All the iMacs, even the new ones, are lousy for labs in schools. Why?
It's a pain in the ass to replace the hard drive.
You have to do a MAJOR disassembly of the machine to change the disk. The disk is the PRIMARY component to fail in labs, simply because the raw number of systems knocks the MTBF way down. Disks in lab machines need to be easy to replace. Companies like Dell understand this. Apple does not.
On average here we replace a hard drive every couple of months. Having to do a major disassembly every few months to change a borked drive is NOT pretty. This will keep us from adopting the iMac in our labs, other than a token few to appease the Mac users.
They made memory easy to upgrade, but how often do you do that, compared to changing failed disks in a lab environment?
Apple really needs to make their systems easier to service if they expect to catch on in open lab settings. For a home user it's no problem; I don't mind doing that disassembly maybe once or twice in the life of a machine. But for a school? Sorry, Apple fails.
Fix this. Please. I had hopes for the new iMacs but Apple failed us again.
Folderol!
I've worked in a lab full of Dells and a lab full of iMacs, and I'd take the iMac lab in a
heartbeat. Just keeping the anti-virus s/w up to date on the Dells is nightmare enough
to make the choice a no-brainer. Security for all the kids' logons -- don't get me started
on the Microsoft side.
The poster who mentioned all the anti-virus, anti-spyware, anti-everything software
running constantly on the Msoft machines had another good point. The HD on my old Dell
at home NEVER stops running due to that nonsense. I can wake up the iMac and
do at least ten minutes worth of work while the Dell is dragging itself through the startup
process and scanning everything.
I would expect an iMac with the same model HD in it to experience longer drive life.
On average here we replace a hard drive every couple of months. Having to do a major disassembly every few months to change a borked drive is NOT pretty. This will keep us from adopting the iMac in our labs, other than a token few to appease the Mac users.
Ahh, that sounds to me like an excuse to keep as many Windows PCs in the lab as possible. Makes more job security for the techs.
Maybe the day will come when there are so many students with Mac laptops that the demand for Macs in the lab will be huge. Then you can keep a "few" Windows PCs in there to "appease" the Windows users.
On average here we replace a hard drive every couple of months. Having to do a major disassembly every few months to change a borked drive is NOT pretty.
And these hard drives are from which manufacturer?
Ok, good point, however the drive should last more than 5 years unless it is overheated.
Lots of hard drives fail in the first two years. It is silly of Apple to try to use the ability to replace a key component like a hard drive as a differential between the iMac and the Mac Pro lines.
Didn't we go through this once before? I remember than an original series of iMacs had hard-toreplace internals, and Apple introduced the same form factor with a new internal design with easier access to the RAM and hard disk.
Doesn't Apple realize that many people prefer to upgrade their disks themselves rather than take it into a service depot? Those of us with brains realize there are security implications of letting people we don't know have unfettered access to our hard drives.
It's a pity, because other than the hard drive thing, the new iMacs are perfect.
It sounds interesting, I haven't heard of them making 10k SATAs, I can't find them online. Even if they were available, It would probably be several months before I would try them anyway, if ever. What I had found was that two WD 250GB 7.2k drives striped was very close in most of my tests to a single 150GB 10k, quieter and such too. Maybe two 10ks would really haul, but that's a lot of money, about the price of three 7.2k 750GB drives.
Yeah, 10k and above drives have not broken through to a good price points, given 300GB+ 7200rpm SATA2 drives currently hitting the market. A good RAID setup for speed/security/etc as needed, and a pair or four 7.2k drives, I guess yeah, they would do the job nicely.
In the above article, it was stated: "These retail-only configurations will be available exclusively from Apple stores once the company starts manufacturing its new wireless keyboard. Although announced along side the new iMacs earlier this month, the wireless keyboard has yet to ship."
APPLE manufactures nothing and buys completed products from real manufacturing companies under contract. Of course they charge 50-100% more than everyone else but everyone knows that.
Perhaps if there were a three month moratorium from consumers on buying APPLE products, APPLE might well forced to lower their product prices.
APPLE manufactures nothing and buys completed products from real manufacturing companies under contract.
Almost all of the CE companies that you think manufacture products don't. They design them from teh ground up, but it's cheaper to hire out the actual manufacturing so you aren't telling us anything we don't know. Did you expect to see factories in China with a giant Apple logo on it?
On a related note, you know all that aluminium that uses for their products? There are no Apple owned and operated aluminium mines. They have no aluminium smelting and refinery plants. They have others prepare it for them.
I wish they would hurry up and release a NEW mouse because the current offering is quite unsatisfactory.
Primarily my complaint is, the scroll ball is always getting clogged up with dust and there is no suitable way to clean it other than turning it upside down and violently scratching across a clean cloth surface such as your jeans. It is worse than the old days of track ball mice.
Secondly, the side buttons are constantly triggering when least expected - right when I'm concentrating on cutting a path around an image in Photoshop. An actual right button not withstanding, the whole thing is quite inferior to even Microsoft's mouse.
While under warranty, I had my first Bluetooth Mighty Mouse replaced at the Apple Store. Same problem with the scroll ball. My second mouse is in a drawer. I hope Apple fixes this. For the cost, the thing should be indestructible.
APPLE manufactures nothing and buys completed products from real manufacturing companies under contract. Of course they charge 50-100% more than everyone else but everyone knows that.
Perhaps if there were a three month moratorium from consumers on buying APPLE products, APPLE might well forced to lower their product prices.
To add to solipsism's point, you did not need to dig up a dormant two year old thread to say this.
Comments
All the iMacs, even the new ones, are lousy for labs in schools. Why?
It's a pain in the ass to replace the hard drive.
You have to do a MAJOR disassembly of the machine to change the disk. The disk is the PRIMARY component to fail in labs, simply because the raw number of systems knocks the MTBF way down. Disks in lab machines need to be easy to replace. Companies like Dell understand this. Apple does not.
On average here we replace a hard drive every couple of months. Having to do a major disassembly every few months to change a borked drive is NOT pretty. This will keep us from adopting the iMac in our labs, other than a token few to appease the Mac users.
They made memory easy to upgrade, but how often do you do that, compared to changing failed disks in a lab environment?
Apple really needs to make their systems easier to service if they expect to catch on in open lab settings. For a home user it's no problem; I don't mind doing that disassembly maybe once or twice in the life of a machine. But for a school? Sorry, Apple fails.
Fix this. Please. I had hopes for the new iMacs but Apple failed us again.
Folderol!
I've worked in a lab full of Dells and a lab full of iMacs, and I'd take the iMac lab in a
heartbeat. Just keeping the anti-virus s/w up to date on the Dells is nightmare enough
to make the choice a no-brainer. Security for all the kids' logons -- don't get me started
on the Microsoft side.
The poster who mentioned all the anti-virus, anti-spyware, anti-everything software
running constantly on the Msoft machines had another good point. The HD on my old Dell
at home NEVER stops running due to that nonsense. I can wake up the iMac and
do at least ten minutes worth of work while the Dell is dragging itself through the startup
process and scanning everything.
I would expect an iMac with the same model HD in it to experience longer drive life.
No contest.
On average here we replace a hard drive every couple of months. Having to do a major disassembly every few months to change a borked drive is NOT pretty. This will keep us from adopting the iMac in our labs, other than a token few to appease the Mac users.
Ahh, that sounds to me like an excuse to keep as many Windows PCs in the lab as possible. Makes more job security for the techs.
Maybe the day will come when there are so many students with Mac laptops that the demand for Macs in the lab will be huge. Then you can keep a "few" Windows PCs in there to "appease" the Windows users.
On average here we replace a hard drive every couple of months. Having to do a major disassembly every few months to change a borked drive is NOT pretty.
And these hard drives are from which manufacturer?
Ok, good point, however the drive should last more than 5 years unless it is overheated.
Lots of hard drives fail in the first two years. It is silly of Apple to try to use the ability to replace a key component like a hard drive as a differential between the iMac and the Mac Pro lines.
Didn't we go through this once before? I remember than an original series of iMacs had hard-toreplace internals, and Apple introduced the same form factor with a new internal design with easier access to the RAM and hard disk.
Doesn't Apple realize that many people prefer to upgrade their disks themselves rather than take it into a service depot? Those of us with brains realize there are security implications of letting people we don't know have unfettered access to our hard drives.
It's a pity, because other than the hard drive thing, the new iMacs are perfect.
It sounds interesting, I haven't heard of them making 10k SATAs, I can't find them online. Even if they were available, It would probably be several months before I would try them anyway, if ever. What I had found was that two WD 250GB 7.2k drives striped was very close in most of my tests to a single 150GB 10k, quieter and such too. Maybe two 10ks would really haul, but that's a lot of money, about the price of three 7.2k 750GB drives.
Yeah, 10k and above drives have not broken through to a good price points, given 300GB+ 7200rpm SATA2 drives currently hitting the market. A good RAID setup for speed/security/etc as needed, and a pair or four 7.2k drives, I guess yeah, they would do the job nicely.
APPLE manufactures nothing and buys completed products from real manufacturing companies under contract. Of course they charge 50-100% more than everyone else but everyone knows that.
Perhaps if there were a three month moratorium from consumers on buying APPLE products, APPLE might well forced to lower their product prices.
APPLE manufactures nothing and buys completed products from real manufacturing companies under contract.
Almost all of the CE companies that you think manufacture products don't. They design them from teh ground up, but it's cheaper to hire out the actual manufacturing so you aren't telling us anything we don't know. Did you expect to see factories in China with a giant Apple logo on it?
On a related note, you know all that aluminium that uses for their products? There are no Apple owned and operated aluminium mines. They have no aluminium smelting and refinery plants. They have others prepare it for them.
I wish they would hurry up and release a NEW mouse because the current offering is quite unsatisfactory.
Primarily my complaint is, the scroll ball is always getting clogged up with dust and there is no suitable way to clean it other than turning it upside down and violently scratching across a clean cloth surface such as your jeans. It is worse than the old days of track ball mice.
Secondly, the side buttons are constantly triggering when least expected - right when I'm concentrating on cutting a path around an image in Photoshop. An actual right button not withstanding, the whole thing is quite inferior to even Microsoft's mouse.
While under warranty, I had my first Bluetooth Mighty Mouse replaced at the Apple Store. Same problem with the scroll ball. My second mouse is in a drawer. I hope Apple fixes this. For the cost, the thing should be indestructible.
APPLE manufactures nothing and buys completed products from real manufacturing companies under contract. Of course they charge 50-100% more than everyone else but everyone knows that.
Perhaps if there were a three month moratorium from consumers on buying APPLE products, APPLE might well forced to lower their product prices.
To add to solipsism's point, you did not need to dig up a dormant two year old thread to say this.