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Switching to OS X
Thread poster: Lennart Luhtaru
Lennart Luhtaru
Lennart Luhtaru  Identity Verified
United States
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Apr 18, 2016

I've been a Thinkpad and Windows user for years, but their QC has gotten awful recently. My "mobile workstation" (Thinkpad W540) that cost me close to $2K has had ridiculous amounts of warranty claims: motherboard replaced twice, screen replaced, keyboard replaced, battery replaced, power adapter replaced, mb power supply cable replaced, etc. I also bought one consumer laptop (Yoga 3 Pro) straight from lenovo.com a couple of months ago that I had to return as DOA. So I am thinking of switching t... See more
I've been a Thinkpad and Windows user for years, but their QC has gotten awful recently. My "mobile workstation" (Thinkpad W540) that cost me close to $2K has had ridiculous amounts of warranty claims: motherboard replaced twice, screen replaced, keyboard replaced, battery replaced, power adapter replaced, mb power supply cable replaced, etc. I also bought one consumer laptop (Yoga 3 Pro) straight from lenovo.com a couple of months ago that I had to return as DOA. So I am thinking of switching to Apple as they seem to be the last ones doing any quality control on their devices.


So enough of my rant, my setup is currently as follows:
Thinkpad W540 with Win 7, Studio 2014, Office 2013 Professional, Adobe CC
Thinkpad W510 as backup with exactly the same software

I also have a 1TB dropbox subscription for cloud and 4TB FAT32 NAS.


Here's what I'm thinking of as a future setup:
iMac 27 5K (16GB, 1TB) as my main workstation
Macbook Air 11 (8GB, 256GB) as a laptop
I plan to still keep the W510 for backup as it has depreciated to almost nothing, so there's no point in selling it.

My questions:
1. Would 8GB of RAM be enough to run Studio 2014 in Parallels (I do have a spare 32bit Win7 license I could use)?
2. How much time would restarting to bootcamp take on Macbook Air (i7, 8GB RAM, SSD)?
3. How does Studio handle iMac's 5K resolution? Any scaling issues I should be aware of?
4. Are Adobe CC apps any different on Mac or does everything look the same? I haven't used CC on Mac yet.
5. Is 8GB enough to run let's say Acrobat with a huge document open in OS X and Parallels with Office and Studio 2014 open?
6. When all my computers at home would be from Apple (currently have a Macbook Pro retina, W540, W510 in the same network) would it be smart to reformat my network NAS from FAT32 to HFS+? Would there be any speed increase?

I'd be thankful for all the Apple "gurus" to share their experience.

Before I forget, I also use MemoQ 2014 and server licenses for 2 clients. Would it work OK in Parallels?

[Edited at 2016-04-18 07:12 GMT]
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André Sainderichin
André Sainderichin  Identity Verified
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Some observations Apr 18, 2016

Hello,

I don't have an answer to all your questions, but here goes.

I started using SDL Trados Studio on my iMac 27 two years ago. My iMac has 12 GB of RAM, and runs OSX 10.10.5. I did so for two reasons: I wanted to keep working on iMacs, and needed to switch to Trados, because clients expected me to use that SW.

I use Parallels, and run Windows 7 under it. Haven't thought of installing Windows 8, 9 or 10 yet: hate those with a passion.

I star
... See more
Hello,

I don't have an answer to all your questions, but here goes.

I started using SDL Trados Studio on my iMac 27 two years ago. My iMac has 12 GB of RAM, and runs OSX 10.10.5. I did so for two reasons: I wanted to keep working on iMacs, and needed to switch to Trados, because clients expected me to use that SW.

I use Parallels, and run Windows 7 under it. Haven't thought of installing Windows 8, 9 or 10 yet: hate those with a passion.

I started out with Studio 2014, upgraded to Studio 2015, and just recently installed Studio RS2. I moved from Parallels 10 tot 11 about 6 months ago. It all works flawlessly.

Booting up Windows 7 takes some time: I guess a minute or so. Starting SDL Trados takes a while as well. But once everything is up and running, I don't experience any sluggishness or problems. I can't say for other applications, because I don't use any. Oh, and I had to install an anti-virus package as sell. I went for Kaspersky, which Parallels offer. This one takes long to come up, though. Maybe that's because of the database check? What I do: I open Windows, start Kaspersky, get myself a cup of coffee, start Trados, get the sugar and milk in, and off we go.

Note that Parallels is really very good: you switch from OSX to Windows just like that, and you have access to all your files (including dropbox), which you can open in different windows, under the two different OSs. There's one minor issue, especially with Trados: keyboard shortcuts. You're going to have to figure out which is which, because of the different keyboard layouts. But there's a lot of info on the 'net, and you can reconfigure within Trados, so it's no major pain. Bear in mind that Trados does not support OSX: if you have problems that aren't strictly Trados related, you're on your own!


I haven't installed the whole thing on my iBook Pro, though: I think it's all going to be too slow.

On the topic of Adobe apps: I switched from PC to Mac several years ago, when the difference in interface was still significant. It took me about half an hour to figure out the differences, and adjust to them. Meanwhile, I suspect the differences have become smaller.
I certainly wouldn't refrain from switching to Macs just for that.


All in all, it's pretty cool.

Cheers,
André
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CafeTran Training (X)
CafeTran Training (X)
Netherlands
Local time: 12:21
Scaling Apr 18, 2016

Lennart Luhtaru wrote:

3. How does Studio handle iMac's 5K resolution? Any scaling issues I should be aware of?



Good! Except for the projects list and the list of the files inside projects and the initial dialogue box to set the 5 languages.

About the MBA: I'd go for a MacBook Pro 13" instead, with that you can also use other CAT tools in future.

[Edited at 2016-04-18 12:25 GMT]


 
Johan Kjallman
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8 GB doable, 16 GB + 13" display better Apr 19, 2016

Hi Lennart,

here are my thoughts on the RAM you will need. I bought a MB Pro six years ago with just 4 GB of RAM. While it actually worked pretty well to work with CAT tools in a virtual machine (in terms of speed), the computer fans had to work very hard and the computer would heat up quite a bit, so I soon upgraded to 8 GB. I have been using that computer as my main work horse until last summer (putting in an SSD after a while as well which resulted in a great boost), and it worke
... See more
Hi Lennart,

here are my thoughts on the RAM you will need. I bought a MB Pro six years ago with just 4 GB of RAM. While it actually worked pretty well to work with CAT tools in a virtual machine (in terms of speed), the computer fans had to work very hard and the computer would heat up quite a bit, so I soon upgraded to 8 GB. I have been using that computer as my main work horse until last summer (putting in an SSD after a while as well which resulted in a great boost), and it worked well with Studio/memoQ etc. Only thing is that I tend to keep lots of windows open, especially a lot of browser tabs which eat up a lot of RAM, so I had to restart my browser every once in a while as I ran out of RAM. Windows 7 was performing well with just 3 GB of allocated RAM. Now I have a new MB Pro with 16 GB of RAM, and I'm happy I do. As I have the 64-bit version of Windows 7 I have allocated 8 GB to Windows. If you do plan to use you 32-bit license it would make less sense to go for 16 GB of RAM, as you wouldn't be able to take full advantage of it in Windows (though it will still of course help with all applications open in OS X). See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3_GB_barrier.
If you don't plan to use several other resource hungry applications while using the ones you mention, you should be fine with 8 GB. If you do tend to keep plenty of windows open in various applications, it makes more sense to go for 16 GB.
Also, if you plan to do some serious work on your laptop without plugging in an external monitor, 11" sounds rather small to me. I can only agree with CafeTran Training that an MB Pro 13" would be a much better choice if you can afford it (and ultra portability is not paramount).

BR/Johan
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Meta Arkadia
Meta Arkadia
Local time: 18:21
English to Indonesian
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Wrong header Apr 19, 2016

This all has very little to do with switching to OS X. That said, I'd go for a PCIe SSD for the iMac as well. I actually think that's more effective than adding RAM, since it can and will be used for the swap file if necessary.

Cheers,

OS X only Hans


 
Lennart Luhtaru
Lennart Luhtaru  Identity Verified
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Thanks Apr 19, 2016

Thanks for all replies!

Just to be clear, 11 MBA won't be my main machine. Mainly i'd use the iMac. First I was thinking of getting the 15 in MBPro, but at 2.5K for 16GB and 512GBSSD I could get a 27 inch 5K iMac and a Macbook Air for basically the same budget.

So choices are:

1) 15 Macbook Pro 16GB and 512GB for $2499
2) 11 Macbook Air 8GB and 256GB + 27 iMac 5K 8GB 1TB ($1199+$1799+whatever 2x4GB sticks cost on amazon for iMac RAM upgrade=~3K)
... See more
Thanks for all replies!

Just to be clear, 11 MBA won't be my main machine. Mainly i'd use the iMac. First I was thinking of getting the 15 in MBPro, but at 2.5K for 16GB and 512GBSSD I could get a 27 inch 5K iMac and a Macbook Air for basically the same budget.

So choices are:

1) 15 Macbook Pro 16GB and 512GB for $2499
2) 11 Macbook Air 8GB and 256GB + 27 iMac 5K 8GB 1TB ($1199+$1799+whatever 2x4GB sticks cost on amazon for iMac RAM upgrade=~3K)

My main concerns are the iMacs resolution and scaling issues and Macbook Airs max ram at 8GB. I know that OS X uses resourcers smarter and just want to make sure that 8GB won't start lagging with running a virtual machine on background. On Windows I have almost 7GB in use with just Opera and Outlook open.
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Johan Kjallman
Johan Kjallman  Identity Verified
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I would still recommend the 13" Apr 19, 2016

I was considering the 15" MB Pro last summer as well, but I'm very happy I didn't go for it. I think it's too expensive and it probably only makes sense to buy it if you work with image/video editing without an external monitor in my humble opinion. I would still recommend the 13" model as a compromise. You get portability and power in the same unit, and you avoid having to maintain and transfer files between two computers. With the below specs for $1,999.00 (200 more if you want i7 core), you w... See more
I was considering the 15" MB Pro last summer as well, but I'm very happy I didn't go for it. I think it's too expensive and it probably only makes sense to buy it if you work with image/video editing without an external monitor in my humble opinion. I would still recommend the 13" model as a compromise. You get portability and power in the same unit, and you avoid having to maintain and transfer files between two computers. With the below specs for $1,999.00 (200 more if you want i7 core), you will still have a decent budget to buy a good external monitor.


13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display
2.9GHz Dual-core Intel Core i5, Turbo Boost up to 3.3GHz
16GB 1866MHz LPDDR3 SDRAM
512GB PCIe-based Flash Storage

I can work full time with the 13" screen for a couple of days without problem when on the road, while I can only immagine that the 11" screen will be very tiresome for the eyes, if at all usable (haven't tried it though, maybe it's okay).

By the way, it seems unlikely that Apple will release a 5K display this year (if ever).

http://www.macrumors.com/2016/01/15/apple-5k-thunderbolt-display/

My two cents

/Johan
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Lennart Luhtaru
Lennart Luhtaru  Identity Verified
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Discrete video Apr 19, 2016

Johan Kjallman wrote:

I was considering the 15" MB Pro last summer as well, but I'm very happy I didn't go for it. I think it's too expensive and it probably only makes sense to buy it if you work with image/video editing without an external monitor in my humble opinion. I would still recommend the 13" model as a compromise. You get portability and power in the same unit, and you avoid having to maintain and transfer files between two computers. With the below specs for $1,999.00 (200 more if you want i7 core), you will still have a decent budget to buy a good external monitor.


13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display
2.9GHz Dual-core Intel Core i5, Turbo Boost up to 3.3GHz
16GB 1866MHz LPDDR3 SDRAM
512GB PCIe-based Flash Storage

I can work full time with the 13" screen for a couple of days without problem when on the road, while I can only immagine that the 11" screen will be very tiresome for the eyes, if at all usable (haven't tried it though, maybe it's okay).

By the way, it seems unlikely that Apple will release a 5K display this year (if ever).

http://www.macrumors.com/2016/01/15/apple-5k-thunderbolt-display/

My two cents

/Johan


13 in won't work unfortunately, as none have discrete video. I sometimes do some video editing, so I will definitely need a dedicated GPU for that. Also, I'm pretty sure bunch of Adobe programs (e.g. Photoshop, Illustrator) use GPU acceleration.

Also, keeping stuff in sync shouldn't be a problem. I have dropbox and NAS. Or if really needed, I can just use a thumbdrive with virtual machine on it.

[Edited at 2016-04-19 11:08 GMT]


 
Lennart Luhtaru
Lennart Luhtaru  Identity Verified
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First impressions Jun 5, 2016

So, I finally made the switch and everything works great!

My new setup is following:

i7 Macbook Air 11 with 8GB of RAM for emergencies
i5 iMac 27 retina with 16GB of RAM for daily work

- OS X on external 1TB SSD on iMac (much more economical than buying one with internal SSD)
- Internal HDD mirrors external SSD (if SSD would die, I can still boot to HDD)
- Parallels licenses on both computers
- Windows 10 VM on separate external SSD
... See more
So, I finally made the switch and everything works great!

My new setup is following:

i7 Macbook Air 11 with 8GB of RAM for emergencies
i5 iMac 27 retina with 16GB of RAM for daily work

- OS X on external 1TB SSD on iMac (much more economical than buying one with internal SSD)
- Internal HDD mirrors external SSD (if SSD would die, I can still boot to HDD)
- Parallels licenses on both computers
- Windows 10 VM on separate external SSD so I can share it between computers as needed

All my Win software works perfect in VM. Although I do have Office 2013 Pro license for Win, I might still get Office 2016 for OS X also (Apple iWork software - Pages, Numbers, Keynote - is rubbish so stay away from that; for example, it took me almost half an hour to find a way to change text background color in Pages).

If anyone else thinks of making a switch, I'll be happy to share my experience and new knowledge.
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Meta Arkadia
Meta Arkadia
Local time: 18:21
English to Indonesian
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Notes Jun 5, 2016

Lennart Luhtaru wrote:
- OS X on external 1TB SSD on iMac (much more economical than buying one with internal SSD)


It's cheaper, yes. It's also heaps slower than a PCIe SSD.

Lennart Luhtaru wrote:
... it took me almost half an hour to find a way to change text background color in Pages


It can be found in the Inspector, of course. Or in Fonts.

Lennart Luhtaru wrote:
If anyone else thinks of making a switch, I'll be happy to share my experience and new knowledge


Hmmm.

Cheers,

Hans


[Edited at 2016-06-05 07:57 GMT]


 
CafeTran Training (X)
CafeTran Training (X)
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How did you connect your external SSDs? Jun 5, 2016

First of all: congratulations!

How did you connect your external SSDs with Win10 and OS X? Via Thunderbolt?


 
Lennart Luhtaru
Lennart Luhtaru  Identity Verified
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USB Jun 5, 2016

I was thinking of setting up a crazy Thunderbolt SSD RAID, but USB 3.0 is just SO much cheaper. 1TB Sandisk X400 SSD + USB powered enclosure was less than $300 from Amazon. For non RAID setup its 5Gbit/s shouldn't be a bottleneck. If you want to run striped SSD RAID then definitely Thunderbolt 2.0 and 20Gbit/s would be the way to go though. Otherwise there's no point as most of the SSDs won't be much faster than 400MB/s (1.2Gbit/s) anyway.

Win 10 SSD is just an old Macbook Pro retin
... See more
I was thinking of setting up a crazy Thunderbolt SSD RAID, but USB 3.0 is just SO much cheaper. 1TB Sandisk X400 SSD + USB powered enclosure was less than $300 from Amazon. For non RAID setup its 5Gbit/s shouldn't be a bottleneck. If you want to run striped SSD RAID then definitely Thunderbolt 2.0 and 20Gbit/s would be the way to go though. Otherwise there's no point as most of the SSDs won't be much faster than 400MB/s (1.2Gbit/s) anyway.

Win 10 SSD is just an old Macbook Pro retina 128GB SSD with OWC USB 3.0 enclosure I have left from upgrading wife's computer. As it won't hold any media or work files, it should be more than enough.
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Meta Arkadia
Meta Arkadia
Local time: 18:21
English to Indonesian
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One way traffic Jun 5, 2016

Lennart Luhtaru wrote:
...but USB 3.0 is just SO much cheaper.


It is cheaper, but it's slower than Thunderbolt, and much slower than PCIe, because it can't handle read and write at the same time. Thunderbolt can, FireWire can. And PCIe beats them both. I think you'll find out your MBA is a lot faster than your iMac, even if it's short of RAM.

And I think you just wasted a hell of a lot of money...

Cheers,

Hans

[Edited at 2016-06-05 08:14 GMT]


 
Lennart Luhtaru
Lennart Luhtaru  Identity Verified
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USB 3 and Sandisk X400 Jun 5, 2016

Meta Arkadia wrote:

Lennart Luhtaru wrote:
...but USB 3.0 is just SO much cheaper.


It is cheaper, but it's slower than Thunderbolt, and much slower than PCIe, because it can't handle read and write at the same time. Thunderbolt can, FireWire can. And PCIe beats them both. I think you'll find out your MBA is a lot faster than your iMac, even if it's short of RAM.

And I think you just wasted a hell of a lot of money...

Cheers,

Hans

[Edited at 2016-06-05 08:14 GMT]


I don't know what the exact specs for X400 are, but as it's more on the cheaper side anyway, I don't think it would be twice as fast on PCIe or Thunderbolt.

Screenshot of Blackmagic speed test here https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/13076752/Screen%20Shot%202016-06-05%20at%206.26.19%20AM%20copy.png

Also, USB 3.0 is most definitely full duplex. Check your facts.

[Edited at 2016-06-05 10:35 GMT]


 
Meta Arkadia
Meta Arkadia
Local time: 18:21
English to Indonesian
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The keywords Jun 5, 2016

Lennart Luhtaru wrote:
Check your facts.


Don't worry. The keywords are "theoretical" and "potential."

You'd been far better - even cheaper - off with a PCIe SSD or a Fusion Drive. But I'm not going to waste more time on somebody who wants to "Switch to OS X" only to use Windows.

H.


 
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Switching to OS X






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