new computer, while the Mac Pro is very usable, then see Apple release a new Mac mini that is significantly better.
I seem to recall Apple plan on releasing their own processors fairly soon, so you can bet OS updates will be more focussed on those than Intel machines. Who knows what that will mean for 3rd party developers.
I wouldn’t count on the Mac mini outdoing the Mac Pro, ever.
It depends in what sense. In an ideal world I certainly prefer the ease of access to troubleshoot and upgrade a Mac Pro, but in terms of outright speed the top spec new Mac mini is no slouch and there seems to be quite a lot you can do through thunderbolt, such as upgraded GPU.
The new Mac Pro will obviously be an amazing machine but the cost is huge and I just don’t need that sort of power with the work I am currently doing. A friend with an old 12 core Mac Pro has recently replaced it with the top spec Mini and seemed happy enough, though I’ll check with him again to see if that is still the case.
The Mac Pro may yet go on for five years and I recently upgraded the video card to run Mojave, but the real issue will be software compatibility. Intel have also said they are dropping microcode updates for the processor, so over time it will become progressively less secure to run on the internet.
Bullshit back? Have you done speed tests on their internal SSD vs external options?
@steveb, the answer is “no”, because you got a fusion drive. So don’t say “bullshit” if you haven’t got the facts.