burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

Apple discontinued both the 21.5" and 27" Intel iMacs about three years ago. They updated the 24" iMac from the M1 to M3 system-on-a-chip this past Monday. At the same time, they updated all the 14" and 16" MacBook Pros to M3, M3 Pro, and M3 Max versions. They also killed the 13" MacBook Pro.

UNEQUIVOCALLY, YES, the M-series chips are a radical improvement over the Intel-based Macs! They use about a third of the electricity, and perform faster. The M3 should astound you. Even the base original M1 iMac is faster than the fastest Intel iMac ever made.

There have been rumors of a 27" or 30" or 32" iMac for the last five years, but nothing has materialized. Personally, I doubt they'll make a larger model, since they make the Apple Studio and the Apple Studio Display, now, instead of the iMac Pro. They are also selling more MacBook Airs and MacBook Pros than iMacs.

The 24" iMac can support one external monitor up to 6K resolution. If you need more screen real estate, and/or a bigger monitor, get an external monitor as big as you want. In 2021, I replaced by old iMac with a 2020 13" M1 MacBook Air and an LG 27UP850-W 27” UHD (3840 x 2160) IPS Monitor. I couldn't be happier, as it gives me portability and far more power than I had in the old iMac. I use my old iMac keyboard and mouse with the laptop in my home office.

It makes more sense in 2023 to get a machine with NOMINAL internal SSD storage. MOST users should be fine with 16 GB of Unified Memory (RAM shared by all processors) and 1 TB of internal storage, plus external drives. The least internal storage I would ever get on an M1, M2, or M3 Mac is 512 GB. The least internal storage I would get on the M2/M3 Pro or M2/M3 Max Macs is 1TB. That's because the base M2 and base M3 models use only one 256 GB module, while 512 GB and larger M2 and M3 models get TWO modules, which are configured in a RAID array that runs twice as fast. That means all Input/Output operations run twice as fast.

I understand the "convenience feature" of large internal storage drives, but I also understand the risk of putting all my data on one drive. I have several backup drives and long term storage drives. I use SSD drives for speed, and spinning platter hard drives for long term storage and backup.

Any file I'm "done with" goes onto an external drive AND a backup drive, and a copy of it is stored online. I've seen enough hard drives fail over the last 38 years to know I can't afford a failure! My wife lost two drives in the late 2000s. Fortunately, none of it was priceless photos or important work product, and most of it WAS backed up.

If your current iMac's internal hard drive is a spinning platter, or a "Fusion" drive (a hybrid combination of a small SSD and a much larger spinning hard drive), you will be SHOCKED at the speed difference of the M3 iMac, which can be up to four times faster than the fastest Intel iMacs.

Apple Silicon M-series Macs use completely different processing schemes from the old Intel Macs. The last four versions of MacOS have been re-written as "Universal Binary" systems that run on BOTH Intel AND Apple Silicon computers. MOST third party software has been updated or upgraded to run on Apple Silicon, so most third party software is now Universal, too.

A few older applications will run with Apple's "X86 emulator" known as Rosetta 2. Rosetta 2 is installed the first time you run an Intel-only application, and after that, the application runs seamlessly.

Even fewer old Intel applications won't run at all on Apple Silicon Macs, so if you have one, you'll need to find a substitute, or upgrade the old app if a new version is available.

If you use Intel-based plug-ins in your imaging applications, you will need to open your imaging application in Rosetta 2 mode (Accessed via the Get Info dialog for any universal app), THEN install the plug-in. After that, you usually can switch back to native mode by unchecking the "Open using Rosetta" box in the Get Info dialog. I have had to do this for one plug-in, Negative Lab Pro for Adobe Lightroom Classic. It works perfectly. You only do it once.

MOST important to realize: When you buy an M-series Mac, *it is what it is, until it dies. There are NO possible user upgrades.* So get the amount of Unified Memory and internal SSD storage you will need for the anticipated life of the machine (which should be 5-7 years, generally, because Apple won't have parts, won't provide service, and won't offer OS upgrades after that). It's expensive up front, but hassle free down the road, so long as you choose wisely.

I know that sounds like "the forced Apple Tax," or something sinister, but it really is just Apple's engineers thinking differently about speed, processing power, and reliability (fewer socketed components = fewer connections to fail from oxidation and vibration).

Without getting TOO technical, just know that MOST of the computer is integrated onto ONE small die containing all the CPU cores, GPU cores, Neural Engine cores, RAM chips used as Unified Memory for all those cores, and many other sub-system processors for video, audio, etc. (See the M1 die below.) Apple densely packs BILLIONS of transistors onto that single chip, reducing the space between them. Even at the speed of light, it takes one nanosecond for a signal to go 11 inches down a wire. When moving zillions of bits of data, the shorter the wire, the faster the data gets moved! The ARM architecture behind Apple's chip designs is a radical departure from the x86 architecture Intel has used for decades.

The Apple Silicon M3 chip uses Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing's 3-nanometer layering process, which creates the fastest semiconductor circuitry available today. It also uses the least power, so Mac laptops have phenomenal battery life, and they don't slow down on battery power, as do most Intel/AMD laptops. They also generate little heat, which is why the MacBook Air has no fans.

This is the M1 chip. Two RAM modules are soldered onto the chip die. Two NAND chips (the internal SSD drive) are soldered to the motherboard, near them.

(Download)

odujim Loc: New Jersey

I use my 65" LG OLED TV as the monitor for my M2 Pro MacMini (512GB SSD w/16GB RAM), because I like being in my living room and I paid a lot of money for that TV in 2019 :-). Two months ago, I had replaced my 2018 Intel MacMini with the current one. The M2 Pro simply blew away the Intel Mac - photo editing became quick and snappy with Luminar Neo. What used to take about 20-30 seconds now takes about 2-3 seconds! In any case, if you go for the MacMini, you might consider a 32" monitor over the 27" if you have the space. My partner bought a LG QHD 32" monitor for his Windows 11 computer and is very happy with it, because there's lots of viewing space and everything looks tack sharp.

I am not concerned about the internal storage because I always keep all photos, documents & other important stuff on external drives (Samsung T7 SSDs.) I use the Time Machine backup app on Seagate 5TB external drive at least once a week - it backs up the internal SSD and external drive that contains photos and documents. On top of that, each month's photos are backed up to two Toshiba HGST hard drives that I access via a HHD docking station.

I am so glad that I keep my photos and documents on the external drives because when Apple released an updated version of the newer Sonoma OS, I upgraded to that and it was a bad experience (very slow, unresponsive apps, etc. . .) The Sonoma OS would not let me restore to the previous Ventura version with my Time Machine backup, so I erased the disk and reinstalled Ventura before I was able to restore from the Time Machine backup. I was not too worried about any of this, due to having everything on the external drives for safe-keeping.

I am absolutely pleased with the M2 Pro MacMini.

DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA

I got a MacBook M1 a couple years ago. I can attach a large screen to it if needed, but as is it's only 16". I have not found that to be a major limitation.

Get used to using external drives. If you're using it as a desktop machine the external drives won't be a big problem. And if you get Apple Silicon they CAN NOT be updated. What you buy is forever. Consequently you will want to buy the largest drive you can afford (and probably at least 32GB RAM). I like the M chip. LR/PS zips along. Of course I was comparing to an outdated Win10 machine, but I think the M chip is worth it.

BEWARE: Your husband will be jealous.

genocolo Loc: Vail and Gasparilla Island

Thank you for your as always excellent and understandable analysis and recommendations. What external drives would you recommend for a new m3 MacBook Pro with 1tb internal and 16 gb of ram?

coolhanduke Loc: Redondo Beach, CA

I use Sandisk SSD drives. At least a 2 TB. My MacBook Pro has 1 TB SSD drive in it.
If you are a Costco member they have good prices on the drives.
Otherwise, I buy from Amazon. A bigger selection but stay with SSD. Although more expensive, they are faster and more reliable. I think every hard drive I have no SSD has had issues after a while.

Ednsb Loc: Santa Barbara

They have. It was an issue when I purchased my M1 Mac Mini to replace my mid 2011 27” iMac so I couldn’t use the iMac as a second screen. After I researched this I found a device from Astropad called a luna display. This will allow you to use the iMac as a second screen BUT the dongle has to be plugged into one of the thunderbolt ports. This is a huge issue because there are only 2.

BobHartung Loc: Bettendorf, IA

You have two options:

1. Purchase a refurbished Intel based 27" iMac. I see MacSales.com currently has none in stock.

2. Consider a Mac Mini with an M2 Chip (M3 may be coming). This is available with up to an 8TB SSD internal HD and up to 32GB of unified memory. The M2 Pro Chip is avilable with a 12-core CPU, 19-core GPU, and 16 Core Neural Engine. Note that, in my understanding, the GPU's do most of the image processing. This is a very small package.

This means an external monitor. The price range is wide as are the qualities. I use NED Multisync at 32". A multitude of sizes are available. Then, in the future, upgrades involve only the computer.

3. If you want to really jump in look at the M3 Mac Studio soon to be released with the M3 Pro chip which is a real screamer. It has the same footprint as the Mac Mini but is 2-3 times as tall. I have the M1 Ultra chip in my Mac Studio and it has an 8TB SSD and 128 GB of unified memory.

genocolo Loc: Vail and Gasparilla Island

Thanks for the good advice.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

For the fastest storage, use Thunderbolt 3 or 4 or USB 4 drives, with cables specifically marked 3 or 4 with a lightning bolt above the USB-C connectors. Cables matter A LOT when moving data to and from Thunderbolt and USB 4 devices. Good ones are short and expensive, but worth it if you're spending $$$$ on Thunderbolt drives.

For reasonably fast storage, any USB 3.2 SSD. I use Samsung T7 drives.

For long term storage, OWC makes some very reliable conventional spinning drives.

Lumix users will want to go to Panasonic's web site and select an approved USB-C device for their GH6, S5 IIX, or G9 II. It can plug right into those cameras and record high bit rate video data (or stills). Users of other brands who use them to record lots of high bit rate video should consult their respective camera manufacturers.

I would wait for some tests of the new M3 Macs to indicate what drives transfer fastest to them. YouTube is full of reviewers who do such in-depth tests. Start with MaxTech's channel, and your YouTube feed will undoubtedly recommend many similar channels.

For ALL users, ALL drives: Be sure to UNMOUNT the drive from the desktop by dragging it to the trash or by using Command + E with the drive selected in the Finder. NOT unmounting a drive before unplugging it can damage its directory. Such damage cannot always be fixed without re-formatting and losing your data.

jbk224 Loc: Long Island, NY

Forget Sandisk SSDs for now. There are known issues. I have 4 and moved back to Samsung. This is not an opinion. Google and you will read about it.

MrPhotog

I replaced my Windows computers (desktop and two laptops) with a Macbook with M1 chip about 2 years ago. I got the smallest built in hard drive (256 GB) to save money and use larger plug in hard drives when needed.

I have three in the 1 to2 TB size. None cost over $110 at Costco. There are larger, faster, and more expensive ones available.

These are USB 2 and USB 3 drives. I see no performance or speed issues with these external drives. The computer can interface with a Thunderbolt connection, which is more expensive, and supposedly 10 times faster. That would be mind boggling.

The computer stays small. I can plug in two (or more) external hard drives and copy from one to another. That makes back ups easy, and one hard drive unplugs and stays home as my backup. Can’t do that with a single large built in drive.

With the USB -C connectors and inexpensive hubs I can plug in dozens of hard drives should I wish. In theory I could have a different drive labeled for each year of the last decade. I don’t have enough pictures to fill that many hard drives, though. Since most of my work is with pictures I take this year, the older pictures really don’t need to immediately accessible, but if I decide I need them I’d just plug them in. If I was selling images from my lifetime collection I could leave everything connected all the time, or create a ‘greatest hits’ collection of the oldies and keep that on the disk with this year’s work. Having multiple drives gives a lot of options.

Add on the use of SD cards and thumb drives, as well as legacy DVD storage options.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

I concur. We have one of each here. We like the Samsung for reliability.

Tote1940 Loc: Dallas

Dreaming of getting Mac Studio , housing it and multiple HDs printer, label printer in closet.
Would HDMI connection suffice for photo work ( light editing) ?
Do not do color matching to printer, do not plan to use calibrated monitor : 4k flat screen TV or generic computer monitor?
Thank you

BobHartung Loc: Bettendorf, IA

There is no use, IMHO, in spending the $$$ on a Mac Studio and then not color calibrating or using color appropriate profiles for a printer.

Boris77

I enjoyed the Tower Days of the Mac computers when my knowledge was funded by a Company.
When I retired I switched to a 27" iMac which is still hanging on, but
About 2 years ago I bought the 24" iMac M1 with 16GB Ram, to live with the new Internet.

You have chosen a good time to jump forward! assuming that you can watch the M3 chip results for a few months to learn what you will need for your successful operation.
1) Buy a 24" iMac with the new M3 chip. It's gotta be amazing! to us old timers.
2) Get everything you want in the iMac because it is a sealed box. The $$ pain goes away.
3) I doubt that you will miss the 27" screen; I did not.
4) Do not plan on your present perpherals to work with the new OS.
5) Keep the old 27" and lean on it as needed in the days of change.
Boris