Me & My Mac

MacFormat readers share their beloved setups

“The Mac Pro was overkill, but it will be a very powerful machine for years to come”

Jason Masters is a lucky man. He’s the proud owner of a customspecced, top-of-the-range new Mac Pro. “My Mac Pro is my main Mac, which I use 90% of the day,” he explains. “I went for the Mac Pro because I edit a lot of HD video for Truro City FC. The Mac Pro has cut the processing time by two thirds. I also edit a lot of photos from my bar and nightclub, design flyers and posters, and organise my music for DJing using Pioneer ReckordBox. The Mac Pro was overkill, but I had the chance to get one early, and it will be a very powerful machine for years to come.”

He loves the new Mac Pro’s design. “Its a great-looking bit of kit,” he explains, “and incredibly powerful for its size. Not upgrading the internal components isn’t such a big deal. With six Thunderbolt 2 Ports and 4 USB 3.0 ports, it’s pretty expandable.” He’s happy using an external optical drive, too.

All that HD video takes up a lot of storage, but Masters has plenty, including an 18TB RAID drive. “You can never have too much hard drive space. I have a massive library of photos, over 70,000, and more than 10 years of MP3s. I wanted to store them in a secure, central location. The Promise Pegasus 2 R6 provided all of this. Its Thunderbolt 2 connection ensures I can get my data quickly when needed.”

Although he has three screens, none of them is an Apple display. “I would have gone for Apple monitors, but with rumours flying around that it plans to release a 4K display, I thought I’d wait. The Dell monitors are great, and provide really good view quality.” As well as three screens, he also has three input devices. “My main input device is the Magic Mouse. The Magic Trackpad has a numeric overlay, so it acts as a keypad with some custom command keys, too. The graphics tablet is used for when I’m designing posters and flyers.”

And his next Apple purchase? “I’m an Apple fanboy, and always will be; I love to have all the latest Apple kit. I’m hoping for an iWatch or a ‘proper’ Apple TV to be released soon. I’m also interested in what Apple has up its sleeve after the rumoured purchase of Beats. Hopefully, some new-style headphones with a unique Apple selling point.”