100% agree that Apple pricing is a scam.

I bought the computers before the M4 came out and I bought them overbuilt because I wanted to future proof them to a certain extent.

I have more than enough plugins and I can afford to pay for a certain amount of digital privacy and security in an environment where that has been eviscerated at a faster and faster pace. It’s not going to slow down. In the USA, privacy laws are predicated on an expectation of privacy, which is largely disappearing or gone.

Whether or not the AI is currently mandatory, or is intrusive in a way that you are aware of, is not the measure by which I’m making my decisions.

Everyone is free to use technology as they want, but more and more things are becoming very difficult to avoid by design.

The Ai thing for me is all risk and no benefit. It’s simply easier to avoid for right now - for me. You do you. Those M4’s are priced to sell. The new iPhones are as well. That pricing is very compelling.

I’m going to avoid it for as long as I can, without expending too much time, energy, and money worrying about it. I don’t need it and I don’t want it.

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Yes, in Settings under Apple Intelligence and Siri is a toggle to turn it off.

I'm going to go down to [like our last Computer shop], and look at cases they have displayed ... think there was a Lian-Li and some others.

Brutal just looking at some pix and desc , without any hands on viewing. This is what's 'not good' about only On-Line shopping

I did get to what a Define 7 vid showing some of the innards .... looked like a lot of Screws to be working with.
Almost tedious.

In a different review, several comments regarding noise from the spinners transferring to the whole case ... even with the insulators installed.

My Lian-Li case uses a shock-mount suspension/ anti-vibration design ... seems somewhat effective ...

lookin', lookin' .......

Yeah the Define 7 is a bit older and it shows - it's not as easy to work with inside. As I said for the Define I would replace all the fans (for the torrent just the 140mm ones)

Lian - Li is always quality too.

Thanks PhasyNyquist,

I was leaning to stay Lian-Li ... good cases ...

If I can find one that handles min of at least 4 - spinners ... and no light show ... then maybe go external box for the extra drives ...

Possible nice with that, would be hot/swap a spinner in the external. [not that I want/need to do that often].

If only 4 [as the TomaH has only 4 SADA's ... might need to get larger Tera drives, and transfer ... fun.

Might can put the Plextor on an external connect.

The world has changed ... maybe all not for the better ...

Thanks again for sharing your insights.

So you've recreated the iLok dongle.

It's a shame Corsair stopped making the Carbide series - I have a 330R Titanium and it is excellent with it's sound-damping matting inside. I have the front fans connected to the switch which is generally set on silent unless I notice temps getting uncomfortable. Liquid cooled so generally stays around 45C.

To be honest, if I were you - I would build a new PC with maybe 2 Harddrives - and use the old one to built a NAS with something like unraid (that also does automatic backups from the PC + into the cloud) - where the rest of the harddrives. live

Yeah, I've been sticking on Sonoma for various reasons, but (unconfirmed), check with iterative updates that it doesn't turn it back "on" as I have read others complain about as default...

For the latest version of Logic etc, the AI stuff plays in on some of it's functionality if one wants that... but that's up to he individual if that's worth it for them vs other concerns...

After an OS update it *would* get turned back on, either by design or due to a bug, but the last few updates it has stayed off for me.

fwiw... rjhollins

i bought a new pc not long ago, a prebuilt here... and it's been great.

i grew up building pc's for myself and others and had a lot of fun doing it, but there came a point were prebuilt's were a better bang for the buck and sooo much less work... so i stopped building pc's... happily so.

with this latest one, all i did was put win10 on it and up the ram to 64gb... other than that, just configure the system and install apps and go... and it's been great.

the case is fine... you can turn off the lights or not and configure it in many other different ways as well.

it's not a rocket ship, but it's plenty fast for what i need and the fan noise is minimal sitting on the floor in front of my desk.

i say all this because i feel your pain, and do understand the time and effort it takes to build your own pc.

i say, why not let someone else figure all that out and put it all together and i'll just buy it and use it... and save time and money as well.

it's a good deal for me.

just something to consider, as you are still in the very beginning stages of the build your own process... still have to buy all the parts and hope they all work... build it and hope it all works together... configure it and use it and hope it's stable and meets your needs.

it's a lot of work.

but i do wish you the best and will be here watching the process, thankful it's not me.

Apple intentionally turned AI back on in an effort to jam it down our throats. I didn't appreciate that. Recent updates have stopped doing that.

seems there are always some things that are turned back on by default during updates

for this reason and many more, i don't usually update os's, unless a vital software update demands it... so if ableton 12 needed a later system build in order to run, i'd do it... but other than that... nope.

and as far as "security" goes... to me, it's just a scare tactic and a joke... if someone wants to mess with you, track you, take your data, use your id, etc... they will regardless of what system you're running and how many updates that system has.

yep... best way to stay safe online is to... not be online lol

p.s. but like i have said before... "if someone steals my identity they will have to pay me to take it back"

p.p.s. yes i quote myself lol

Interesting concept ...

If/when I needed to bring a Project back in for work [off the Cloud], I'd have to download it to one of the internal spinners ?

I hear ya Lazoo.

I've been on a few 'custom build' sites whenever I was researching a build ... to see what others did.

This go round ... I've not yet found a build I'd want [US]. ... but its' only been a couple weeks looking around ... most is to learn of the new technology [9 yr gap since I last looked closely].
And really ... the outstanding mystery is finding the proper Case [quiet, Cool, Size] ... if I need to replace Fans, or add more ... and that's only to do it from the start when beginning assembly.

Since I've been battling with Vertigo [not the movie] ... I'm not confident I can do the bending over a case ... or looking up/down ... so I have a Tech guy on hire/consult and assembly ... tweek ..., and transfer Win-10 stuff to Win-11, etc.

I'm fairly certain that the base components are the best I want to do ... it's only wise to keep considerations open, until the final piece comes together ... review ... if thumbs up ... order.

Since I'm not going to gut and transfer my current machine ... I can continue to work as the build progresses.

So all good !

Hey ... I just had a break in Projects, and was finally able to update Reaper from 6.83 to v7.40 . My custom Script was corrected, and now works in v7 ... so ... progress !!!

Again ... thanks to all contributors ! I'm sure I'm not the only one doing things like this.