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Apple to Begin Taking Orders for New Mac Pro on August 9th
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If you don't sell your machine to apple I'd love to buy your Old Mac pro. shoot me a message or email. I'm new to this forum but have plenty of Ebay feedback and feedback on other forums.
Cheers, joel
I love how they say (every time) that it is "the fastest Mac ever" as if they would release a top of the line mac that is slower than previous gen.
At this point, I imagine many users around here would freak out if they left that off. They would say "Does this mean that this isn't the fastest Mac ever? Boo Apple you suck! I think I'll just wait until the next generation!"
My prediction: number of cores will officially replace the mhz myth. But oh, is it a myth? Well, for many applications right now.....
What happened to USB 3.0?
Great news. I thought I was going to have to wait until the bitter end of August to see what the 6-core upgrade price is going to be.
I would throw some more RAM into your Mac Pro if you need it, and keep on working with your 2008 machine! It really depends on what you are using your Mac Pro to accomplish. [In my case, I might personally get a 2010 Mac Pro because I can install a lot more RAM than my 2007 model, and 16 GB is not enough for me (I do scientific computing)..... but I recognize that most users do not need so much RAM.] So, I would need to know what you are doing with your Mac Pro that requires more than 3.2 GHz, 8-core, with 4 GB of RAM. My guess is that the most cost-efficient solution for you is to buy some more RAM and enjoy another couple of years with your current Mac Pro from 2008. It is always tempting to ditch the old machine and buy a new one, but such purchases are not always justified by one's computing needs. So that's just my two cents, but again, I don't know what you are using your Mac Pro to accomplish.
I'd hold out till the MacPro 2011 with USB 3.0. 12 cores still won't touch that bottleneck.
for some reason, I feel like you may not need a 12 core Mac Pro to write a 3 page paper while running iTunes....
When I read things like this I'm reminded of the line from the movie Roxanne:
"Oh, ho, ho, irony! Oh, no, no, we don't get that here... ...We haven't had any irony here since about, uh, '83, when I was the only practitioner of it. And I stopped because I was tired of being stared at."
If he is going to run itunes in Windows 7 using bootcam, he will need the 12 cores.
Yeah casue Itunes, playing MP3 using a Mac Pro in OS X never had issues....
What are you running on it?
If you've got 4GB of RAM and two standard 500GB drives, there's no way you'll be getting the most out of the machine.
For a start, get some faster disk space! I'm running a 600GB Raptor as a boot disk - but upgrading to an SSD would give you a bigger boost.
I suspect you're not running big multi-processor apps. Remember - the way the Mac Pros get their speed is from the ability to run heavy multiprocessor stuff. For apps that aren't heavily multiprocessing, you'll get much better bang for buck by going with the fast clock cycle processors in the iMac range.
But I think you can get a lot more out of your current setup before you need to do that!
Great. This date – August 9th – is well within the two week period I posted in this forum, right after I pre-ordered my new Mac Pro. Almost there. Can't wait for my new number cruncher to arrive and demolish it
The iMac is a much better choice for most folks looking for a desktop.
The main problem I have with them is their lack of expandability (disk space). It's easy to outgrow a 2TB drive - and the four disk slots are the main reason I own a Mac Pro.
External storage on an iMac is a poor option. Drive enclosures are invariably noisy, and FW800 is looking a bit slow compared to the speed of modern disks. The situation will definitely improve when USB3 is released.
The main problem I have with them is their lack of expandability (disk space). It's easy to outgrow a 2TB drive - and the four disk slots are the main reason I own a Mac Pro.
External storage on an iMac is a poor option. Drive enclosures are invariably noisy, and FW800 is looking a bit slow compared to the speed of modern disks. The situation will definitely improve when USB3 is released.
but who can afford the damn thing? ...these things have just gotten out of reach for graphic designers. Hmm spend 5 grand on a mac pro which has no monitor and lacks basic **** like wifi or spend $2200 for a loaded imac with that sweet 27" screen. Decision instantly made here. My buddy bought the 2008 8 core Macpro and then recently got a 27" imac as a second machine and he spends all his time on that imac cus it works better. Macpros is just an overpriced dinosaur that gos obsolete way to fast for the cost
A graphic designer has no need to buy the 12core @~5000.. think about it.
- Its power is out of reach.
Can't wait to get one as my main video editing machine.
My 2007 MBP just isn't able to handle 7D/5D video on AE.
Now I just need to know how much the 6 core BTO option will cost, in order to decide between that and the standard quad-core. I really hope it's cheaper than the 8core...
My 2007 MBP just isn't able to handle 7D/5D video on AE.
Now I just need to know how much the 6 core BTO option will cost, in order to decide between that and the standard quad-core. I really hope it's cheaper than the 8core...
Get some LAN based storage. Gigabit Ethernet is plenty fast enough. It's 2010 for crying out loud, stuffing drives in a computer is about the dumbest way to upgrade your storage.
Noisy drive enclosures ? I wouldn't know, mine sits very very far away from any place in my home I am sitting in, right next to the UPS and the FreeBSD box.
I can't believe I'm saying this but...
RIP OFF
I will wait until Apple comes into reality on CPU upgrade costs or a new Design becomes available.
RIP OFF
I will wait until Apple comes into reality on CPU upgrade costs or a new Design becomes available.
LOL - sounds about right!
Jeez - everyone knows that OpenSOLARIS/ZFS is the way to go for home brew file servers.
So, do you put your drives in a separate enclosure, despite the fact you've got a PC running BSD and managing your filesystem? I guess so, since using your server's drive bays would be 'the dumbest way of upgrading storage'.
Who said the BSD box was managing any kind of filesystems ? It has a lone 80 GB drive. The drive enclosure is capable of managing its own filesystems and share them over the network itself through either AFP/NFS/SMB. All it needs is a power cord and a cat5e cable running to it.
And why do you think it's trolling ? Using your desktop as storage is really 10 years ago. Hot swap drive enclosures with RAID, in a centralized location are much easier to maintain and backup than having to go through 2-3 PCs.
Use the local drive as a temp working space and store everything on the network. Heck, use a VCS for any kind of projects you're doing, so you can do snapshoting, releases and can actually reasonably work on it in a team based setting.
If you want a serious answer, then I don't agree with you - and I don't think RAID is a particularly cost effective (or good) solution for home use. To do RAID properly you should have at least two identical boxes (since you're introducing an extra point of failure in the box/controller itself) and then have some backup strategy. I think backups are also more difficult to organise if you have a large amount of contiguous disk space compared with separate drives, which can be quickly duped onto another of the same size.
Additionally, in my experience RAID boxes for less than £500 generally have cheezy PSUs, underpowered CPU and nasty small fans. £1000 for two of these even before you start adding disks or thinking about backup is money poorly spent. RAID is also at its best when used as a solution to maximise uptime - not a data integrity solution (where I don't believe it's cost effective in a home context).
Which RAID boxes do you own? How many of them?
Housing disks in a Mac Pro means you have them in an excellent PSU and temperature controlled environment which runs quiet, and has very fast access. I run multiple 2 and 2.5TB disks JBOD - and use a 2 bay WeibeTech caddyless hot-swap enclosure to enable a rotating backup strategy onto same-sized disks (including offsite). I'd rather spend my money on more and better backups than some slow RAID enclosures (seriously, are you getting more than 30MB/s?).
I also don't have a team on my network. Just me.
Oh yes - and running Unix servers on the Pro using VMWare sure beats the hassle of running PCs across the network. Snapshots and backing up are a cinch too - since the whole environment lives in a single file.
2 boxes for RAID ? Do you know what RAID is ? I'm not talking enterprise grade clustering with hot failover here, just a simple "drive A fails, Data stays online" type setup. RAID-1 or RAID-6 is plenty good for home use depending on the size of the array and number of drives. Heck, some newer boxes can even do parity based arrays over different size disks. No more worrying about having identical drive geometry.
The point is, boxes rarely fail. Drives are the most unreliable components you have. Make those redundant is the best way to assure your data is kept online. Boxes and controllers are quick fixes if they do fry, so are power supplies and none of those can really cause data loss. A failed drive that isn't properly mirrored or in a parity setup will take your data with it to the grave, forcing you to recover from a backup.
I own a QNAP personally. I looked at the "build your own" solutions, and seriously, for the price, way too much of a hassle. 500 mhz CPU (which is faster than what is in the FreeBSD box...) is plenty fast to drive a gigabit network link and a RAID-1 mirror.
The thing about computing power in the last 10 years... it got infinately useless for most tasks. CPUs sit idle most of the time doing tasks you'd think were intensive (and probably were... 15 years ago). A home NAS doesn't require teraflops.
As for "cheezy PSUs", I haven't had a PSU fry a drive in over 20 years because of voltage spikes or other crap. Buy snake oil all you want, the PSUs in the NAS boxes are fine.
As I said, RAID + backups. RAID is not a backup solution, it's meant to keep your data online in the case of a failure. Restoring from backup can be time consuming and losing just 1 drive in a RAID-0 or JBOD can mean serious downtime and recovery, especially with "offsite" backups. And not to mention RAID-1 with hot swap drives is probably the easiest thing to backup. Just pull one drive out and put in a new one. Instant backup (though I don't recommend HD based backups, for home use, tape is too expensive).
As for housing them in a Mac Pro, again, fine if that's your only computer. Welcome to 2010. Well, at least, when you move out of your 1 bedroom appartment and start living with people instead of alone.
I also don't have a team on my network. Just me.
That'll change once you get a GF and some kids.
EDIT: Forgot to mention a NAS box will draw much less power than your Mac Pro, which you could then shut off to preserve electricity and keep your monthly bill a tad lower. I'm actually tempted to get rid of the PC running FreeBSD and get a Mac Mini instead just for the power factor alone, since I don't even need the RAM/power upgrade it would provide.
Wow, you are an unpleasant and cynical piece of work aren't you?
I guess your employer must have you sat all day in the server room so you don't frighten the clients!
Thank you for your egg-sucking lesson.
Boxes do fail - and that has to be factored into your cost benefit analysis. Multiple drive failure in RAID is a well known phenomena - generally your drives will never be pushed as hard as that critical moment when they're engaged in a rebuild. Mirroring doesn't protect you from corruption, user errors or any other software incidents.
A low powered NAS is still really slow if you're moving GB of video or RAW photo files around. Productivity stuff and mp3s? Probably fine.
I've seen them fail on Infrant Ready NAS boxes.
When offsite is 10 minutes away, and the backup is a 'SuperDuper' replication of the disk, then it's really not a problem just to slot the replacement into the computer and get going.
Over 8TB+ all those mirrored drives start getting expensive. If your data isn't changing often, it's nicer to have that second disk offline, to avoid risks of software corruption, accidental deletion etc.
My current configuration is one I've settled on after doing the homebrew Unix disk server and ready built NAS thing. I've done the home tape backup thing too, and I agree it doesn't make sense.
I guess your employer must have you sat all day in the server room so you don't frighten the clients!
15 years working in enterprise IT says yes.
Thank you for your egg-sucking lesson.
Boxes do fail - and that has to be factored into your cost benefit analysis. Multiple drive failure in RAID is a well known phenomena - generally your drives will never be pushed as hard as that critical moment when they're engaged in a rebuild. Mirroring doesn't protect you from corruption, user errors or any other software incidents.
A low powered NAS is still really slow if you're moving GB of video or RAW photo files around. Productivity stuff and mp3s? Probably fine.
I've seen them fail on Infrant Ready NAS boxes.
When offsite is 10 minutes away, and the backup is a 'SuperDuper' replication of the disk, then it's really not a problem just to slot the replacement into the computer and get going.
Over 8TB+ all those mirrored drives start getting expensive. If your data isn't changing often, it's nicer to have that second disk offline, to avoid risks of software corruption, accidental deletion etc.
My current configuration is one I've settled on after doing the homebrew Unix disk server and ready built NAS thing. I've done the home tape backup thing too, and I agree it doesn't make sense.
Classy!