iMac hard Drive (Page 3): For the price of an iMac, go for the big one. I did, and I have never regretted it. I also bought the 21 inch screen. My wife got the 28 inch, and I am so...

jaymatt Loc: Alexandria, Indiana

For the price of an iMac, go for the big one. I did, and I have never regretted it. I also bought the 21 inch screen. My wife got the 28 inch, and I am so jealous. Go for the 28 if you can.

rmalarz Loc: Tempe, Arizona

SHOOTR wrote:

I am contemplating purchase of new iMac and not sure if I will need the 1 Tergabite Harddrive? Other choice would be the 500 Gigabite @ $200 less in cost. Tough decision.

I'd go with the smallest drive that will accommodate all of the software you intend to use, plus some for swap space and boot sector, then go with the 1T drive.
--Bob

via the lens Loc: Northern California, near Yosemite NP

Hi, you have not said anything about operating memory. I think you have been discussing storage? Get the biggest operating memory you can affort. I think for Mac, which I also have, it's 16G. Mine (27-inch, Mid 2011 iMac) came with 8G and I recently filled all fours slots so it is 16G (four slots at 4G each), really makes a difference in how fast the computer operates. Programs these days take an incredible amount of operating memory. I have 1TB on my storage and two back up drives with 1TB and 2TB. I back up the originals every time I load and link photos into Lightroom. I also back up Lightroom almost every day so that I have the current changes backed up. Hope this helps.

SHOOTR Loc: Hoosier State

BobHartung wrote:

Buy the 1TB drive. If you use PS at all you will want a lot of space to use as a scratch disk. It is far less expensive than having an upgrade in 6 months.

Also, buy as much memory as you can afford.

HTH

Thanks for your input!

fishmaven Loc: Ohio right now

I was about to max out a new 27" iMac. It would have been over $3K. Then I wanted the extras. I ended up getting the 27" iMac from MacMall that they keep teasing everyone with, "save $699 on an iMac". It's got the basics, i5 NOT i7, 1T byte HD and only 8GB ram. The newest units were made in 2013, the one I got 2012. They haven't changed since the 2013 units. The deciding factor, I asked myself if I had this one would I upgrade to the nicer one? No, I'd keep the lesser cost unit. Then I bought the extras that I wanted from macsales.com, another 16GB ram and optical drive to record DVDs or install software. I spent about half what the cost for the maxed out system would have been. The optical drive also has a 3TB harddrive and card reader. I'm a happy camper.

jefflantzimages Loc: Seattle

i agree with capture and jerry. get the biggest you can get for both drives. i use 3 externals and the cloud but still got the most i could get 2 years ago and have never regretted it. have fun great machine.

tom hughes Loc: Phila Pa

Go big!! If you keep the computer for 5 yrs it will cost about 11 cents a day.

romanticf16 Loc: Commerce Twp, MI

SHOOTR wrote:

Thanks for your input. Would rather keep them internally.

Save yourself a lot of grief. Get a fast SSD to run your Applications IN the iMac, and use large external drives for storage AND back up. Your iMac will run cooler, be more responsive and you won't slow your computer down with a main drive full of photos.

Dun1 Loc: Atlanta, GA

If you can try to get choose the larger capacity drive and give some thought to SSD also.
You said you use 4 external drives, hope one is a drive dedicated to Time Machine
I would also give some thought about drives can use to connect with Thunderbolt

SHOOTR Loc: Hoosier State

Dun1 wrote:

If you can try to get choose the larger capacity drive and give some thought to SSD also.
You said you use 4 external drives, hope one is a drive dedicated to Time Machine
I would also give some thought about drives can use to connect with Thunderbolt

Thanks to you. I only have 1 external drive and I did have to connect to thunderbolt. $30 Apple thunderbolt to FireWire connection. Ugh!!

rjrbigdog Loc: New York

What kind of hard drive did you buy? And if you back that up is it thunderbolt too? Just bought s 27 inch retina and 500 gig ssd hard drive. Need to store on thunderbolt external drive and another for back up. Thanks

SHOOTR Loc: Hoosier State

rjrbigdog wrote:

What kind of hard drive did you buy? And if you back that up is it thunderbolt too? Just bought s 27 inch retina and 500 gig ssd hard drive. Need to store on thunderbolt external drive and another for back up. Thanks

I did not buy another drive. Not doing that much these days so I am trying to keep things simple (like me)