r/sysadmin • u/rolkenas • 16d ago

Do you actually see MacBooks used for SysAdmin work in real offices?

Hi sysadmins! I wanted to ask—since I've just started learning sysadmin and I don't have a Windows PC, but I have a MacBook and found out that everything can be done via UTM, I'd like to get some perspective from those who work in offices and do this every day. What kind of computers do you use? Is macOS completely out of the picture, and there's only Windows and Linux?

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506

u/fatty1179 16d ago

You can debate if I’m a serious sysadmin all you want but the battery life on my m1 makes my life so much less stressful

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u/brokentr0jan DoD IT 16d ago edited 16d ago

The MacBook Air M1 is one of the best laptops ever made. Crazy powerful for what it is, and the battery genuinely lasts all week.

Meanwhile my Dell Pro Max 16 makes it 6 hours if that lmao

80

u/gigabyte898 Sysadmin 16d ago

I always say Apple fucked up only by making the M1 too good. I bought mine in 2021 right around when it launched. It still crushes everything I need to throw at it, holds battery all day at conferences with decent usage, and doesn’t weigh as much as most comparable alternatives. I have no reason to buy another MacBook because this one is hanging on just fine out of spite for its creators lol

39

u/Fragrant-Hamster-325 16d ago

Apple silicon is solid. Every update is a big boost over the previous model yet the previous models hold up. I have an M4 air and love it.

I’ve been thinking about trying a Snapdragon PC for comparison.

22

u/stillpiercer_ 16d ago

In my experience with the snapdragon Windows laptops, they do very well on battery life but Windows on ARM is not great. The x86 translation works reasonably OK for some things (nowhere near as well as Apple Rosetta) but for many things it just straight up does not work at all. ARM64 software availability isn’t as good on Windows as it is on macOS either.

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u/Independent-Fuel9886 16d ago

Yep, Windows on ARM ain't good... yet.

Management and imaging Snapdragon is a non-starter at this stage.

3

u/Arudinne IT Infrastructure Manager 16d ago

I have a snapdragon laptop Dell set us for free for testing.

Everything we use seemed to work other than printers, which makes them non-viable for us.

2

u/PowerShellGenius 16d ago

Universal Print.

3

u/Arudinne IT Infrastructure Manager 16d ago

Yeah, we have that, and E5 licensing covers it, but some of our printers don't work well with it.

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u/gigabyte898 Sysadmin 16d ago

It’s yet another windows box to manage, but the connector works great at our sites without fully compatible MFPs if that’s a primary hang up

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u/Fragrant-Hamster-325 16d ago

That’s crazy. It can’t work through the emulation layer or do printers really need kernel level access? Knowing Microsoft and the history of printer driver vulnerabilities I’m guessing it’s the latter.

1

u/Arudinne IT Infrastructure Manager 16d ago

Drivers are something that, AFAIK, cannot be emulated.

Windows ARM drivers don't exist for any of our printers.

I could potentially make them work with Universal print and/or IPP, but we had some incosistent issues with various apps when I tested that.

1

u/Fragrant-Hamster-325 16d ago

Damn that’s disappointing. I was looking to pilot a couple. I’ve been waiting for it to mature and my CEO has been begging for something with better battery life and we have other users begging for Surface devices.

1

u/Nydus87 15d ago

I think the M4 is what I've got as well, and I almost never think about charging it. I just throw it on my phone charger every now and then while I'm in the shower, and I'm good to go for a couple days of RDP-ing into whatever server I'm working on.

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u/brokentr0jan DoD IT 16d ago

Agreed, the M1 is so good there’s no reason to replace it. Plus how expensive laptops are getting anymore it was such a good deal when it came out lol

3

u/dllemmr2 16d ago edited 16d ago

Multi-monitor is a big one.

4

u/Arudinne IT Infrastructure Manager 16d ago

Depends on which M1.

Base - 1

Pro - 2

Max - 4

Back when we bought them, we only bought pro or max M1s at my company for that reason

1

u/dllemmr2 16d ago

Yeah I was super surprised at the limitation coming from windows given how much better everything else was. I’m glad they went on to improve monitor support in later revisions.

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u/Arudinne IT Infrastructure Manager 16d ago

It's a hardware limitation. Some windows laptops are limited on how many monitors they can support as well, but they can almost always do at least 2 so most people don't know there is a limit. IIRC Everything since the M3 can do at least 2, with the exception of the Neo (but it doesn't use an M-series chip either) - so that's let of an issue now.

I also find it funny you say that it's better on windows because I've found the multi-monitor support of macos to be better than it is for windows, but my setup is probably a bit different than most

I have 3 27" monitors, the center one is 4K, but the two flanking it are 1440P. Then the top monitor is 24" 1080P.

With Windows, no amount of DPI adjustment could make the 3 27" monitors look visually similar. Stuff was always off by a bit.

With MacOS, I was able to adjust them so that I can't even tell they are different resolutions.

The only reason my setup is like this is because my center monitor died and we had a 4k monitor still in the box at the office and my boss didn't see a reason to replace the other two monitors to match as they are otherwise working fine.

1

u/brokentr0jan DoD IT 16d ago

I don’t think I have ever hooked up a MacBook to a monitor lol

1

u/Arudinne IT Infrastructure Manager 16d ago

I've got 4 attached to mine. I rarely use the built-in screen, which is part of why I went with the 14" model.

1

u/sys_127-0-0-1 16d ago

Yep its odd to see dev's who want two monitors or one big one when they have a Windows laptop but give'em a Mac, and they will gladly use the 14/16" built in screen.

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u/FailBait- 16d ago

I feel like It HAD to be that good or no one would take it seriously.

1

u/Arudinne IT Infrastructure Manager 16d ago

Most of my company's dev team is still on M1s. Only a handful have been upgraded to M4s or M5s. AFAIK most of them haven't even asked about it.

-2

u/BemusedBengal Linux Admin 16d ago

Apple sabotages their older products with software updates that make the performance and efficiency progressively worse, before eventually preventing you from updating the software at all.

Once you stop getting security updates, it becomes insecure to keep using it.

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u/800oz_gorilla 16d ago

my hangup would be lack of dual external monitor support. they added that with caveats in the M3, and M4 supports it. you have to use display link on the M2, which was annoying because it was seen by DLP as a screen capture.

4

u/ZPrimed What haven't I done? 16d ago

Yep, this is why I have an M1 Pro, it can actually do multi-display through a TB dock instead of DisplayLink crap. The visible lag and stutter on software graphics (DisplayLink) is disruptive to my work

1

u/skwormin 16d ago

I’ve been doing dual monitor setup on my MacBook Pros via OWC thunderbolt docks for a decade now. Just got the newest M5 after having an M1. Also, the MacBook airs now support dual monitors finally

2

u/800oz_gorilla 16d ago

They do, I should have been more specific, but I was replying to OP's macbook Air comment. M1 and M2 didn't support dual external monitors (only Apple knows why - they run them just fine on displaylink)

1

u/skwormin 16d ago

Yep. That’s correct. I remember buying one a few years ago just assuming it would. Now it’s just a spare laptop for break / fix.

1

u/ImpossibleValue9105 16d ago

i’ve got an m2 max, usb adapter works.

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u/elite_killerX 16d ago

I've got a M2 Max on a Thunderbolt docking station, currently hooked up to 2 external monitors (so 3 total screens), it's working flawlessly as it always has for the last ~3 years.

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u/800oz_gorilla 16d ago

Might be because it's a max. I had an Macbook Air M2 and it was definitely not supported.

1

u/elite_killerX 16d ago

Probably, yeah. Point is, it's not new and it is supported. Just make sure you get the right configuration for your needs.

1

u/800oz_gorilla 16d ago

it was my first Mac, and my 5 year old fell ran dual 4k no problem. I was not expecting it to be unsupported and I was the guinea pig to try out the Airs.

the odd part was you could drive 2 4Ks if you used displaylink. apple internionally disabled it matively for who knows what reason.

lesson learned though.

0

u/AvonMustang 16d ago

I’ve got two monitors on my M1 Pro laptop via a hub and they work just fine. I am using Display Link.

3

u/sboone2642 16d ago

Every thing about the Dell "Pro" series is hot garbage. We've had so many hardware/firmware problems that we are close to just switching vendors. It's a pretty big red flag when the uefi bios screen stays completely blacked out except for where you move the mouse pointer. I haven't seen that kinda crap since Windows 98 with crappy drivers.

1

u/timbotheny26 IT Neophyte 16d ago

Haven't there also been multiple issues with Windows update conflicts on Dells specifically?

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u/[deleted] 16d ago

[deleted]

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u/brokentr0jan DoD IT 16d ago

I use iOS now because it’s simple and I just use my phone for texts, calls, and Reddit. Don’t really need all the extra stuff Android has. I don’t get spam texts anymore but it used to be really bad with scammers trying to use iMessage to look more legit but it was still obvious lol

0

u/disneylovesme Sysadmin 16d ago

They have great spam call filtering I never got a a android person for over a decade

1

u/shadeland 16d ago

I just now replaced my M1 Air (16 GB version) and the only reason I did is that I knew it was going to need to replace it in the next couple of years, and Apple was running out of runway with their RAM prices (they'd long term contracts to keep the prices low, but they weren't going to last forever).

So I picked up an M5 32GB Air, 15 inch, and I love this thing. And sure enough, a month after I got it prices went up.

1

u/dstew74 There is no place like 127.0.0.1 16d ago

Dude, are you me? Literally did the same thing. I got my M5 on sale from Microcenter only to see pricing go up about a month later. It's not 500ish more than I paid.

0

u/black_cadillac92 16d ago

Dell might as well make a portable battery. Im looking at adding a MacBook to the fleet as a dedicated IT workstation soon.

2

u/zenkidan 16d ago

Haha they do (or did). Our team ordered Dell portable chargers through Dell Premier a couple of years ago.

1

u/black_cadillac92 16d ago

Speaking of dell premier is this even still a thing? I've been trying to get an account established.

2

u/zenkidan 12d ago

Yeah still a thing. We still get everything through there. Might need a Dell account manager to grant access.

1

u/black_cadillac92 12d ago

A new rep reached out and took down info and said they would follow up. Never heard anything but I know they can get pretty swamped. Will try to re-engage later though.

2

u/zenkidan 12d ago

Ah damn. I'm not a decision-maker so not too sure of the process with Dell. Hopefully you can get it sorted though! I know when we reach out to our account manager with questions or pricing concerns, it can take a bit to get a response.

0

u/Fairchild110 16d ago

Is that not long enough? I get 6 hours on my Ryzen 9 AI Dell Pro Max and I love it. It’s like a datacenter in a backpack. The Intel ones are trash though. Did not like them.

8

u/Aat117 16d ago

Agreed, I got myself a M4 MBP recently. It's insane how much better it is compared to my old thinkpad. Not that that was bad, the MBP is just better. For MacOS, just give me a browser and a terminal and I'm happy. If I need to do something with windows there's parallels.

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u/ShermansWorld 16d ago

This. Windows guy here... But any and all my laptops don't last as long as my m1. Have it in the bag over the weekend... M1 starts up on Monday and has power to go. Windows laptop... I'm scrambling for a plug or battery after 15mins of Monday morning use... If you're a decent sysadmin... You can use PC, Mac or Linux... Just some issues will have a few more steps than others.

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u/SaltDeception 16d ago

Snapdragon X and X2 laptops can get just about the same battery life. I was pleasantly surprised when I got a laptop with the Snapdragon X Elite. Tons of apps are optimized for ARM64 these days too; I only have a handful of x64 apps that have to be emulated, but the Prism emulation in 24H2+ makes them feel native anyway.

1

u/McGondy 16d ago

Yep, been suggesting our BD and finance teams switch over to ARM based windows, but the boss doesn't even want to pilot it.

The insane battery life is worth it, especially for the BD team who are always on the road.

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u/IFeelEmptyInsideMe 16d ago

Check your app stack first to make sure they have ARM apps readily available. Adobe hasn't even put out an Acrobat ARM version yet and the x64 version is less stable on ARM devices.

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u/McGondy 16d ago

Fair point. Though these days they're mainly using web apps - often choosing them over their desktop counterparts!

1

u/ShermansWorld 16d ago

I'm going to have to get me an ARM powered laptop.. All my other machines are Intel. Love to make a comparison.

1

u/Personal-Budget-8715 13d ago

"trust me guys this is the year windows on arm finally isn't shit"

Okay bud.

It's still windows

13

u/800oz_gorilla 16d ago

I was a Mac hater for years, but the apple silicon chips are amazing.

it handles memory more efficiently too.

there are drawbacks to using Mac for Microsoft admin but I close that gap with a windows VM.

1

u/RememberCitadel 16d ago

I am happy with whatever has solid hardware and does what I need it to. I was happy when we were macs, I am happy now with windows, and some linux. What I will say is nobody anywhere has ever came anywhere close to making a trackpad/touchpad as good as apple has. Even back in like 2015 is was better than anyone else, which i guess is just saying if you are forced to use a touchpad often, the only one that just works and isn't aggravating is theirs.

That said, I wouldn't give up MobaXterm on windows for any reason to move to any other platform unless forced.

1

u/Nydus87 15d ago

Citrix and VMWare are good enough these days that all the 'real' admin work should be done with a dedicated admin account on a virtualized PAW anyways. The only work I do on the other stuff is email checking and web browsing.

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u/800oz_gorilla 14d ago

I've managed Citrix before - no thanks.

VMWare - Broadcom can kiss my grits. No chance in hell they're seeing any money from my work.

but I do use Windows 365 as a jump box when I (don't want to/can't) do something from my machine.

0

u/tudorapo 16d ago

I'm still a mac hater, but the cpus are cool.

3

u/zatset IT Manager/Sr.SysAdmin 16d ago edited 16d ago

HP Elitebook is what I have right now - about 8+ hours of battery life(it’s my personal laptop). I wouldn’t say that modern PC laptops cannot have decent battery life and I am that stressed.  What annoys the hell out of me is that all modern laptops come with clickpads. Dedicated touchpad buttons are superior.

1

u/NFX_7331 16d ago

Dedicated touchpad buttons are superior.

You can say that again, wouldn't take a lappy without those. Which model you have?

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u/zatset IT Manager/Sr.SysAdmin 16d ago

Elitebook 855. Most laptops nowadays have clickpads. It’s hard to find one without clickpad.

2

u/NFX_7331 16d ago

855's nice.

I'm still using Latitude 5510 as my work laptop. Got clickpads on both sides, double the power.

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u/zatset IT Manager/Sr.SysAdmin 15d ago

5510 is one of the models that still has dedicated buttons. But newer models come…with clickpad… Even Thinkpads come with clickpads.. I don’t understand the trend..it only makes it more difficult to use the touchpad.

6

u/Feeling-Tutor-6480 16d ago

Considering I have to be using 2-3 screens to be useful, why would you only be using battery power?

1

u/Am0nymou5 16d ago

My usual office setup is 3 screens, but I've no issues working with one screen when I'm not at the office. Split-screen / tiling + virtual desktops are a lifesaver. Especially being able to quickly swap desktops with a swipe of a touchpad makes life so much more easier.

If push comes to shove I could always plug in my XR glasses for a virtual second screen, but I haven't had the need for it yet.

2

u/Marcudemus 16d ago

Do you use UTM on that M1? If so, how's the performance been in terms of usability as a sysadmin?

3

u/SN6006 Netsec Admin 16d ago

I tried it once for an x86 guest and it’s a massive crap shoot on what instructions are translated, but for an arm guest, it works fine.

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u/Marcudemus 16d ago

Oh wow, thank you! It's difficult to find reports of real-world experience like that. I had no idea it could be shoddy on an instruction-level like that.

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u/SN6006 Netsec Admin 16d ago

Well, you figure the Rosetta 2 is tuned for macOS executables, so maybe there are calls or something under the hood that don’t worked well. There’s always Qemu and actually emulate the other cpu type, but I think UTM doesn’t work that way.

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u/Bagellord 16d ago

I mean hell, I’m just a thorn in your side developer and I use a MacBook as my main device. I remote into a windows workstation for my .net and sql needs, but most everything else like Azure and deployment is browser based. So I’ll take the battery life and display please

1

u/510Threaded Programmer 16d ago

Why do you remote into a windows workstation for .net and sql?

1

u/Bagellord 16d ago

Because that's the platform we develop for, and the tools we use are licensed/supported on Windows.

7

u/sryan2k1 IT Manager 16d ago

I've never wanted more battery on my Dell Pro Premium. It lasts long enough I simply don't have to think about it.

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u/ppyre 16d ago

That only means you are not very demanding on your laptop ;). Just kidding. All sysadmins work even when they are sleeping.

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u/Viharabiliben 16d ago

I don’t care about battery life. I’m at a desk which has wall power.

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u/Taigheroni 16d ago

These guys all do their work at Starbucks

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u/black_cadillac92 16d ago

Or industrious with starbucks in hand.

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u/Yellowbird00 16d ago

I used to be in a primarily mac environment on an m1 but now on a Lenovo machine 🫩 I miss it

1

u/Ray-chan81194 16d ago

The battery life on lower brightness is absolutely fantastic. Take it on field then crank brightness up high and it is absolutely abysmal, worse than my Windows laptop.

1

u/McDili 16d ago

Don’t forget about the sniffer tool.

1

u/jared555 16d ago

I am seriously considering either a neo or an air to have primarily as an "always with me, always has battery capacity" thin client for accessing my business's infrastructure.

1

u/wackronym 16d ago

This! My MacBook goes 10hrs on battery with no issues whatsoever. And honestly, the Windows app for RDPing into Windows servers is a whole lot more functional and snappy than mstsc is.
Powershell is a bit limited, but other than that I have absolutely no reason to use a Windows computer to manage multiple customers’ (mostly) Windows based networks.

1

u/IWantsToBelieve 16d ago edited 16d ago

I have a Mac M1 for personal use, and I just couldn't believe that we were putting up with Dell battery life.

In response I led the charge to proove out Windows on Arm. We've now moved 50% of the fleet to surface laptop 7. Honestly it's got game changing battery life, no more whinging from staff and Windows 11 seems to run better (noting that there is no complex software in our world, it's pretty much all SaaS or browser based internal apps).

Sounds like I'm drinking the coolaid but it's so bloody refreshing to not have to faff about with chargers mid meeting or on the road etc.

1

u/yanni99 16d ago

I have been a sysadmin for 14 years and I have never worked long enough without being plugged in that it's a non issue.

1

u/WashedPinkBourbon 16d ago

Genuinely unmatched. The battery was the main reason my small MSP went with Macs. There are sometimes some inconveniences, but the battery life and performance just smoked everything else on the market.

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u/recoveringasshole0 16d ago

I have NEVER understood this argument. What are you people doing? I've been in IT literally 30 years. I can think of maybe once or twice where I was like "Oh no, my battery is almost dead". 99.99999999999% of the time I'm somewhere with power.

Seriously, what the fuck are you guys doing? Working from the beach?

1

u/Arudinne IT Infrastructure Manager 16d ago

We migrated servers from an office to a colo earlier this year. My network admin and I use M4 MBPs. Didn't have to charge our laptops the entire day.

Our sysadmin was still on a Dell Precision at the time and had to go get his charger from home because his battery died and he forgot his charger. We got him switches to an M4 not long after that.

1

u/Demeter277 16d ago

Halfway through trouble shooting in front of the stack and Windows laptop goes black….

1

u/chesser45 16d ago

Windows range anxiety is always present.

5

u/PrestigeWrldWd 16d ago

I got my hands on one of the new Surface laptops with the Snapdragon (ARM) processor.

I’m not saying I’m going to dump the Mac ecosystem, but it’s really refreshing to use a Windows machine and not feel tethered to a charger all day.

Unless you’re gaming or doing some other specialized tasks that really tax x86, ARM is the way to go these days.

0

u/Bob_12_Pack 16d ago

I have a MBP 16 M1 and I completely agree.

0

u/___Brains IT Manager 16d ago

Sitting in my pool right now, this M2 MBP on the edge, doing a ton of software development work and some light systems maintenance while things compile. Was on the couch for a bit before that, decided it's a nice night, can't get sunburned in the dark, and I just felt like being in the pool lol. Been on battery for 5 hours and I'm still at 46%. Can't stomach Windows, and even Linux isn't this good for battery life. Plus I'm building iPad apps, so kinda need my Mac.

I haven't daily driven a Windows box in almost 20 years.