iMac upgrade

[Stys64]

Greetings all,

I am running PT12 on an older i5 iMac. No issues but plan to upgrade and pass my current iMac down to my son. Will the configured iMac shown below work well with PT12? I am not doing video, just audio production. I ask because I read PTs does not play nice wit fusion drive iMacs.
Thank you!

27-inch iMac with Retina 5K display
4.0GHz quad-core Intel Core i7, Turbo Boost up to 4.2GHz
16GB 1867MHz DDR3 SDRAM - two 8GB
1TB Fusion Drive
AMD Radeon R9 M390 with 2GB video memory

[albee1952]

The only possible issue is the Fusion drive. Those have been problematic. 2 possible solutions I have read; partition the drive so that it is split into its 2 parts(the spinner and the SSD), or replace the Fusion drive with a good SSD(which is what I would do). You will want to record to a separate external drive anyway, so the SSD doesn't need to be huge so a 250GB would work(though I would probably go for a 500GB).

[Stys64]

Thanks for the kind response. Yes, I do record to an external drive.
To replace the fusion drive with a SSD drive, I gather this is something a qualified computer shop can do?

[soulfield]

I have the same machine (received it late december) only I opted for the 256 SSD which is plenty for applications and the OS (assuming this is a dedicated music production machine) so I would just order it with the SSD.

All that said the machine is great but PT12.4 with OSX 10.11.2 has an issue where it freezes randomly and you get a beachball spinning while the meters are frozen. Audio will continue to play or record and you have to click outside of PT to get it to go away. All other DAW programs function fine so Im confident this is a PT issue. Sometimes it happens once in a 6 hour tracking session and sometimes it happens every fiftenn minutes. Not affected by ram, disk cache, cpu usage, buffer settings.

Just beware of this as nobody can say when Avid will address the issue.

[Darryl Ramm]

Originally Posted by Stys64

Thanks for the kind response. Yes, I do record to an external drive.
To replace the fusion drive with a SSD drive, I gather this is something a qualified computer shop can do?

The fusion drive is not actually a drive, it's a PCIe SSD used as a kind of cache and a SATA HDD and software that makes it look like a single drive. You don't exactly "partition" it to break it apart, not in the normal way. You have to deconfigure the Fusion drive, and then can use the two component drives separately. The PCIe SSD is not huge so may not be able to be used for boot/system, depending on your setup. You can Google for how to do that online.

The SATA HDD part of the Fusion drive in your case should be a 7,200 RPM HDD. So at least not a 4,800 RPM HDD. If you want to also replace the HDD with a SATA SSD make sure whoever does that knows what they are doing, including any issues with correctly managing the Mac's compatibility with the drive temperature reporting and cooling of that drive. I'd personally probably not bother/risk opening up a new iMac and just get a good external drive. it would have been much better to purchase the Apple 1 TB SSD, that drive may well be worth the cost, compared to getting an external drive of similar performance.

[mike37212]

Will this system run my Pro Tools 11:

Summary
27-inch iMac with Retina 5K display
4.0GHz quad-core Intel Core i7, Turbo Boost up to 4.2GHz
16GB 1867MHz DDR3 SDRAM - two 8GB
3TB Fusion Drive
AMD Radeon R9 M390 with 2GB video memory
Magic Mouse 2
Magic Keyboard (English) & User’s Guide
Accessory Kit

I don't see anywhere on the Mac site I can get a SSD. Once these are purchased can I add the SSD? Help me please!!!

[albee1952]

I would order it with the SSD. If the Apple store doesn't show the option, try OWC(otherworldcomputing.com)

[mike37212]

Thanks for your reply.

What is up with the Retina display? I understand that is something I don't want. Can you explain why.

[Darryl Ramm]

Originally Posted by mike37212

Thanks for your reply.

What is up with the Retina display? I understand that is something I don't want. Can you explain why.

Uh if you don't want it, you explain why?

Get rid of the Fusion drive and get the Apple SSD option, from Apple. Clear as day available as a storage option online in the Apple Store.

The largest issue with this computer is it runs El Capitan. That is what you need to worry about most. Pro Tools 11 is not officially supported on it and you may need to upgrade to Pro Tools 12. Are your interface drivers compatible? Plugins? Other software? El Capitan is a bit of a train-wreck and you may be stuck with graphics related issues.

[Bob Olhsson]

Beware that the new ones are far less upgradable than the older ones. You need to order the exact configuration you intend to live with from Apple. I assume they are doing this to encourage sales of trashcan Macs.