Help me move away from Mac?

blbarclay

Estimable
Sep 19, 2014
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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:

1) 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?

2) 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.

3) Keep using my external hard drives via my MBA.

TIA!
 
Solution
Hard drive encryption us supported as standard on Windows Pro versions, so this could be ticked off.

I don't know how iMac' Numbers application works. It also depends what you call "a table". If they're just tables, and not spreadsheets, OneNote could be a solution for you.

I suppose you know Excel (and Windows) are not free, you're looking at probably $400 just on software.
Hard drive encryption us supported as standard on Windows Pro versions, so this could be ticked off.

I don't know how iMac' Numbers application works. It also depends what you call "a table". If they're just tables, and not spreadsheets, OneNote could be a solution for you.

I suppose you know Excel (and Windows) are not free, you're looking at probably $400 just on software.
 
Solution