Hoping for a 2012 iMac with UBS 3.0 (1 Viewer)

Title pretty much says it. I am itching to get an iMac to replace my late 2009 Mini because I will be doing some fairly hard-core, extremely large image work as well as a lot of video processing. The current models would almost be fine, except I already have three drives in enclosures with USB 3.0, so I might as well have it to use, especially with the possible demise of FireWire. I have too many drives in FireWire enclosures to count and I'm hoping the next models have them both.
The idea of roughly three times the processing power, faster access speed and even the ability to have a service station add an SSD drive has me ready to go. It would save me a boatload of processing time.
That is all. Comment away.

John,

I am in the same boat as you.

I have a 2009 iMac. Still works great, although the hard drive
and CD drives had to be replaced by Apple Care under warranty.
So, in essence, I have what could be considered a new, old iMac.

Still, I want USB 3.0 and SSD. Ever since I got SSD in my Retina
Macbook, I hate the way my iMac loads.

Fortunately, Apple is supposed to announce new iMacs later this year.

I would bet that they will have USB 3 and lower priced SSD options
than what is currently being offered.

Of course, all speculation, but that is what is rumored.


BTW, my iMac is the 27" model. Great screen size. It was
rumored at one point that Apple would offer a 32" iMac, but that
rumor seems to have died quickly.

Ha, a 32" iMac. I suspect that idea went away for the option of the retina display. As I think about it, trying to be realistic and knowing Apple's absurd option prices, I'm wondering about the option of an external USB 3.0 SSD. No doubt there would be a small speed loss, but not having to pay Apple's prices and not having to worry about any service problems, being able to go with a larger one, etc.
One thing I do like about the current iMacs is the potential for RAM. You can bump the included 4GB to 20GB for under $100, or go whole hog at 32GB for $200.

I'm in as well. Unless they put SSD and TB and USB 3 in a Mac Pro housing for under $3k which seems unlikely till 2013.
I would be wary using an external as a boot drive. Keep in mind you can NOT bootcamp to an external drive. I bought my 17" with the intention of Bootcamping an external SSD, but that is not allowed by Apple.

Good to know, but I don't use Bootcamp anyway.

Sam Posten said:

I'm in as well. Unless they put SSD and TB and USB 3 in a Mac Pro housing for under $3k which seems unlikely till 2013.
I would be wary using an external as a boot drive. Keep in mind you can NOT bootcamp to an external drive. I bought my 17" with the intention of Bootcamping an external SSD, but that is not allowed by Apple.

Click to expand...

If Bootcamp partitioned external drives, it still would not help you as far as Windows is concerned. According to Microsoft's site, an external hard disk cannot function as the primary hard disk for installing Windows Vista or Windows 7.
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/Install-or-remove-a-hard-disk-drive
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-vista/Install-or-remove-a-hard-disk-drive

That's dumb

How are the current iMacs configured, with the SSD and SATA drive? Is it just two drives internal? No extra magic?
For USB3, sice TB has been a bust for non-pro use, I hope to see USB3 commonly on macs. USB 2 is annoyingly slow and CPU intensive for external backups.

There's extra magic, for the hard drive, and maybe for the SSD. Current iMacs depend upon the hard drive to tell them about the temperature. If the iMac does not get the temperature information, it runs its fans full-speed, turning a very quiet iMac into a very noisy one, and possibly causing issues with getting warranty work for any other problem.
http://www.macworld.com/article/1159956/imacharddriveupgrade.html

I don't think you can get an off the shelf iMac with SSD yet, can you?

Not off the shelf. But it's been possible to custom-order iMacs with SSDs for at least a couple of generations. At first you could only get SSDs on the 27-inch models; now you can get them on both sizes of iMacs.
Caveat: You can choose any size of SSD that you like as long as it is 256 GB. The price is rather steep: $600 (which would buy you a 480 GB SSD elsewhere).

I initially thinking that Apple might have some method of making the two drives appear as as a single drive, so users wouldn't have to explicitly work with multiple drives, managing iTunes library, etc.


As for buying it: It's an option online. Don't know if they're stocked at retail.

No, you don't want to make something like Raid 0 which chains the drives together, that would be bad.
Just do this:
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1449
On PC:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1364
Cake

Fine, fine, get rid of the optical!
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/12/08/09/apple_files_hint_at_re_engineered_imac_and_mac_pro_models_potentially_without_optical_drives.html

Looks like it is just speculation at this point, but you know it's coming. For me, it wouldn't make much difference because I DO use optical drives constantly to convert music and video and the slot drives are so crappy anyway that I never use them. One reason I doubt this will happen yet is that a lot of people, especially students, use their iMacs as their TV and DVD player. But again, the they may use external drives anyway.

Not buying this, the date's don't make any sense.
http://www.cultofmac.com/188281/apple-stores-running-out-of-27-inch-imacs-ahead-of-rumored-refresh/
Refresh the iMac on the 7-11th and have the iPhone event on the 12th? One of those dates can't be right.

Any reason they wouldn't just do it all on the 12th?

I'm also wondering if there is something significant coming the the Pro. It sure seems to make sense that they might introduce a significantly redesigned one, hopefully with a smaller form and more general appeal and a somewhat more reasonable price.

Quote:

Refresh the iMac on the 7-11th and have the iPhone event on the 12th? One of those dates can't be right.

Click to expand...

I am hoping...praying it's true. I doubt it also.

Though my current 2009 27" iMac is running fine
I want a new model with SSD.

Will buy first day.

Ron, you plan to pay Apple's insane SSD price? Our local authorized center will install hardware for $40, which gets you a 256GB SSD for less than half what Apple chrages.