Advice needed on buying this Mac Pro please

[barnetda]

Hi

I am interested in the following Mac Pro from a friend of mine.

I use my current Mac for the usual stuff nothing to heavy as well as using windows via Parallels for my stock trading. I really like the idea of the mac Pro because i am able to upgrade the configuaration and i like the ability to have 4 internal hard drives for back up etc etc.

So the machine i have been offered is this.

Its a Mac Pro Xeon 64 Bit Workstation.
Mac Pro 2.8 GHZ QD 2GB 320 HD with ATI 2600
Its the MA97OLL/A model.

Is that a dual quad core or a single quad?

Any thoughts on that model?

Also it is approx 1 year old but has 2 years left on Applecare.

What would be a fair price?

Really appreciate it.

 

[gugucom]

http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/mac_pro/stats/mac-pro-eight-core-2.8-2008-specs.html

It is the 2008 octad. You did not post a price.

 

[barnetda]

http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/mac_pro/stats/mac-pro-eight-core-2.8-2008-specs.html

It is the 2008 octad. You did not post a price.

Thanks for the quick reply.

WHat do you think of that machine?

The price is to be determined, he is asking me what is fair and i have no idea.

 

[Tallest Skil]

Thanks for the quick reply.

WHat do you think of that machine?

The price is to be determined, he is asking me what is fair and i have no idea.

http://www.mac2sell.net/

 

[gugucom]

mac2sell says $ 2,840, which is probably low value considering the machine has Apple Care.

 

[barnetda]

http://www.mac2sell.net/

Thats great thanks for that link.

I have just spoken to my friend and he will sell it to me for $1850. Looking at the price check on the mac2sell site thats very reasonable.

Do you have any view on this machine ?

 

[barnetda]

I have the exact spec so i am sure that the price on mac2sell is right but i dont want to rip my friend off.
He bought the machine a year ago but its overkill for him so wants me to buy it.

I assume i can just get another 8gb or ram and some hd and i am good to go?

Do you guys think its a better buy than the current Mac Pros?

 

[gugucom]

It is a very good buy because Apple increased prices on the current Nehalem Mac Pros.

If you want to improve the speed you should think about fitting a RAID0 array of SSDs.

For mass storage a 1-2 TB HD would do fine.

Your current HD would be fine for Windows.

 

[barnetda]

It is a very good buy because Apple increased prices on the current Nehalem Mac Pros.

If you want to improve the speed you should think about fitting a RAID0 array of SSDs.

For mass storage a 1-2 TB HD would do fine.

Your current HD would be fine for Windows.

Thats great info thanks.

I am beginning to understand it now. I dont think i could fit a RaidO as that is beyond me !!

When you say use my current HD you mean the HD thats in the mac pro already (the 320 gb one)?

 

[gugucom]

Yes, I was thinking about using the existing HD for Windows.

A RAID0 is actually very simple in a Mac Pro. It is done by simple drag and drop in the RAID section of disk utility.

You then clone the old boot disk again with disk utility or use the migration assi to shift the boot disk content to the RAID.