Hi there,
I have run into some problems that are really affecting my productivity and am hoping someone can help me isolate the problem(s). I understand there are a lot of factors so please ask if you need more information…but on the flipside I hope I didn’t provide too much making this a tedious task to troubleshoot….
I have two machines:
MacPro 1
(aka tiger,server)
2.66 GHz Dual Core
8 gb RAM
10.4.11 Tiger
OS on separate 500gb drive
Mirrored Raid using 1tb Seagate Barracuda Drives to store all work files. This computer acts as a server as well as a work station.
MacPro 2
(aka snow leopard, work station)
2.66 Ghz Quad Core
3 gb RAM
10.6.2 Snow Leopard
This machine is virtually empty, brand new and 90% of files are accessed on the raided drives on Mac Pro 1
Here is a timeline that may help point to the culprit(s):
- Purchased Mac Pro 1
- Used Mac Pro 1 for a couple years with 4 gb of RAM and it worked well running CS3 programs, Lightroom, Photomechanic etc...
- Added 1tb mirrored drives and upgraded memory to 8gb
- Performance slowed down after this, figured it was because of the RAID. But the machine was still very reliable with little to no freeze ups
- Approx 3 years later, purchased Mac Pro 2 with leopard installed, the machine seemed to run well (as it should).
- Connected the two computers through a router and it was rather slow to access files
- Connected the two computers using an ethernet cable and and there was a noticeable speed improvement accessing files
- Both computers seemed to run reasonable well with the exception of what is mentioned above with the RAID.
- Mac pro 2 began to run slow. Finder would freeze up. Perhaps a useless point but I rearranged my office, successfully added a windows machine onto the network but I may have messed with some network settings by accident?
- I decided to try and upgrade the Mac Pro 2 to snow leopard since I heard of the speed increase and thought it may help fix this new unexplained slowness
- Mac Pro 2 is now really slow and the upgrade introduced a lot of program errors mainly in adobe CS3 software and finder (perhaps a network problem?). Tried some CS4 programs and they run better as expected but I am surprised at how slow the CS3 ones run after the "upgrade". CS3 now returns more errors on Mac Pro 1 which it has never done before.
- Finder is very slow on the snow leopard machine when accessing files on the network or locally.
OTHER INFO:
- I ran disk utility and there were some errors on the snow leopard machine. They all seemed related to safari. I repaired this and now there are no errors
- I regularly run onyx and disk utility on mac pro one to check for errors. There are no errors.
- I checked for duplicate fonts in font book and there were none (read this tip somewhere)
- I purchased more RAM (8gb) for the MacPro running snow leopard (should arrive any day now). Hopefully this at least helps. When I run activity monitor on Mac Pro 2 there is very little free memory when running Photoshop CS3 or Photomechanic.
- Adobe CS3 software ran a little better before upgrading to snow leopard but not significantly. Indesign CS3 is now practically unusable. The Indesign CS4 demo I am currently using runs very well.
- Photo mechanic is now nearly unusable on both machines
- I am using a Cat 5e cable
- Sometimes when I am accessing a file on the server and working on it in photoshop I will get a program error when saving “The file saying it is in use”. I have tried restarting PS and the machine. The problem does not go away until I restart the server from where I am accessing the file from.
- Photoshop on both machines is now returning a lot of errors. Some are as generic as “cannot complete your request because of a program error”. Photoshop used to run great on Mac Pro 1.
I don’t want to come across like I am looking to troubleshoot adobe software and photomechanic. But I am hoping someone can help me sort out any of these bugs and if I need to upgrade to CS4 for the snow leopard machine I will. It really seems to me like the RAID is running terribly slow and perhaps the root of the problem.
Could someone please help me optimize these settings… this is driving me mad!… thanks
I have run into some problems that are really affecting my productivity and am hoping someone can help me isolate the problem(s). I understand there are a lot of factors so please ask if you need more information…but on the flipside I hope I didn’t provide too much making this a tedious task to troubleshoot….
I have two machines:
MacPro 1
(aka tiger,server)
2.66 GHz Dual Core
8 gb RAM
10.4.11 Tiger
OS on separate 500gb drive
Mirrored Raid using 1tb Seagate Barracuda Drives to store all work files. This computer acts as a server as well as a work station.
MacPro 2
(aka snow leopard, work station)
2.66 Ghz Quad Core
3 gb RAM
10.6.2 Snow Leopard
This machine is virtually empty, brand new and 90% of files are accessed on the raided drives on Mac Pro 1
Here is a timeline that may help point to the culprit(s):
- Purchased Mac Pro 1
- Used Mac Pro 1 for a couple years with 4 gb of RAM and it worked well running CS3 programs, Lightroom, Photomechanic etc...
- Added 1tb mirrored drives and upgraded memory to 8gb
- Performance slowed down after this, figured it was because of the RAID. But the machine was still very reliable with little to no freeze ups
- Approx 3 years later, purchased Mac Pro 2 with leopard installed, the machine seemed to run well (as it should).
- Connected the two computers through a router and it was rather slow to access files
- Connected the two computers using an ethernet cable and and there was a noticeable speed improvement accessing files
- Both computers seemed to run reasonable well with the exception of what is mentioned above with the RAID.
- Mac pro 2 began to run slow. Finder would freeze up. Perhaps a useless point but I rearranged my office, successfully added a windows machine onto the network but I may have messed with some network settings by accident?
- I decided to try and upgrade the Mac Pro 2 to snow leopard since I heard of the speed increase and thought it may help fix this new unexplained slowness
- Mac Pro 2 is now really slow and the upgrade introduced a lot of program errors mainly in adobe CS3 software and finder (perhaps a network problem?). Tried some CS4 programs and they run better as expected but I am surprised at how slow the CS3 ones run after the "upgrade". CS3 now returns more errors on Mac Pro 1 which it has never done before.
- Finder is very slow on the snow leopard machine when accessing files on the network or locally.
OTHER INFO:
- I ran disk utility and there were some errors on the snow leopard machine. They all seemed related to safari. I repaired this and now there are no errors
- I regularly run onyx and disk utility on mac pro one to check for errors. There are no errors.
- I checked for duplicate fonts in font book and there were none (read this tip somewhere)
- I purchased more RAM (8gb) for the MacPro running snow leopard (should arrive any day now). Hopefully this at least helps. When I run activity monitor on Mac Pro 2 there is very little free memory when running Photoshop CS3 or Photomechanic.
- Adobe CS3 software ran a little better before upgrading to snow leopard but not significantly. Indesign CS3 is now practically unusable. The Indesign CS4 demo I am currently using runs very well.
- Photo mechanic is now nearly unusable on both machines
- I am using a Cat 5e cable
- Sometimes when I am accessing a file on the server and working on it in photoshop I will get a program error when saving “The file saying it is in use”. I have tried restarting PS and the machine. The problem does not go away until I restart the server from where I am accessing the file from.
- Photoshop on both machines is now returning a lot of errors. Some are as generic as “cannot complete your request because of a program error”. Photoshop used to run great on Mac Pro 1.
I don’t want to come across like I am looking to troubleshoot adobe software and photomechanic. But I am hoping someone can help me sort out any of these bugs and if I need to upgrade to CS4 for the snow leopard machine I will. It really seems to me like the RAID is running terribly slow and perhaps the root of the problem.
Could someone please help me optimize these settings… this is driving me mad!… thanks