42 Peripheral Devices Connected to One 2013 Mac Pro

[Nightarchaon]

Well, that's not really true. I have a wire for the monitor, a wire for the Pegasus disk array, a power cable, a network cable, a speaker cable and a USB cable for the Wacom tablet. The old MP would have had several of these. Plus I can have many more RAID disks with my one HDD wire. The olden goldie was limited to 4. Plus I have this awesome speed with Handbrake, FCPX, etc. that the users of the old one can only dream about.

Ill take a slight drop in speed, and have a single box, with a power cable, video cable and keyboard cable, internal fast local storage, and external storage out on NAS in another room (under the stairs) rather than the rats nest of boxes and PSUs plugged in everywhere

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It's obvious obvious that you're not a pro and you do not work in a creative pro setting. In the real world in a studio you going to have racks and that's where your cable management and equipment management looks neat and uniform. You guys are just being a bunch bunch of sideliners.

some of us just like one box to do the job it was designed for, not many many many many devices that all need to be electrically tested, and multiple points of failure should one PSU fail, easier to replace a failed PSU in a tower and everything is back up and running than to have to hunt around for a proprietary devices proprietary PSU, especially if the data is needed "NOW" ..

i guess its just the OCD in me, but i want as few devices plugged in externally as possible, i dont want the mess of wiring to hunt through when things fail.

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that picture is a silly exaggeration.

Its not, I have seen systems like that, ive also had to source PSUs for external drives that have failed and the idiots haven't backed the data up anywhere else.

i like single systems with internal expansion room, easier to maintain, easier to move, looks neater

 

[roadbloc]

Impressive, but not very pratical.

 

[azentropy]

Neat to be able to do that, but still all the basic stuff that needs to be external now... Apple used to make fun of PC's that had to do that.

 

[longofest]

If they tested also connecting via gigabit ethernet, then why were they limited to 42? On a single subnet alone you have 250 other possible devices you can connect to.

 

[milo]

This is a more realistic picture

People keep posting that same old thing and it never gets less stupid.

Half of the boxes pictured are external when you use them with the old mac pro, so if it were honest it would show them on the left side too. But it's harder for a meme to catch on when it's honest, eh?

 

[xmichaelp]

Here's what's funny... many old Mac Pros had just as many external devices plugged into them.

While the old Mac Pro has 4 SATA drives internally... external drives were just as important.

And a few of the devices in that picture are external only... or they're better suited for external use.

An audio interface would be better on a desk anyway so you don't have to crawl behind your desk to plug in a microphone.

And another great thing about external devices... you can use them on your laptop too. Try that with a PCIe card.

There were already many external devices *before* the new Mac Pro was announced.

Exactly, it's unrealistic. Any real audio guy is going to have the interface externally. Plus you can just put the external drives out of view, you don't really need to access them often anyways. And a blu ray and dvd drive? People love their hyperbole I guess.

When I get an iMac I will have no problem having a couple externals for data and backups and an audio interface in plain view. People just love to complain I guess.

 

[Renzatic]

Or just had a old one laying around that I played Lode Runner on.

Atari 800 Lode Runner was better.

 

[blackcrayon]

Exactly, it's unrealistic. Any real audio guy is going to have the interface externally. Plus you can just put the external drives out of view, you don't really need to access them often anyways. And a blu ray and dvd drive? People love their hyperbole I guess.

When I get an iMac I will have no problem having a couple externals for data and backups and an audio interface in plain view. People just love to complain I guess.

Yup. I have some audio gear connected to my 2009 mac pro at home. Internal PCI audio cards - that connect to the actual interface boxes with a cable. I can't imagine there are too many internal cards used that don't have something hanging out of the back that wouldn't fit in the case even if it had the room of the older mac pro.

 

[coolfactor]

It's absolutely silly.

Person has way too much time

This is a lab experiment. Not a personal hobby.

 

[nsayer]

I have two observations...

1. As more than one has said, if I needed a lot of external storage, in this day and age, I'd much rather set up a NAS on the network than connect it directly to the machine. I'm sure that someone will say that they need a lot of storage faster than a network would allow. I'm just not sure that the collection of people in that category is a "market."

2. Others mentioned the mac pro's internal optical drive. Of the last 3 macs I owned with internal optical drives, two of those optical drives failed and had to be replaced. I'm much happier with the USB superdrive - one less thing to have to fix.

 

[Zellio]

Lame test. I could get at least 20 devices USB 3 only

 

[milo]

The test wasn't just about number of devices, they also checked how performance held up. I wouldn't expect USB3 to perform nearly as well with that sort of configuration.

 

[Mystic386]

They spent all there money on peripheral's and forgot to buy a chair and desk...

Loved your commet.

Either;

A/ They couldn't find a desk big enough. Seemed pointless to have a chair without the desk.


B/ They were pulling stuff off the storeroom shelves and before you know it 42. It's enough of a task pulling this together without going looking for a humungous table.


C/ They were in geek mode and plugging stuff in was all they were thinking about.

D/ Who cares. It still looks impressive.

 

[dragje]

What a freaking mess.

Yes, I agree, however, I do sense a new market product here, the iWireCleaner, a scalable desk which is capable to get rid of all the wires...

Besides this, it does looks great!

 

[unplugme71]

42 - The answer to life

Jackie Robinson..

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I have two observations...

1. As more than one has said, if I needed a lot of external storage, in this day and age, I'd much rather set up a NAS on the network than connect it directly to the machine. I'm sure that someone will say that they need a lot of storage faster than a network would allow. I'm just not sure that the collection of people in that category is a "market."

2. Others mentioned the mac pro's internal optical drive. Of the last 3 macs I owned with internal optical drives, two of those optical drives failed and had to be replaced. I'm much happier with the USB superdrive - one less thing to have to fix.

NAS is good for light duty. ISCSI is recommended for light-medium duty with 4-24TB of storage. Anything above that, FC SAN is the way to go.

 

[inscrewtable]

Why do people get a kick out of unrealistic, impractical uses of technology?

It's a guy thing.

 

[Echo Foxtrot]

I wonder how does the MP can manage those devices without external power supply.

 

[Digital Skunk]

It's a guy thing.

Best reason so far.

 

[JAT]

This is a lab experiment. Not a personal hobby.

Pretty sure it's both.

 

[zabbadoo]

Only 42? Meh.

 

[WallToWallMacs]

But, but, all the arm chair experts on MacRumors claimed that the Mac Pro had limited expandability and was a complete epic fail. Can be have such people in a 'name and shame' parade?

 

[576316]

Typical for the new age.

This is a more realistic picture:
Image
[thanks to user "cc bcc" @ arstechnica]​

Did Jobs have anything to do with the new Mac Pro?

 

[Michaelgtrusa]

The Macworld Lab guys are at it again. 6 iMacs connected to one Mac Pro for an upcoming story. https://twitter.com/macworld/status/463421004350361601

 

[skinned66]

Someone could actually afford 42 thunderbolt devices? That impresses me more.

 

[linuxcooldude]

I'm starting to loathe this pic.

The silly thing is, many of these critics are the same people who are more than happy to have 2 graphic cards in their towers with cables coming out of the back to a second PSU somewhere.

Seriously, we had over a dozen Mac Pro towers in our office once and it fell into two camps:

1 - Overkill for certain users and a nice clean tower (They now have Mac Minis and their desks are less cluttered than ever.)

2 - Power users who have very specific needs. Cords everywhere anyway! (They now have iMacs except for a couple who have towers and one station that has the new mac pro.)

I love a clean desk as much as anyone, but this example paints a larger chasm than you'll hardly ever see in reality.

Looking at my own classic Mac Pro I have 13 cables coming out the back. Having an older Mac Pro does not change the fact you will have cables.