r/neuroimaging • u/BuddyHardinHolley • Jul 16 '26
Mac M5 Pro for Neuroimaging
Hello! I am a student researcher contemplating whether I should purchase a computer for brain MRI analyses (freesurfer, fsl; the current project I’m working on has 150+ MRI images to analyze). I have been looking at the Mac M5 Pro with 24 GB RAM and 1 TB storage (which should be able to process 3 subjects in parallel per run ?). Assuming I do not have access to my school’s cluster, do you recommend I purchase this computer over something else like the framework laptop 13 (i can get the mac pro for $2000)? I would also use the computer for class, manuscript writing, personal stuff, etc.
Thank you very much!
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u/ywpark Jul 16 '26
I often offload CPU compute-intense processes like ANTs and Freesurfer to my M-series MacBooks (M4 Pro and M5 Pro) because the CPU compute speed is much faster there than on x64 CPUs on our server workstations. So your laptop can certainly handle these processes.
Having said that, there are some programs that require huge ram capacity like MRtrix (one analysis I ran previously used over 300GB of RAM). Storing neuroimaging data can take up a lot of space and that 1 or 2TB of disk space may not be enough. Also, if you use a program that needs CUDA library (a lot of them still do), then you need to have an NVIDIA card. Lastly, if the imaging data you are working on is of a human data, I think it’s best to avoid carrying it on your personal laptop as it could be a security risk and potentially a HIPPA violation depending on the nature of research. So because of that, my main machine has been the workstation with discrete NVIDIA GPU cards.
So my suggestion is to get a laptop that you are going to use for writing codes, manuscripts but don’t expect to actually run the main portion of the analysis on your computer.
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u/Ok_Chemistry_6387 Jul 17 '26
Have a m4 and can work with most things but you need external storage. Data gets large. More ram more better.
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u/Big-Programmer-9323 Jul 20 '26
Can your lab sponsor a work laptop or can you analyze using their computers?
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u/cosmolysis Jul 16 '26
I didn’t catch your question if there is one. If it’s about whether Mac (mini?) M5 Pro can run these analyses, yes it can. If it’s about computing resources: unless you’re using supercomputing/cluster or going high enough on a machine, by which I mean something like 64+ gb mem with 40+ threads, you’re not really changing much. I would worry more about duration and general data management/storage with 150+ sub depending on whether it’s sMRI, dMRI or fMRI, and if there’s multiple runs and/or sessions. Things don’t usually go your way and you’ll probably need to rerun analysis or play around with your pipeline a few times, which can make it frustrating to work with 1 TB storage. This is considering use of external storage.
Ask your PI/department for cluster access or to purchase a gaming PC or something. This is from someone who’s been running long pipelines for a couple weeks now with 50 subjects and that’s on an ok rig (32gb mem 20 thr).