macbook is worth for plc programs ??

[bavly]

I wanna buy macbook pro M1 ship , i need some experince from someone has already used it before , is it worth for using it for plc programs like ( simatix step 7 , logixpro , scada , TIA portal  ) or I am wrong ??

 

Edited August 31, 2021 by bavly

[pturmel]

It is an ARM processor, not Intel or x86 compatible.  IIUC, Parallels and VMWare don't support it yet.  And may never effectively support Windows x86 VMs, so pretty much any major PLC brand's software is a no-go.

Parallels is trying, supposedly.

Anyways, don't waste your money (yet).

[bavly]

so macbook intel is better ?
 

[pturmel]

I don't like Apple business practices, so I don't buy Apple hardware.  Of any kind.  Ever.  That said, an Intel MacBook can run Parallels, and so can then run Windows, which is necessary for pretty much all PLC programming packages out in the real world.  Which the ARM MacBook cannot.

[panic mode]

ditto about Apple... 

btw. if you want to run some PLC software, read the specification. Each software tells you what the minimum requirements are. That is the bottom line. However, you probably want to scale that up or you will be often sitting and waiting a lot even for silliest thing. I would suggest at to at least double RAM and CPU from whatever minimum requirements are - just be be able to explore what given software can do. To actually use it comfortably, scale up that multiplier. In fact if you are programming, you are never using only one piece of software. Rather you may run several large applications or instances of same applications... so don't be shy to bump that multiplier higher. need to get the right tool for the job.

simply "it can run windows" is not enough...  

[Joe E.]

Whatever you do, RAM is your friend. Figure out how much you need...and get more. I run all of my automation software inside VMWare virtual machines. The 32 bit VMs (WinXP, Win7) have 4GB of RAM each, the 64 bit Win7 and Win10 ones have 8GB. The host is running Win10 and has 32GB, which I wouldn't mind expanding some. It can run 2-3 VMs without issue but does still bog down occasionally, especially when I'm running a couple of VMs, Excel, Outlook, and AutoCAD all at the same time.

[panic mode]

exactly... 8 core CPU, 16Gb RAM and 1TB SSD here. couple of years old and does the job but i would not mind more RAM and disk space.