Help me move away from Mac?

[blbarclay]

I’ve been thinking about moving away from Mac - but need some assistance with software replacements.

 

I currently have a MacBook Air, iPhone X, and a i5 7600/GTX1080/16GB/X34 PC, which runs both windows and a hackintosh (on a separate hard drive).

 

My dilemma is, I really love: the photos app, numbers, how easy encryption and backup is, and the overall macOS experience, but I don’t want to drop $4k on an iMac - much better value with a PC, including being able to upgrade/replace parts myself.

 

I have a large number of family photos (25,000), along with a lot of videos (1TB all up).

 

I have an irrational fear of our private family photos falling into criminal hands should we be ever broken into, or losing them altogether. My current workflow is to keep them all on an encrypted external hard drive (17 digit passcode), then copy that library to another external hard drive which is kept off site.

 

I thought the hackintosh would be the perfect solution, but it doesn’t allow me to encrypt and having to constantly work to get updates working would drive me nuts.

 

Options:

 

-Try to find windows software that can do the same job as photos and numbers (I’ve used both excel and google sheets, neither can have individual tables within a sheet like numbers) - recommendations?

-splash out and spend $4k on an iMac - but expensive, no upgradability, no user replaceable parts, and a second desktop would cost me valuable space, and a 3TB drive limit

-keep using my external hard drives via my MBA

 

TIA

[Electronics Wizardy]

You might want to look at a hackintosh, but dont look for that here.

 

What do you want in a spread sheet app? Do you like excel or libre office.

 

You can swap the hdd in a imac.

 

Also look at a 2009-2012 mac pro, still pretty fast, getting cheap.

 

Windows has encryption with bitlocker that works just like osx.

Look at lightroom instead of photos, A good amount more power full though.

[blbarclay]

4 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

You might want to look at a hackintosh, but dont look for that here.

 

What do you want in a spread sheet app? Do you like excel or libre office.

 

You can swap the hdd in a imac.

 

Also look at a 2009-2012 mac pro, still pretty fast, getting cheap.

 

Windows has encryption with bitlocker that works just like osx.

Look at lightroom instead of photos, A good amount more power full though.

1) Already running a hackintosh - encryption doesn't work

2) I like numbers because I can have multiple tables on a single page, and can rearrange those tables easily

3) Wasn't aware you can change the HD in an iMac, but it sounds like a pain in the neck

4) Cheers for the lightroom recommendation - will check it out. I like Apple's "Photos" app due to it's sorting and organisation features, not importing duplicates etc etc

 

[Electronics Wizardy]

6 minutes ago, blbarclay said:

1) Already running a hackintosh - encryption doesn't work

2) I like numbers because I can have multiple tables on a single page, and can rearrange those tables easily

3) Wasn't aware you can change the HD in an iMac, but it sounds like a pain in the neck

4) Cheers for the lightroom recommendation - will check it out. I like Apple's "Photos" app due to it's sorting and organisation features, not importing duplicates etc etc

 

2. would tabs work here? Or just using different parts of the sheet and moving the data in cells around

3. Ive done this, about 30min for me, need a temp sensors. Kinda a pain. But external hdds also work fine.

4. Yea lightroom will do the same sorting and not importing dublicates. And it easily imports photos databases

[blbarclay]

9 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

2. would tabs work here? Or just using different parts of the sheet and moving the data in cells around

3. Ive done this, about 30min for me, need a temp sensors. Kinda a pain. But external hdds also work fine.

4. Yea lightroom will do the same sorting and not importing dublicates. And it easily imports photos databases

2. Nah, in numbers you can have multiple tables within a tab. Perfect for what I use it for.

3. Ah yes, I didn't think of external HDD. That could work.

3. What about for movie database and editing, what do you recommend as an alternate to iMovie? Trying to extricate my database could be a pain.

[Electronics Wizardy]

25 minutes ago, blbarclay said:

2. Nah, in numbers you can have multiple tables within a tab. Perfect for what I use it for.

3. Ah yes, I didn't think of external HDD. That could work.

3. What about for movie database and editing, what do you recommend as an alternate to iMovie? Trying to extricate my database could be a pain.

you can export a xml file from imove for the projects and move it to something like premiere or resolve.