Replacing Mac's - Running out of options!

[Andy2789]

Like many schools we have now a number of aging Mac's, we have done everything to keep them going long beyond their operating life. We have put more RAM in them, replaced the HDD's with SSD's but they are on their last legs. We have nearly 100 Mac's all of which are a combination of 2007, 2009 and 2011 models. They are stuck on El Captain and that was a challenge to get to there in itself!

 

Of course the Mac's were brought at a time when specialism money was plentiful and they could be funded, move forward to 2020 and the funding pool is drier than the Sahara desert!

 

My reason for posting is, has anyone found a great company or solution for replacing them?

 

I have done the obvious looked at which devices we can lose to not replace and got quotes, even with Edu pricing it's simply unaffordable. I have then looked at the option of leasing the equipment, again the pricing is still a huge investment. The students do not need things like the touch bar on MacBooks, so realistically the model before that came out would be fine. So I have tried looking at refurb Mac's, these are like only £20 cheaper than new as Apple hold their price. I am sure I am not the only one in this boat, so just putting a plea out there!

 

Has anyone come up with a genius solution or idea - minus robbing a bank!

 

As I have discussed with departments, where there is no real need I will not replace. But rightly or wrongly Mac's do attract, a room full of Mac's gets far more attention than a room full of PC's!

[meakjoe]

If you fancy a real challenge then it is possible to run Mac OS on an Intel PC... https://www.tonymacx86.com/ I've done this myself at home on both a PC and Laptop, but never tried it in an enterprise environment.

 

I think there might be something in the Apple Ts & Cs that say their software should only be run on Apple hardware which might make it an unviable solution in a school.

[Andy2789]

Thanks for coming back to me, I have looked on the site and it says 'installing macOS on non-Apple hardware is a violation of Apple’s EULA'

 

Not something I want to particularly start playing with in a school environment - As much as it is would make things cheaper, I sadly don't think this is something we can do

[FishCustard]

What specific models do you have (e.g. laptops, Mac Minis, iMacs?) and what do you need them for (e.g. music production?)

[Arthur]

The students do not need things like the touch bar on MacBooks, so realistically the model before that came out would be fine.

It's best to avoid the MacBooks, MacBooks Airs and MacBook Pros with butterfly keyboards.

 

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/keyboard-service-program-for-mac-notebooks

 

Are iMacs an option?

[Andy2789]

We have got

X30 iMacs (Core 2 Duo, 3GB RAM)

X16 MacBooks - White (Core 2 Duo same as above)

X10 MacBook Pros (Core 2 Duo again!)

 

These are all in our music Rooms, we have a further set in art - these are ones I would not replace and instead put Laptops in, as they don't need the specialist software.

 

Music use theirs every day all the time for their curriculum across the board and use the specialist software

[3s-gtech]

If you fancy a real challenge then it is possible to run Mac OS on an Intel PC... https://www.tonymacx86.com/ I've done this myself at home on both a PC and Laptop, but never tried it in an enterprise environment.

 

I think there might be something in the Apple Ts & Cs that say their software should only be run on Apple hardware which might make it an unviable solution in a school.

 

 

 

^^That's not an option.

 

You've found what we all have - it's not really a viable option now. When we bought our 2009 iMacs they were a shade over £400 each (+ VAT), which put them right in line with a cheap PC + screen. They've done over 10 years service - a great TCO. However, Apple have decimated their Edu deals and we simply can't afford to replace them - the same number of cheap Mac Minis with screens would cost us over £15k.

Edited July 28, 2020 by 3s-gtech

[VeryPC_Ben_J]

Hi Andy,

 

I work for VeryPC In Sheffield, I have a lot of experience selling macs/apple kit. I have great contacts for refurbished units and also on new kit. If required I also have very flexible options for leasing if the price is too high to justify from the get go.

 

Please feel free to get in touch if you need assistance

 

Ben Johnson

0114 3218609

[Andy2789]

Thanks Ben, I will drop you an email! Need to try and weigh up the options that are available.

[msi_school]

This is one of the issues which really annoys me with purchasing, it crosses every industry and almost every organisation.

 

Someone has specified a very expensive piece of equipment, you have priced it up and can't afford it. Instead of changing the spec or the budget you are just being pushed into a box with no exits.

[Norphy]

Going by experience, I know that there will be howls of protest from your teachers but it may get to the point where you have to say "Macs are too expensive, we need to look at alternative options". I'm guessing these Macs are running Logic. Could you use something like Ableton Live or another DAW on a Windows PC instead? The software is probably more expensive than Logic but that would be offset by considerably cheaper hardware.

[Andy2789]

Sadly so, it's a real difficult one and I can see both sides. As a department Music are using them a lot and have written their curriculum around it and they have an impact, so I totally want to support and keep them going. On the flip as everyone has said the cost Apple demand is simply unachievable.

 

When you can buy 16 Laptops for £4000 or 16 Macbook's at £12,000 you can see the problem! Really difficult, each month and year that passes the harder this is getting to keep them going.

[Norphy]

Or something like this?

 

https://www.hoxtonmacs.co.uk/collections/mac-mini/products/mac-mini-mgen2b-a-core-i5-2-6ghz-late-2014

 

That plus a monitor and cheap KB and mouse would work out to be not too much money, it should still be useful for three more years or so considering they were still selling them up until 2018.

 

Not ideal but better than nowt.

 

That said, going for the refurbished Mac is just postponing the problem. Mac prices have been going steadily up for the last ten years and as they get more niche, I don't see that changing. And $DEITY only knows how the upcoming CPU architecture change is going to affect matters.

Edited July 28, 2020 by Norphy

[Andy2789]

Or something like this?

 

https://www.hoxtonmacs.co.uk/collections/mac-mini/products/mac-mini-mgen2b-a-core-i5-2-6ghz-late-2014

 

That plus a monitor and cheap KB and mouse would work out to be not too much money, it should still be useful for three more years or so considering they were still selling them up until 2018.

 

Not ideal but better than nowt.

 

That said, going for the refurbished Mac is just postponing the problem. Mac prices have been going steadily up for the last ten years and as they get more niche, I don't see that changing. And $DEITY only knows how the upcoming CPU architecture change is going to affect matters.

 

 

Cheers - That is a good suggestion! Will save this one

[DrCheese]

Just make sure you tick the SSD option - The HDD's that come with mac minis are 5400rpm and to say they are horrific would be an understatement. They're a right faff to manually swap out also.

[Andy2789]

Just make sure you tick the SSD option - The HDD's that come with mac minis are 5400rpm and to say they are horrific would be an understatement. They're a right faff to manually swap out also.

 

Having had to swap the HDD's out of the iMacs already, I can feel the pain! Having to take the screens off and a million screws I can only imagine on something smaller!

[Arthur]

That said, going for the refurbished Mac is just postponing the problem. Mac prices have been going steadily up for the last ten years and as they get more niche, I don't see that changing. And $DEITY only knows how the upcoming CPU architecture change is going to affect matters.

What about iPads? They start from around £290 + VAT and can be used for music.

[3s-gtech]

It's easier on the Minis than iMacs to swap to SSD - until they made the SSD integrated and un-upgradeable in Late 2018. They come apart with a few screws, then the mainboard slides out of the case and you can get to the HDD. The 5400rpm ones are indeed borderline unusable.

[Mrpower]

I am in a very similar possession to you, I have a lot of Macs of different ages, iMac, towers, laptops, iPads, that are growing older and older by the day. According to the rumour mill and this press release https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2020/06/apple-announces-mac-transition-to-apple-silicon/ apple are moving to apple silicon which means there are new Macs on the horizon. It might pay you to wait it out and see what happens, if you are able.

Otherwise you could look at Macfinder https://macfinder.co.uk who are a good retailer of Refurbished Macs.

[paulkerton]

Sadly so, it's a real difficult one and I can see both sides. As a department Music are using them a lot and have written their curriculum around it and they have an impact, so I totally want to support and keep them going. On the flip as everyone has said the cost Apple demand is simply unachievable.

 

Why do you as a department pay for their equipment? Surely if they need specialist kit, they should go out and find the budget for it themselves? I mean, you're not buying their keyboards and drum machines are you?

 

There are also alternative DAWs they are going to have to consider like Ableton, Cubase or even online solutions like Soundtrap.

[Norphy]

I am in a very similar possession to you, I have a lot of Macs of different ages, iMac, towers, laptops, iPads, that are growing older and older by the day. According to the rumour mill and this press release https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2020/06/apple-announces-mac-transition-to-apple-silicon/ apple are moving to apple silicon which means there are new Macs on the horizon. It might pay you to wait it out and see what happens, if you are able.

Otherwise you could look at Macfinder https://macfinder.co.uk who are a good retailer of Refurbished Macs.

 

It's not a rumour any more, as you've already noted Apple announced their migration to their own silicon based on the ARM architecture a couple of months back. However, that doesn't mean that Intel Macs are going to disappear overnight. If the PowerPC to Intel migration is anything to go by, the MacBooks and iMacs will get the new CPUs first, followed by the Mac Mini and finally the Mac Pro. The entire process will probably take a couple of years but Intel Macs will still be supported and receive OS and app updates for the next few years. This is conjecture on my part but I would expect that Apple will continue to support the Intel version of macOS until at least 2025; the last PowerMac G5 was released in 2005 and the last security update for Leopard was released in 2010

[internetuser]

No help. But I saw this coming in 2011. Lots of money thrown into fancy iMacs etc and iPads. When I asked the school demoing the new labs at the time. I asked what the device life cycle plan was. Never got a straight answer and the head who pushed for these has now left. Leaving the school with a massive issue.

[ICTDirect_Dave]

This kind of thread comes up every six months or so and I say the same thing every time.

 

Teaching music does not require macs. In fact it actively under prepares students for the real world where the majority of systems in studios and edit suites are windows-based.

Some Macs to teach Logic Pro are fine, but you can save more money and offer a better range of software using Windows machines and the less said about Garageband the better!

 

I've written a couple of blogs about this, the cost savings are significant.

 

Cubase and Logic are much the same in terms of functionality and performance

Ableton Live, and Pro Tools are cross-platform so if they're being offered on Macs they can be offered on windows machines.

 

In terms of performance, you don't lose anything. Yet you'll be able to afford a much higher spec with your windows machines.

I know there's often politics in play, but Windows machines offer the best value and best range of options for music and have done for years now.

 

This is me speaking as a fan of a macbook btw. I love my Macbook Pro (for personal use) I'm not here to bash Apple in that respect.

[FishCustard]

Teaching music does not require macs. In fact it actively under prepares students for the real world where the majority of systems in studios and edit suites are windows-based.

Some Macs to teach Logic Pro are fine, but you can save more money and offer a better range of software using Windows machines and the less said about Garageband the better!

 

Agreed on this point especially - funnily enough many studios face the same cost pressures as schools, look at Macs + Logic and go "whoa, we could do the same thing for less with Windows + Ableton, etc".

[mthomas08]

^^That's not an option.

 

You've found what we all have - it's not really a viable option now. When we bought our 2009 iMacs they were a shade over £400 each (+ VAT), which put them right in line with a cheap PC + screen. They've done over 10 years service - a great TCO. However, Apple have decimated their Edu deals and we simply can't afford to replace them - the same number of cheap Mac Minis with screens would cost us over £15k.

 

We're in this exact same boat. At some point, maybe next financial year we will replace these with PCs. Its just too costly to replace Music and the Mac server - all are old and outdated.

 

Ever since we replaced our other Art/Media Macs with PCs, we get very little complaints and the staff are just happy with something fast/reliable. Back in the day we had a ton of issues but that had nothing to do with Microsoft Vs Apple but more like funding being spent in the wrong areas of our system - I could go on but that's all in other Apple/M$ threads.