Hard Drive Toast which way should I go (Page 3): Film... good luck...

David Lyon

Film... good luck

Manglesphoto Loc: 70 miles south of St.Louis

Country's Mama wrote:

My 27in imac (2011) is very sick and needs it's hard drive replaced. I am thinking about buying a mac mini to replace it and then using the 27 in monitor with it. The other option is to replace the whole machine. Does anyone use a mac mini and what are your thoughts? I could also replace the hard drive, but I would need to find one and get it replaced on my own. Apple does not support this computer anymore.

Replace the hard drive!!!!!
My first Mac was a Mini,it died RIP, replaced with G5 power Mac, upgraded to a 2011 21" iMac plus a 27" thunderbolt monitor . Use PSCS6 and love it, was thinking about a 27"iMac but retirement put the halt on that for a while.

dpullum Loc: Tampa Florida

rplain1 wrote:

I would go to my best local computer store and ask them.

History books refer to Computer Stores and Camera Stores... but i haven't seen one of those things in a long time ! CompUSA, RadioShack, to name two... Poof, evaporated !

SFarchitect

I recently replaced the HD in my 2011 /21.5" iMac with a fusion drive and it's good, but I am also considering a switch to a mini after recent article that states that Apple planning to release an updated mini in the fall.

McyRider Loc: Huntley, IL

Try macsales.com They have all kinds of parts and can also do the work.

jeep_daddy Loc: Prescott AZ

Country's Mama wrote:

My 27in imac (2011) is very sick and needs it's hard drive replaced. I am thinking about buying a mac mini to replace it and then using the 27 in monitor with it. The other option is to replace the whole machine. Does anyone use a mac mini and what are your thoughts? I could also replace the hard drive, but I would need to find one and get it replaced on my own. Apple does not support this computer anymore.

A friend of mine has a Mac Mini and he couldn't use it with Photoshop because it was too slow. So he just bought a new computer.

cambriaman Loc: Central CA Coast

I have always replaced my Macs with the latest model of similar or better capacity as the dying one (since 1984).

therwol Loc: USA

TriX wrote:

Glad to hear it. Unless you need a large internal drive for photo storage, I’d seriously consider installing an SSD rather than a conventional HD - you’ll be amazed at the performance increase, and you can always use an external drive for photos if you find the SSD too small for that.

A 1TB 2.5 inch SSD now runs from just under to just over $200 unless you want one of the "professional" models. Just type in 1TB SSD in Amazon. Spinning drives are cheap at much larger capacities, but they're too slow for me. I've replaced the spinning drives in 4 of my computers with SSDs.

DanielB Loc: San Diego, Ca

Replace it - you'll find trying to use your old mac as a monitor isn't as straight forward as you think since there is no video board to hook up to it - Mac is an all in one computer. I just replaced my iMac and was planning to use my old Mac as a second monitor. I decided it wasn't worth it since it can only be done through an emulator program. You have to have the same OS and a software emulator which gives it lag delay - you won't be happy with that solution. I do have my old mac hooked up to access and transfer my files only and I will put my website up while I update it but that is about it. I will probably end up giving it to my daughter. That being said I'm happy I got a new mac to work on - so much faster than the old one.

Country's Mama wrote:

My 27in imac (2011) is very sick and needs it's hard drive replaced. I am thinking about buying a mac mini to replace it and then using the 27 in monitor with it. The other option is to replace the whole machine. Does anyone use a mac mini and what are your thoughts? I could also replace the hard drive, but I would need to find one and get it replaced on my own. Apple does not support this computer anymore.

bpulv Loc: Buena Park, CA

therwol wrote:

A 1TB 2.5 inch SSD now runs from just under to just over $200 unless you want one of the "professional" models. Just type in 1TB SSD in Amazon. Spinning drives are cheap at much larger capacities, but they're too slow for me. I've replaced the spinning drives in 4 of my computers with SSDs.

I previously suggested using an external SSD or hard drive for your programs and saving your photos to a second external hard drive. I do something like that all the time although my internal hard drive is still good. I have multiple external drives for my photo files. The Lightroom CC Classic and Photoshop CC programs reside on the internal hard drive along with all other programs. ALL of the RAW, PSD and Jepg files are on a 5 TB external hard drive that I call the Photo Drive. Backup is done from the Photo Drive to a Drobo RAID system containing four 4 TB hard drives which mirror the data. The computer's internal drive is backed up to a 1 TB partition on the Photo Drive and the other (4 TB) partition is used for the photographs which are backed up to the Drobo. All backups are done in Time Machine. One of the drives in the Drobo is periodically exchanged with another drive that is kept in my bank safe deposit box for offsite backup of the photos.

The bottom line is that you can have a small SSD for the programs and use external drives for your data. A 500 Gb SSD should be sufficient for just the OS and your programs. That will save you some money. There is currently a Samsung 500GB external SSD on E-bay for $79.95. That will save you over $100 as compared to a 1TB SSD. Western Digital external hard drives start at $90 for 4TB and $50 for 1TB on E-bay.

I would not put allot of money into your computer since the best case resale value is currently around $300 and with a defective internal drive, it's value drops to parts value.

therwol Loc: USA

bpulv wrote:

I previously suggested using an external SSD or ha... (show quote)

I still use spinning external drives for storage, and everything is backed up in triplicate. I just don't like the sluggishness of a computer with a HDD as the primary drive. They're putting Optane memory now in a lot of machines, and from everything I've read, it really speeds things up if you're using a HDD. Most older machines can't use it.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

Dik wrote:

I run my 27" iMac (late 2011) off an external SSD via Thunderbolt, plenty fast. I made the external by taking the spinny drive out of a LaCie rugged external portable and putting a 1TB SSD in it.
The only issue I have is that when restarting, I need to hold the option key and select the SSD as boot.

Good idea.

http://osxdaily.com/2013/06/22/boot-mac-external-drive/

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

bpulv wrote:

I previously suggested using an external SSD or ha... (show quote)

Question: if you have four 4TB drives in the redundancy group on the Drobo (what RAID level?), how does that data all fit onto a single backup drive that you periodically remove and replace?

bpulv Loc: Buena Park, CA

therwol wrote:

I still use spinning external drives for storage, and everything is backed up in triplicate. I just don't like the sluggishness of a computer with a HDD as the primary drive. They're putting Optane memory now in a lot of machines, and from everything I've read, it really speeds things up if you're using a HDD. Most older machines can't use it.

I am planning to replace my mid-2010 iMac later this year with either a fully loaded iMac or an iMac Pro. It doesn't make sense to put money into what will become dedicated to logging my ham radio contacts once I get the new computer.

tomfirak1530

Mac Mini works fine. You can even pickup a refurbished one for a reasonable price you will have to buy a independent DVD drive.