i7 MAC MINI or IMAC i7

[Barry Johns]

4 separate imac's all the same issue and none had a fusion drive? That is beyond bizzare, almost unbelievable, I do believe you, it's just very, very bizzare.

When the other iMacs arrived, By chance did you clone the new iMacs drive from the one prior or so fresh installs of everything?

We can all suite that I7 based iMac have been massively successful with all DAW's, at least the ines that do not have fusion drives. I've never even heard of a story even remotely similar to yours.

I'm willing to be that you most likely had either corrupted installers for some plugins or other DAW related software.

The odds of having a single iMac with any issues is very slim, but 4? No way it's an issue that is Mac related.

On a separate note, if you're struggling with and I7 Mac Mini with 32 gig of RAM, I'm not so sure how much and I7 base iMac is going to make much difference.

Sounds like to me you need to change some of your practices. Like committing VI's, choices of plug-ins, etc.

[davemartone]

Originally Posted by Barry Johns

4 separate imac's all the same issue and none had a fusion drive? That is beyond bizzare, almost unbelievable, I do believe you, it's just very, very bizzare.

When the other iMacs arrived, By chance did you clone the new iMacs drive from the one prior or so fresh installs of everything?

We can all suite that I7 based iMac have been massively successful with all DAW's, at least the ines that do not have fusion drives. I've never even heard of a story even remotely similar to yours.

I'm willing to be that you most likely had either corrupted installers for some plugins or other DAW related software.

The odds of having a single iMac with any issues is very slim, but 4? No way it's an issue that is Mac related.

On a separate note, if you're struggling with and I7 Mac Mini with 32 gig of RAM, I'm not so sure how much and I7 base iMac is going to make much difference.

Sounds like to me you need to change some of your practices. Like committing VI's, choices of plug-ins, etc.

Thank you for your reply. All were fresh instals. I was using the same installer that I did download and store on a separate drive to use to install on all 4 Imacs.


I am using a Mac Mini i7 Duo Core with 16 gigs of Ram. I am just curious will there be an amazing change from this to the i7 Quad 32 gigs of Ram.

I was writing and reading from the Same internal 1 TB SSD internal Drive. There is another thread going on for that topic at the moment.

I am glad to hear you are having no issues.

I would just have Protools and no other DAW software installed except Logic on those Imacs. PURE HELL!!

I am willing to try again. The issue is having to max the buffer at 1024 and still get CPU dropouts. Yes I can freeze tracks etc, but you would think only running a few VI's and 20 tracks with plugs I would get farther then this!

Thanks again!
Dave

[cmbourget]

I have an iMac retina 5 g with 32 G of Ram and a hybrid drive. Paid $ 3500 CAD. Very bad. It is slow and its fan blows very hard with PT. Impossible for me to mix with this truck fan.

I bought a Mac Pro Mid-2010, 32 G Ram, and I placed 3 separate SSDs for OS, PT sessions and instruments. No problem. Never blowing.

[The Weed]

First step...lose the Fusion Drive. They are death for Pro Tools.

[cmbourget]

Originally Posted by The Weed

First step...lose the Fusion Drive. They are death for Pro Tools.

+1

[LoudBassTone]

I have 2 Mac Mini's. Duo core 2010, Quad core i7 2012. Finally I moved to 2010-2012 Mac Pro Towers that have 6 and 12 cores. I just never liked the idea of a Pro book laptop or iMac because I wanted more CPU cores. But they are very popular. There must be something else connected that is causing issues like cables or external cases.

Are you using a separate external drive to record on with the iMac? I have been using Samsung Evo 850 Pro and OWC Mercury Extreme SSD drives.

I moved to the towers strictly for CPU power to handle track count and plugin processing as my projects and work grew. It also provides me with plenty of power for VI's.

I am running the Mac Pro's on 10.10.5. The i7 quad core mini was just re tasked to 10.12.1 I think. Pro Tools 12.7.1 and Logic X 10.2.2. All boot and record drives are SSD. Storage drives in towers are WD Black 7200 2TB.

I am also a longtime PC user from the early 80's.

[cmbourget]

The Imac was connected to professional Glyph 3 USB drives, virtual instruments and sessions on different drives. The problem is not there. The problem is in designing this MAC, everything is too tight. The 5k screen also uses resources. And the fan is a laptop fan. I could have purchased an internal SSD instead of a hybrid, but I would consider that all this would fix the defects of the device. If you read my story, I'm (for music) on an old Mac Pro Mid 2010, all in SSD. And all is fine. The Imac is useful for the rest. Even if for the graphics it blows and leaves its roll of color ... Bad purchase!

[LoudBassTone]

Dave how about you Are you using a separate external drive to record on with the iMac?

[wwittman]

Originally Posted by cmbourget

The Imac was connected to professional Glyph 3 USB drives, virtual instruments and sessions on different drives. The problem is not there. The problem is in designing this MAC, everything is too tight. The 5k screen also uses resources. And the fan is a laptop fan. I could have purchased an internal SSD instead of a hybrid, but I would consider that all this would fix the defects of the device. If you read my story, I'm (for music) on an old Mac Pro Mid 2010, all in SSD. And all is fine. The Imac is useful for the rest. Even if for the graphics it blows and leaves its roll of color ... Bad purchase!

and yet,
I'm having no difficulty at all with an iMac i7, with internal SSD and external thunderbolt and firewire 800 drives for audio.
so apparently my iMac isn't exhibiting a problem in the machine's "design"...

it's been said on this forum and elsewhere for a long time to avoid Fusion drives for Pro Tools.

[cmbourget]

I understand. I think there is still a design problem that "forces" to put SSD to compensate for a weakness (because a good hard drive at 7200 rpm is slower than a SSD, but it does not overheat any of my computers , For 20 years). But, well, let's say that my mistake, here, was indeed not to know this warning about hybrid drives. If Avid pointed it out in his specs, it would not hurt. I also find it uncomfortable to be obliged to use Thunderbolt (very expensive) to correct the idea of Apple to remove the PCIe, which is in fact the reference in speed, inexpensively.

Originally Posted by wwittman

and yet,
I'm having no difficulty at all with an iMac i7, with internal SSD and external thunderbolt and firewire 800 drives for audio.
so apparently my iMac isn't exhibiting a problem in the machine's "design"...

it's been said on this forum and elsewhere for a long time to avoid Fusion drives for Pro Tools.