How many out there use Mac Mini's as prepress workstations? What are your observations if yes.
I have a Mac Mini 2014 i7 / 3.00 quad core / 16gb RAM / 1TB SS-PCI Express that i am contemplating using.
Right now we have six 2012 Mac Pro's running Mojave....which is as far as they will go.
They all have been updated with 500gb SSD''s and 32 to 64gb of RAM and of course Metal Graphics cards.
Obviously the Mac Mini is not as powerful but is it "good enough" to do the job?
A former company used to use one with Rampage, and it did the job. Of course, they went out of business. We used to use one for PrintSmith access as a remote terminal, but after a while it couldn't be updated to run the latest version anymore.
I'm sure that Mac mini would work for normal prepress work. It is about the same specs as most of our iMacs as far as RAM, HDD and CPU go.
So Joe, you use all iMacs huh...what models?
Do you like the glossy screens? That is the reason I stay away from the iMacs...the glossy screens i fear would drive me crazy.
We use NEC PA series flat screen monitors...no gloss finish. Great for color too.
Maybe I am over thinking it and the iMacs are an option I should consider.
The glossy screens aren't too bad, we just keep any lights directly over or nearby off so we don't get any glare.
We use all iMacs now but we did have the minis at my last place.
We used those as "slaves", set up to do automated workflows like hot folders and such and then pass the files to the output device.
Not a lot of rebooting, nobody messing with them, once they were set up, they just stayed on.
For the operator workstations, they were all either desktop towers or iMacs.
When the iMacs first came out with the glossy iMacs it was horrible and viewing at any angle other than straight on was a miserable experience but they aren't like that any more. The screen now is actually a matte finish and the glass in front of it I would call glossy but I don't see any issues with reflections and it is easy to see the screen from all angles. So short answer is I have no issues with the glossy screen.
The issues I do have, and it is becoming more prevalent with all new Macs, is that Apple is doing their best to make it impossible for users to upgrade their Macs. For example the new M1 Mac mini because the RAM and SSD are part of the M1 system-on-a-chip, the Mac mini's memory and storage are no longer user upgradeable. So when you buy a new one you have to make sure you have enough storage and RAM to last as long as possible. If you cheap out at buying time you will regret it. I expect the iMacs will be the same when they are released with the M1 chip. The only good thing is I plan to be out of prepress before it comes time to decide on new hardware for prepress. But the 27" iMacs from 2017-2019 I do endorse. But not the 21.5" 2019 iMac. You will have to pull the entire system hardware to upgrade ram in it.
We've been all iMac for the last 8 years as well and it's fine. I do agree with Joe about the lack of user upgradeability. The other issue I've noticed is that we've had a lot of iMacs die over the last few years - hard drives, motherboards, video cards. Seems like the quality ain't what they used to be.
There's been talk of switching us to laptops down the road. I'm fine with that as long as I can still plug into a big monitor and get a real keyboard and mouse.
I have a laptop (15" MacBook Pro) here at home and I use it for work a lot.
It works great, but...
I still prefer the larger screen (27" iMac) for all the pallets and windows I open during the course of the day, just ton's easier to view and deal with.
Old ass eyes an' all
:old:
"here's lookin' at you" takes on a whole 'nother meaning as well
:lmao:
Yeah laptops are great except for the screen, track pad, and keyboard.
:facepalm:
Thanks everyone for the great feedback!
The 2012 Mac Pro's we have are just so solid and I have upgraded them all over the years that hate to see them go.
BUT the time is coming I fear.
I have used a hack for updating 2008 and 2009 Mac Pros to Mojave and just used it to upgrade my 2008 MP at home to Catalina.
You can find it at http://dosdude1.com/
They have really refined the process and it has always worked very very well. I could go that route with all our Mac Pros for another year or two,
but they are 9 years old now so may be time.
Don't have to make a decision until we have our Kodak Prinergy servers updated with Windows Server 2019 OS.
So we then can install/upgrade to Prinergy 9 and then we can move from Mojave to Big Sur all this hopefully by April.
Looking at that link he doesn't appear to have a Big Sur patcher. I know VPS+ and Preps 9 and Prinergy 9 will all be Catalina supported but I'm not sure if they will be Big Sur compatible. Big Sur is a complete different monster from previous versions of Mac OS.
Here is a post from the GUA forum:
QuoteSo Prinergy 9 is nearing the end of the beta with a scheduled release date for the end of January. The date could move if any last minute issues are discovered.
Prinergy 9, Preps 9, and VPS+ offer full support for Mac OS 10.15 Catalina. VPS+ is a brand new replacement QA tool for VPS with so many new features.
Version 9 uses the latest Adobe APPE 5.x rendering technology for the fast rendering times ever in Prinergy. We partnered with Adobe to create new rendering technology that no other workflow can offer. A must see!
We have seen complex 9 color, 64" packaging jobs go from 120 minutes in Prinergy 8 go to 4 minutes in Prinergy 9. Every job is different and results will be different based on hardware and files.
Yeah, I knew that, misspoke there.
We are just wrapping up our Insite 9.2 beta here as well.
So that will be forthcoming soon.
On those iMacs....would there be a problem running 3 monitors?
On my 2017 iMac I have two Thunderbolt ports so I assume I could hook up a monitor to both plus the screen of the iMac for a total of 3. I've never tried it though.
Any chance they made Insite 9.2 revert back to the UI of Insite 8.x? :rotf:
:lmao:
I know what you mean but to be fair the old InSite UI is terrible looking.
Kodak has made some good/needed fixes in 9.2.
Personally I like it way better than 8, but then again we were a 9 beta as well and only had used 8 for a year at most.
We were new to Prinergy and InSite as of early 2018.
We started with Insite 5. We were on the beta for 9.0 too and the things they removed from 8 were shocking at the time. No status of customer uploads as you had in 8.x. In 9 you know when they start uploading and when the upload finishes but no way of know the progress of the uploads by customers. Also getting to the customer account pages and the user account pages is way more mouse clicks than it was in 8.x. Customization was much more robust in 8.x also. I can't think of one single item in 9.x that is better than 8.x.
In other news, if anyone has an older Mac mini they would like to part with, I will consider buying it, if the price is acceptable. I don't care if it's the newest or not. Older iMacs or Macbooks too... within reason. I just want to have another Mac around here... but I would like to at least be able to run El Capian/Sierra.
We got a few new M1 Mini's at our shop. Only downside so far has been the XMF client, and if you use it their Measure App for the colorpathsync calibration web software doesn't work on 11.0+ at all, intel or m1.
I have a PC next to me to run XMF for the time being and Fuji let me know we're the first shop to adopt the new m1 Macs. they're working on an update for XMF that should be out sometime early spring that will work on the 11.0+ MacOS.
We got the cheap m1' minis (8gb ram model) and I kid you not, it runs everything faster (InDesign, Illustrator, photoshop, acrobat with Pitstop) by a lot, over our 2017 iMac 27" with the 4.2 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7 and 32 GB 2400 MHz DDR4 ram.
Until the XMF update, I'll be using the PC next to me like I said which sort of sucks, but hey. My old Mac is going to update our proofer/plater's station and move our FTP server to it (current FTP server is an older iMac running 10.4) when it bites the dust.