iMac vs SSD, Garageband ???

by **pianoworldstage** » Thu Jul 11, 2019 2:36 am

Hi

I'm considering buying an IMac late 2013, 8GB ram, 1TB HDD, OS High Sierra, it will be specifically for music production working with Garageband.. unfortunately theres no option to upgrade the RAM any further then 8GB or to upgrade the hard drive to an SSD. In terms of speed will the currant specs be sufficient for working with audio and a piano sample library running through Garageband?

Or would it be advised to purchase an external SSD and install Garageband and the sample library on the SSD ?

Specs..

iMac 13,1/i5-3335S/
8GB Ram/1TB HDD
GT 640M/21"/A

Intel Core i5 Processor
2.7 GHz, Quad-Core)1600 MHz FSB

Price £350.. is it worth it for the intended use ???

by **Dave B** » Thu Jul 11, 2019 8:19 am

First things first, yes, that spec should be fine for working with audio and a piano sample library. An external hard drive makes sense and an ssd is eminently sensible - you can get a usb3 ssd drives quite cheap now if you look at the smaller sizes. You won't be able to install Garageband itself on the external drive, but you should be able to keep your projects on it and get the benefit of having a couple of drives.

heres no option to upgrade the RAM any further then 8GB

Is this a financial restriction? Or a physical one? I believe that you can upgrade the ram in that version of iMac..

by **ConcertinaChap** » Thu Jul 11, 2019 10:50 am

Is that the 21.5" or the 27" machine? The 27" can certainly be easily upgraded by the user all the way to 32 Gig but the 21.5" is stuck at whatever it first came with.

CC

by **pianoworldstage** » Sat Jul 13, 2019 2:07 am

Thanks for your feedback..

Just curious, why would it not be possible to download Garageband on the external SSD

Yes it's a 21.5. So no option to upgrade RAM.

by **Dave B** » Tue Jul 16, 2019 8:29 am

Not sure if it's impossible, but it's at the very least fiddly. It would mean setting up an Applications folder so that the system knows to install software there. Generally, it's not a great idea - the Applications folder has certain features which distinguish it from other folders (and therefore make it possible to run things) and moving stuff out of it is slightly risky.

The actual binary for garageband isn't huge, so it would be more effort than reward really. It might be possible to tell GB to install it's additional content on the external drive - but that means that if anything happened to the drive, you'd have to re-download it.

SOUND ON SOUND

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iMac vs SSD, Garageband ???