I've just bought a quad core 2.8GHz Mac Pro 5.1 and am already considering which upgrades and setup to do. Excuse my ignorance, but here are a few newbie questions:
Memory
It came with 8GB of RAM. I'll be using it mainly for photography (Photoshop and Lightroom) but later also some light video editing and music recording. From what I've read I need at least 12 or 16GB for serious photography use.
I hear that I need to get "matched pairs" which I assume means two memory sticks that go well together. But can I add another matched pair later which will work properly with the first matched pair (same brand/model/memory size), or do I need to get 4 matched memory sticks at once if I ever plan to populate all 4 memory slots?
(I'm thinking 16GB (2x 8GB) might be enough for now, but who knows if I need 32GB (4x 8GB) at some stage).
Also, should I be concerned about using all 4 memory slots instead of just 3 (people say this is the ultimate RAM setup) or is the speed increase nothing to be concerned about in real life although it makes a difference on paper?
Finally, does it make much of a difference which brand I go for? OWC, Crucial, Kingston etc....
In any case I suppose I should get the faster 1333MHz types (instead of 1066MHz) in case I upgrade the processor to a 6-core Westmere, right?
Hard drive setup
The Mac came with 1x 1TB WD black hard drive. My initial plan is to expand with 3 additional hard drives and one (or two SSDs):
- 2x 1TB hast hard drives in RAID 0 (file storage/user area)
- 1x 3TB hard drive for Time Machine backup
- 1x 3TB hard drive for Carbon Copy Cloner bootable additional backup
- 1x SSD for boot (MacOSX) and applications -not sure which size yet
- 1x SSD (if necessary, some say it isn't with enough memory) as a Photoshop scratch disk -also not sure of size yet.
Obviously I'll skip the dedicated scratch disk if it doesn't make much sense, to save some cash. Comments on my drive setup suggestion above?
SSD
OWC (obviously) and DigLloyd's Mac Performance Guide give the OWC SSDs high praises. Apparently, besides running blazingly fast they have better file management/"garbage collection" features etc. Am I really better off with an OWC drive than anything else or are there other brands/models worth considering which are just as reliable, fast and doesn't degrade as time goes by (apparently the OWC drives work better in that respect according to DigLloyd if I've understood correctly).
The reason I ask is because I don't live in the States and would rather avoid any shipping/warranty/import duty hassles by purchasing locally instead.
Without any SATA-III support, would buying a SATA-III SSD (as opposed to SATA-II) be a waste of money, or is performance so much better with 6G that I should instead consider in getting a SATA-III PCIe card for use with a 6G SSD, or alternatively something like a Velocity Solo X2 PCIe card (which would also allow me to attach a second SSD in case I do need a dedicated, separate SSD for Photoshop's scratch disk)?
Thanks for any comments to the above
Memory
It came with 8GB of RAM. I'll be using it mainly for photography (Photoshop and Lightroom) but later also some light video editing and music recording. From what I've read I need at least 12 or 16GB for serious photography use.
I hear that I need to get "matched pairs" which I assume means two memory sticks that go well together. But can I add another matched pair later which will work properly with the first matched pair (same brand/model/memory size), or do I need to get 4 matched memory sticks at once if I ever plan to populate all 4 memory slots?
(I'm thinking 16GB (2x 8GB) might be enough for now, but who knows if I need 32GB (4x 8GB) at some stage).
Also, should I be concerned about using all 4 memory slots instead of just 3 (people say this is the ultimate RAM setup) or is the speed increase nothing to be concerned about in real life although it makes a difference on paper?
Finally, does it make much of a difference which brand I go for? OWC, Crucial, Kingston etc....
In any case I suppose I should get the faster 1333MHz types (instead of 1066MHz) in case I upgrade the processor to a 6-core Westmere, right?
Hard drive setup
The Mac came with 1x 1TB WD black hard drive. My initial plan is to expand with 3 additional hard drives and one (or two SSDs):
- 2x 1TB hast hard drives in RAID 0 (file storage/user area)
- 1x 3TB hard drive for Time Machine backup
- 1x 3TB hard drive for Carbon Copy Cloner bootable additional backup
- 1x SSD for boot (MacOSX) and applications -not sure which size yet
- 1x SSD (if necessary, some say it isn't with enough memory) as a Photoshop scratch disk -also not sure of size yet.
Obviously I'll skip the dedicated scratch disk if it doesn't make much sense, to save some cash. Comments on my drive setup suggestion above?
SSD
OWC (obviously) and DigLloyd's Mac Performance Guide give the OWC SSDs high praises. Apparently, besides running blazingly fast they have better file management/"garbage collection" features etc. Am I really better off with an OWC drive than anything else or are there other brands/models worth considering which are just as reliable, fast and doesn't degrade as time goes by (apparently the OWC drives work better in that respect according to DigLloyd if I've understood correctly).
The reason I ask is because I don't live in the States and would rather avoid any shipping/warranty/import duty hassles by purchasing locally instead.
Without any SATA-III support, would buying a SATA-III SSD (as opposed to SATA-II) be a waste of money, or is performance so much better with 6G that I should instead consider in getting a SATA-III PCIe card for use with a 6G SSD, or alternatively something like a Velocity Solo X2 PCIe card (which would also allow me to attach a second SSD in case I do need a dedicated, separate SSD for Photoshop's scratch disk)?
Thanks for any comments to the above
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