People just confuse me...

thecomputerguy

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Non-MSP client calls me and says his 4 year old iMac 27" won't turn on after a power outage. I explain to him all the basic troubleshooting measures and tell him if it won't turn on he should see if it's still under warranty. Thankfully I had set him up with a Time Machine backup years ago that is current so the transition should be relatively smooth.

I explain to him that this is not something I would take apart, I don't do that type of repair anymore.

He takes it to Apple, it's out of warranty of course, and they explain to him that he should just buy a new one because the repair will be long and almost as expensive as the product itself (typical).

So he's bugging me all weekend about he's going to buy a new computer and he wants to get it to me. I offer to let him drop it off at my house because he's generally a chill dude (I typically work out of my office). He says he's going to drop it off on Saturday at my house (I'm slightly irritated that this has to happen). I text him in the morning and give him my schedule. He says "oh sorry I'm out of town I'll need to get it to you on Sunday." I explain that won't work, it's mothers day I will be out all day until 6PM (more irritated). I text him and tell him I'm home at 6PM and he said he's going to buy it tomorrow and bring it straight to me (more irritated). I text him my schedule Monday and he never gets back to me. Tuesday at 6am he says he wants to bring it over. I explain my schedule and tell him he can't drop it off until 9am. His assistant drives over at 11am (most irritated) and drops it off and wants it done ASAP.

I unbox it and find out that he hasn't bought an iMac again ... NO. He buys a $600 POS Mac Mini with 256GB storage and 8GB of RAM then buys a $1700 FREAKING DOLLAR 27" STUDIO SCREEN FOR HIS POS MAC MINI.

In my head I'm thinking OK well, you went from a 27" iMac with 16GB of RAM and 1TB of storage TO THIS? I'm skeptical so I unbox the Mac Mini and hook up the Time Machine backup for restore to find out that the restore exceed the storage capacity of the Mac Mini by DOUBLE. His restore from Time Machine is over 500GB's.

So I guess my options are to set this up as a clean Mac, login to his iCloud and do the Desktop/Documents sync and .... THATS IT RIGHT?

My guess is this thing will be completely full in less than a year. Didn't consult me whatsoever about specs, just went and bought the cheapest thing they had in stock with the most expensive 27" you can possibly buy FOR WHAT? Email and Calendar, that's it. He does also have about 200GB of pictures and 150GB of music in the Time Machine backup.

I looked up online when a 16GB + 1TB Mac mini can be delivered and it looks like 15-16 days.

I really hope he doesn't want me to try and make this work, I REALLY do not want to set this up as a fresh Mac, sounds like an ongoing support nightmare.. People man Jeez!@

He probably should have spent the $1600 on the 16GB + 1TB option in the first place.
 
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Don't eat time for end users ignorance and cheapness.

We're happy to clearly show people like that just how much MORE money it will cost them for us to try to get things to work on an underspec'd piece of junk they hand us. That is...if we even feel like touching it. I'm tight for time lately so I've started just turning that stuff away more and more lately.
 
I would have him direct his anger at Apple. They saw his broken machine and would know the capacity, and should have made sure he got the appropriate replacement capacity.

I'd pick a current 24" iMac (sure, not as big, but much nicer IMHO). If he has to have 27" maybe a refurb?



I've had really good luck buying Apple's refurbs direct from them. Can't tell them from brand new.
 
I've had really good luck buying Apple's refurbs direct from them. Can't tell them from brand new.

That's been my experience with any OEM refurbed unit. Not a surprise, really, as they've got "all the parts" to make everything perfect again (at least on the surface, which is generally what gets the most battering).
 
I would have him direct his anger at Apple. They saw his broken machine and would know the capacity, and should have made sure he got the appropriate replacement capacity.

I'd pick a current 24" iMac (sure, not as big, but much nicer IMHO). If he has to have 27" maybe a refurb?



I've had really good luck buying Apple's refurbs direct from them. Can't tell them from brand new.

Yeah he was like ... well maybe you are trying to restore too many backups ... I'm like ... WAT?

You bought a $600 youtube computer.
 
That old saying a fool and his money are soon parted comes to mind lol. Sadly I have many people I've worked for that are exactly like this too lol.
 
There's probably a ton of bloat in the backup, not that it's your job to root it out at this point. If he's a long term Mac user, I bet he has his photos duplicated with a giant iPhoto library that hasn't been opened since 2018, and iPhone and iPad backups he will never ever need. He probably hasn't used the music since god knows when either, since nowadays everything is streaming - hardly anybody actually uses old music libraries.

I would give him the choice of returning the Mac Mini and getting something with sufficient storage, or just setting up that Mac Mini manually to do email and calendar, etc, and moving the photos and music libraries to an external drive.
 
There's probably a ton of bloat in the backup, not that it's your job to root it out at this point. If he's a long term Mac user, I bet he has his photos duplicated with a giant iPhoto library that hasn't been opened since 2018, and iPhone and iPad backups he will never ever need. He probably hasn't used the music since god knows when either, since nowadays everything is streaming - hardly anybody actually uses old music libraries.

I would give him the choice of returning the Mac Mini and getting something with sufficient storage, or just setting up that Mac Mini manually to do email and calendar, etc, and moving the photos and music libraries to an external drive.

Yeah I don't really even work on Mac's I'm not about to try and determine what's what. I can do the basics on a Mac like setup email, maybe upgrade a hard drive on the Mac's that are easier to tear apart. My main focus is MSP and not only do I not work on Mac's (most of the time) I turn away jobs like this. This client is a straggler client from a different time in my Business.

So if he wants to take it to me I'm doing it by the book and doing a full Time Machine restore. I offered to set this one up from scratch and just let his photos populate from iCloud but I explained there may be photos in there that are not on iCloud because you have 200GB of photos in your Time Machine backup and he said he wasn't willing to lose anything.

So I told him to fork up the cash.

He wants me to set this one up for him because he NEEDS a computer right now and he has 15 days to return it so he's going to use it while the 16GB + 1TB Mac mini is on the way. So I guess this poor fellow is getting charged for.

Mac unboxing updates and setup email/calendar/icloud
Mac factory reset
Mac unboxing
Time Machine restore
Updates
Setup email/calendar/icloud

and all this money for what?

Email & Calendar LOL
 
and all this money for what?

Email & Calendar LOL

And if this is truly all that's being sought, a Mac is the most expensive way to get it. ANY other platform that can handle these things (and plenty of others) except, perhaps, the latest and greatest iPhone, will be less expensive.
 
Just in case you weren't aware you can't do a full TM restore that is made on an OS version older than what the new machine ships with.

True, but you can get mighty darned close. My most recent Mac work (which doesn't happen often at all) involved Time Machine restore on a brand new Mac from an older TM backup under older MacOS.

Of course, the OS part is skipped on the newer machine, but most (if not all, I never heard back from the client, so I'm presuming all) of the user data and, I think, programs made it back.
 
In my experience you can do one of two things...

Charge the tax, and therefore never work with these idiots OR skip the tax, and be forever cursed to work with these idiots.

I'm getting a bit old for idiocy personally.
 
Yet another example of time to let them go. If you can't or don't want to, sounds like you already have the right idea.

As for Mac Mini vs iMac, I recommend the Mac Mini any day, though with the correct specs. You can get any monitor you want (buying the Apple one is of course stupid), it's easier to take apart and possibly fix, and you're not paying the extra Apple tax on the iMac monitor and creating extra e-waste.
 
Yet another example of time to let them go. If you can't or don't want to, sounds like you already have the right idea.

As for Mac Mini vs iMac, I recommend the Mac Mini any day, though with the correct specs. You can get any monitor you want (buying the Apple one is of course stupid), it's easier to take apart and possibly fix, and you're not paying the extra Apple tax on the iMac monitor and creating extra e-waste.

Yeah but I'm pretty sure the SSD is soldered in these new ones. Possibly the RAM as well.
 
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