Macbooks for a Windows person

[KiwiDave]

Super short background: I've picked up a secondary job for the next wee while, consulting on/doing some digital archiving work for a musician. Part of this involves making as full a backup as possible from a number of Macbook Pros, a Mac tower, iPad and iPhone. We've already been doing Time Machine backups which cannot be fully tested to a full restore state without having another, fresh Mac device to restore to. Additionally, the end product is likely to be a NAS with both original backups, copies of files and a fully structured, searchable archive.

I have been solely Windows for a long time, though I have used Macs on and off over the years. I'm seeing that some stuff I simply can't do without either assuming that the Apple software has just done its job, or working on a Mac in their environment. I've also been passively looking at buying a laptop for myself as an alternative to rebuilding a big PC tower into something I can install Win11 on. The laptop's purpose to me would be to run a DAW on in my little drum studio, web, docs etc. The benefit to a laptop over the tower here is that I can take it out of my drum studio easily and connect it to an electric drum kit in another room - a nearish future purpose/purchase.

If it wasn't for this new side gig, the laptop would be Windows, if and when I bought it. However, the side gig is making me seriously consider a Macbook instead. The thinking being that nothing I'd use it for with my drums stuff couldn't be done on the Mac, and it opens up the ability to work on this digital archiving more natively.

So a couple of questions for those in the know:
1) Any of you run Windows/Mac households and have any comments about maintaining/backing up devices across two OS? I have Synology NAS at home myself - I believe I can palm off a portion of it for a Mac to automatically Time Machine to, but I don't know how easily that would be to swap files between Mac and PC.
2) Macbook Pro versus Macbook Air in the current models? I'm led to believe the major difference is active vs passive cooling and the associated thermal throttling - not sure if I'd run into the or not while tracking drums in a Logic session for instance?
3) Any other gotchas or helpful tips I haven't thought about?

All comments gratefully received.

[Sundayjumper]

I can’t help with any of the specific questions, but a small personal experience was trying to use both and it completely did my head in. I’ve always been a PC. My wife is a graphic designer and has always been a Mac. We both have iPhones. And an Apple TV in the lounge. I decided to “go Mac” so we’d have one ecosystem and bought an Air. Lovely thing. But switching everyday between that at home and a PC at work was too much for me. Wife inherited the Air and I bought a windows laptop. Everyone happy again.

[Jobbo]

I bought a second hand Intel Mac Mini about 20 years ago - they were cheap then and relatively easily upgradeable because that was the period when Apple used the same standard processors, memory etc that were in many Windows PCs. I bought it partly because I wanted to know what people liked about Apple products and partly to connect to my TV to play downloaded stuff.

Even now I still find I have to google how to do things in MacOS. I've never properly got used to it. I still have a late Intel Mac Mini now from about 2012, upgraded with more memory and a bigger SSD, and while it would be nice to replace it, it's £799 for a basic Mini these days and that comes with less RAM and a smaller SSD than my 2012 model now has. I'd need to spend £1500 or so to match the specs of what I already have.... yes, I know it would be much faster in reality but it's not a cheap option. And my Superdrive wouldn't connect to it because that's USB-A. Feels like we're going through the part of the cycle where Apple products are looking expensive again.

[tim]

I have a macbook pro and a ton of windows stuff. I use Active Backup for Business on my Synology NAS to backup everything. It's a bit hoop-jumpy to get it working on the mac but it works once it's setup.

For inter-device transfer I just have onedrive installed everywhere.

[JonMad]

I switched to a Mac for work several years ago and after a few months of headache I'm now a convert and using Windows is painful. I use rsync from the command line to backup onto a NAS. From a Windows laptop I'd just copy folders onto it as a mounted drive.

Definitely the Mac for your music stuff. I don't use a DAW but run VCVRack on it and connect to synths etc easily. I've only used MacBook Pros so couldn't comment on the Air but the Pro has been great. I've given my wife my old MacBook Pro and when my work laptop is next replaced I'll keep this one as a personal one for myself.

[simon_g]

Had a Synology, now Unraid but in both cases just carved a separate Time Machine share for each Mac to use for TM backup. You can reassure yourself a bit by picking some random files and restoring them. The underlying data is just a bunch of hard links for files that haven't changed, so you can browse any point in time and get any file that existed then.

Files you want on both Mac and PC just put on a regular share. Macs work fine with a regular Windows type (SMB) share.

MacBook Air is absolutely fine for the vast majority of people. Pro only if you are pushing it so hard you need active cooling (air will just throttle a bit), the extra ports (just get a dock or dongle thing) or really big RAM/storage.

The apple silicon Macs are pretty amazing, I upgraded to an M4 Air recently but my old M1 (with just 8GB RAM) is still performing great after 5 years or so, battery still lasts absolutely ages and it's handling everything my 11 year old does with it. Most of the time they use so little power that the metal case actually feels cold.

[Beany]

What Simon said re backups/sharing files/etc

I'd also say look at used stuff - a current M5 Pro with 24gb RAM is £2500 - an M3 Pro with 36gb RAM isn't much slower in the real world and will cost you way less than £1500 but still be good for the thick end of five years before it even remotely starts to feel like a limiting factor. And if you're doing DAW stuff you might want to look into whether an Air will have enough grunt to do the various bits of realtime processing I believe that requires...

Also, Apple limit their external displays by CPU type, so as I recall a regular M processor will do one external, a pro will do 2, and a Max will do 4 - so if you have dual external displays, check that closely....

[tim]

Yeah I bought my 16gb M1 Pro chip Macbook Pro for £645 from CEX. It was grade b but there's not a mark on it. Mucho cheapo for what it is.

[KiwiDave]

Most recent look for Macbooks second hand revealed plenty of Intel stuff and one lone M4 device at $100 less than new. May be a case of watching like a hawk...

[Beany]

eBay watch lists are a godsend.

[KiwiDave]

It would be if we had eBay in NZ!

[Beany]

Fine, ask a hobbit to keep an eye out or whatever it is you lot do down there!

[Gavster]

I’m a Mac faithful and have had several MacBook Pros over the last 20 years, and the recent MacBooks really are astounding. I got an M3 Pro in May 2024 and it’s easily the best MacBook I’ve ever had. I regularly edit 30-60 minute 4K videos on it and it doesn’t even break a sweat. After over two years of being my only computer and used every day the battery still lasts for a full day, Apple really cracked it with the M-series macs.

[Jobbo]

Most recent look for Macbooks second hand revealed plenty of Intel stuff and one lone M4 device at $100 less than new. May be a case of watching like a hawk...

Does NZ have an Apple refurb store? That's usually a way of saving 9-10% on a new one.

[Gavster]

Or a friend in full time education for a small discount, although only around 5% IIRC, when Amazon offers similar discocunts by default

[KiwiDave]

Does NZ have an Apple refurb store? That's usually a way of saving 9-10% on a new one.

That's a good call - I'll look into it. We definitely don't have any Apple stores but there are authorised resellers and repairers.