

(Please also go to What Operating System Are You Using For Bioinformatic Work? and vote to say what operating system you are using for bioinformatics)Īre you using a Mac as a main computer for bioinformatic work?įor running tasks, I connect to a server which is not a mac. It would be nice if you could keep it about facts. My goal is definitely NOT to turn this into a flame war. Why should I (or not) think of getting Macs for our lab?.Whatever opinion you want to share about this question.Freedom to hack quick solutions for custom problems?.Ease of installing software (talking about bioinfo software here)?.What negative points do you see about using a mac for bioinformatics?.What positive points do you see about using a mac for bioinformatics?.Are you using a Mac as a main computer for bioinformatic work?.I would really like to have your opinion about the following: On the other side, I am also very open to seeing what advantages there are to Macs. I'm not thinking about high end servers, rather something to serve as middle-ground between student laptops and weak lab desktops on one hand and servers and super-computers on the other end.ĭISCLAIMER: I am a Linux lover and am very sceptical about Macs. The other would be used by me for my daily work. As a result, the easiness of the user interface has some importance. One computer would be used by lab members to perform routine analyses that they cannot run on their laptops and for which the standard desktops that we have available can't do the job because of too low RAM or processing power. I could go for a Lenovo ThinkStation or something of the kind, but I am evaluating the potential of getting a Mac Pro.ĮDIT: Depending on how we do things, I may end up buying two computers. The thing should be able to boot under both Windows and Linux. I am thinking of a system with ~100Go of RAM, Xeon class processors or equivalent (up to 16 threads). I am planning computing needs for our group for the 2-3 years to come and came across a difficult decision when having to decide which kind of computer to choose.
