New Mac Headed My Way


BirdInFlight_7661, originally uploaded by carolsLittleWorld.

In the “it’s good news! It’s good news!” department, there’s a new iMac headed my way. Yes, it’s true. I’ve broken down and purchased myself one of the spiffy new iMacs that have just come out. Unfortunately now the new iMac won’t make it to my house until possibly as late as early January but the good folks at Apple tell me it’s on the way to me, so I’m all happy about that.

I’ve been fighting the IT/equipment battle for a bit now, and I have to say, it’s really dragging me down. I hate fighting with IT equipment, especially something that’s supposed to be so utilitarian, but, unfortunately, that’s what a lot of photography boils down to these days. Rather than fight with older equipment, and try to wrestle things into a make it work situation, I opted to upgrade my older iMac and get a spiffy new one, complete with Thunderbolt.

As many of you know, I am also fighting the battle of hard drive storage and have decided that I am going to also purchase a new RAID device. My requirements here are that it must support a RAID level 1, to provide mirroring, and it must be something that can handle my big beefy image needs. I have narrowed it down to a few options. The good folks at Lacie make a 6TB RAID device that would give me 3 TB of storage (after the RAID 1 configuration.) This is a solid option, as the drive has really good reviews, but I’m afraid I will outgrow it quickly, as I’m already sitting at 2 TB of data and I have hard drives stacking up. Next up is the Promise Pegasus hard drive array. These are expensive, checking in at about $1600, but I can get an 8TB solution and also one that is expandable. I have heard mixed reviews about the Promise systems, and they are quite expensive, so I’m kind of opting for the Lacie at this point, but the jury is still out and I might change my mind yet again. Finally, the good folks at G-Tech have a few storage options. I’m most inclined to go with a new G-Tech device, as they provided me with the G-safe that I currently use, but I’m a bit torn here too. They don’t really have a drive setup that offers the RAID 1 in combination with the hot swappable options of the Lacie drive, so I’m more inclined to switch over to the Lacie. Wish me luck in figuring out this solution before too long, as the new computer is now officially on its way.

I did also order a new router to upgrade my home network. Oh what joy this is going to bring me over the holiday season. This also means that I have to reconfigure the TiVo and my TV set is going to go out on me while that happens.

To summarize, there will be swearing. There will be fists pounding on desks. There will be more swearing. This will probably nearly kill me before it’s over but, hopefully, one day real soon now (well, soon enough) I will upgrade everything to a new setup, with a new iMac, a new wireless router, and a larger RAID array, capable of storing my entire digital image catalog.

Wish me luck, for I am sure to need it sometime soon!

Until next time…

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