Windows vs Mac

[NeonComrade]

What a crazy title , what an often subject. But I can't seem to find one thing ! 

 

I've moved from mac to windows, because they are very reliable in time. For example : if I buy today a new mac and a new windows machine, in two years, the windows machine would be much more degraded, even with new windows. Am I wrong about this ?

In my opinion windows machines are degrading faster than the mac machines. 

 

My main concern right now.

I'm a musician and I used to have a side job as photo/video editor. Since this COVID-19,  all my jobs as a musician got canceled. 

So here I am all day creating content for my YT channel and editing photos and videos. But since I only own a Late 2019 MacBook Pro, when I encode big projects I'm stuck and I cannot work anything else, so I was thinking to buy another machine (a mac mini) install Adobe Media Encoder on it, share the projects on network and let that machine to do the long and hard encoding so I could work on other projects on my main macbook. 

 

On my long term plans I also want another machine (also a mac mini) for a  plex server ,time machine, back-ups and some other easy tasks.

 

I was looking at Mac Mini because it's a small form factor ( not a such a big decisional factor, but I like small form factor or something enormous so I could have a reason to move it in a separate room), it's very economical and easy to work with, also as I started this post, it would last me 5-6 years.

 

But being in quarantine is giving me a lot of time to research and I was also considering a hackintosh, maybe even a linux build with a macOS VM and a windows VM for gaming if I'll have the money to get a decent graphics card.  

 

P.S I never build a hackintosh, neither a macOS server. Everything that I wrote is from online research and hours of youtube reviews. 

Thanks a lot in advance for your opinions and advices ! All the best ! 

[Electronics Wizardy]

1 minute ago, NeonComrade said:

in two years, the windows machine would be much more degraded, even with new windows. Am I wrong about this ?

What do you mean by degraged? Hardware wise, both would be simmilar, treat both well and they should last a long time with little issues(but always random failures)

 

Software rise, simmilar results, but you can always reinstall software. There is always some bloat and left over files.

 

Over a long time, Id say windows systems age better, as macs lose software support earlier on average and start to become useless for most tasks a few years after that.

 

3 minutes ago, NeonComrade said:

On my long term plans I also want another machine (also a mac mini) for a  plex server ,time machine, back-ups and some other easy tasks.

Id get a premade nas for this, should work better, something like a synology would work well here

 

4 minutes ago, NeonComrade said:

so I was thinking to buy another machine (a mac mini) install Adobe Media Encoder on it, share the projects on network and let that machine to do the long and hard encoding so I could work on other projects on my main macbook. 

If your just using it as a media encoder box, id go windows, its much faster for the price.

 

 

[NeonComrade]

5 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

What do you mean by degraged? Hardware wise, both would be simmilar, treat both well and they should last a long time with little issues(but always random failures)

I've owned a 2013 MBP and an Acer laptop also from 2013, the macbook still works fine, the Acer it's a piece of junk, with reinstalled windows with new battery, still a piece of junk.

5 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Software rise, simmilar results, but you can always reinstall software. There is always some bloat and left over files.

 

Over a long time, Id say windows systems age better, as macs lose software support earlier on average and start to become useless for most tasks a few years after that.

 

Id get a premade nas for this, should work better, something like a synology would work well here

I'm planning to share it with 5-6 people and it's possible to have at least 3 watching at the same time so I don't think a NAS would handle it. Even if I plan to put everything at 1080p on the server because most of the tvs and laptops could direct play 1080p. What the heck I even think that modern smartphones could do direct play at 1080p.

5 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

 

If your just using it as a media encoder box, id go windows, its much faster for the price.

But what about the other tasks like time machine ? I was thinking that an older mac mini with i7 or the new one with the 6 core i5 would do the work in no time. 

 

Still what do you think about the power consumption between my plan and a beefy windows/linux w vms for all the tasks that i've mentioned ?

 

[Electronics Wizardy]

2 minutes ago, NeonComrade said:

I've owned a 2013 MBP and an Acer laptop also from 2013, the macbook still works fine, the Acer it's a piece of junk, with reinstalled windows with new battery, still a piece of junk.

Well sample size of 1, and were they about the same price?

 

2 minutes ago, NeonComrade said:

I'm planning to share it with 5-6 people and it's possible to have at least 3 watching at the same time so I don't think a NAS would handle it. Even if I plan to put everything at 1080p on the server because most of the tvs and laptops could direct play 1080p. What the heck I even think that modern smartphones could do direct play at 1080p.

Do you need transcoding? SOme nas boxes can do that with hardware encoding. Im guessing there are models that will do this fine.

 

3 minutes ago, NeonComrade said:

But what about the other tasks like time machine ? I was thinking that an older mac mini with i7 or the new one with the 6 core i5 would do the work in no time. 

Do time machine to the nas

 

3 minutes ago, NeonComrade said:

Still what do you think about the power consumption between my plan and a beefy windows/linux w vms for all the tasks that i've mentioned ?

The mac mini's are pretty low power, esp at idle, getting to sub 20w on the ones I have measured.

 

A big box will probably only save power if youre replacing lots of systems of need the extra speed.

[NeonComrade]

7 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Well sample size of 1, and were they about the same price?

The Acer was more expensive.

7 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Do you need transcoding? SOme nas boxes can do that with hardware encoding. Im guessing there are models that will do this fine.

I've just checked and the boxes that can really do transcoding well are between 800-1000 usd, so still mac mini wins.

7 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

 

Do time machine to the nas

This would be nice ! 

7 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

 

The mac mini's are pretty low power, esp at idle, getting to sub 20w on the ones I have measured.

One of my main points ! 

7 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

 

A big box will probably only save power if youre replacing lots of systems of need the extra speed.

My main needs right now are the AME machine and the plex server. Other tasks are very easy and can be well done by any machine  ( time machine , back-ups, hosting a cloud with books for my family, etc )

 

Until now in my opinion still the MacMini wins.

[Electronics Wizardy]

1 minute ago, NeonComrade said:

The Acer was more expensive.

I've just checked and the boxes that can really do transcoding well are between 800-1000 usd, so still mac mini wins.

This would be nice ! 

One of my main points ! 

My main needs right now are the AME machine and the plex server. Other tasks are very easy and can be well done by any machine  ( time machine , back-ups, hosting a cloud with books for my family, etc )

 

Until now in my opinion still the MacMini wins.

How about building your own nas box, then run something like unraid on it? Then use a vm for media encoder, and it can do the rest of those tasks, with simmilar power usage. And would be much faster for plex and media encoder.

 

 

How do you plan on doing storage on the mini, you can't put any drives in it

[NeonComrade]

5 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

How about building your own nas box, then run something like unraid on it? Then use a vm for media encoder, and it can do the rest of those tasks, with simmilar power usage. And would be much faster for plex and media encoder.

 

 

How do you plan on doing storage on the mini, you can't put any drives in it

I was planning to use something like Lacie Big over thunderbolt 3, very fast storage.

What diy nas build would achieve the same power consumption at similar performance ?

[Ravendarat]

If your choice is a Mac or a Hackintosh then to me the answer is easy, just go Mac. SO much less bullshit than trying to deal with a hackintosh. Also I agree with your stance on long term reliability. I am currently typing this response on my 2009 Macbook Pro and its still a champ. My other rig is 3rd gen ryzen with a x570 ace mobo and a rtx2080ti and I have already had more issues with that machine than I have with my mac

[NeonComrade]

4 minutes ago, Ravendarat said:

If your choice is a Mac or a Hackintosh then to me the answer is easy, just go Mac. SO much less bullshit than trying to deal with a hackintosh. Also I agree with your stance on long term reliability. I am currently typing this response on my 2009 Macbook Pro and its still a champ. My other rig is 3rd gen ryzen with a x570 ace mobo and a rtx2080ti and I have already had more issues with that machine than I have with my mac

And you have one hell of a build there, lots of money involved ! I would build one day a hackintosh just for fun but for my work I would rely on the mac ! 

 

Thanks a lot @Ravendarat ! This is what I was looking for people with both windows and mac who can share their opinions ! 

Also thanks a lot @ElectronicsWizardy you spent a lot of time answering to me, I'm looking forward to new discussions ! 

 

BTW : Look at this amazing rack https://www.sonnettech.com/product/xmacminiservertb3.html !!!

[RMTactical]

Hey Neon,

 

I may be of service here.  If you're considering on getting another windows system, there are some things to keep in mind.  Laptops last two to three years, on average.  There are many different factors, but for some odd reason, it doesn't seem to apply to Apple.  I've owned a 2010 Mac Book Pro, complete with the network cable and disk reader, and though the machine's old, it still runs as though it's straight out of the box.  This thing has been GPU overclocked, dropped, and had water dumped on it.  (Cousin not getting her way [wanted to play games] threw temper tantrum).  The thing was mainly used as an off side server for Minecraft for a few buddies who couldn't run their own along side the game.  We closed it down after four years of continuous operation, without sleep.  I don't even know how it lasted that long, but when investigating that thing with the newer models that have been released, it seems as though the newer ones are starting to intentionally slow down now.

 

I'll explain here.  Dell, HP, Acer, and a few other computer companies have this special habit of intentionally slowing down a system after a few years of operation.  It happens more often than you think too.  I've installed a Lenovo system for my grand parents, and a year later, guess what?  The machine was slower than a pentainuim two.  It was kind of depressing too, so when they burned through their fourth windows machine, I bumped them up to a Mac Pro, (The 2020 model).  I'm expecting this thing to go out in about two to three years from now.

 

It's all based on what you prefer Neon.  If you want longevity, go Apple.  If you want a cheap computer that can take a bit of abuse, then do Lenovo or HP.  AlienWare and Acer have some problems that I don't want to go into.