I am on the verge of getting a Mac Pro for the first time (whenever the next revision hits), and although I know a lot about Macs and have used them for years this will be my first Pro and I am having doubts about the upgradeable nature of the thing.
One of the key points of the Pro and it's predecessors is that it has actual slots like a "regular" (Windows/Linux) computer and therefore is upgradeable, but after a bit of research I can't see that there is really anything to upgrade it with.
In my current G4 tower, there are two cards in it (other than the graphics card). One is a SCSI card from Adaptec and the other is a Modem. Now I know as a given that these cards cannot be moved over to the Pro for a variety of reasons, but my intention was to re-buy cards with similar functionality. The problem is I can't see that they even exist.
There are no PCIe modems on the market at all that I can see, and I have yet to discover a SCSI card that mentions being able to run on the Mac Pro. Furthermore, I don't know where the heck I could locate an internal SCSI drive anyway, even temporarily just to suck the data off of it.
There are solutions. For instance Apple sells a "Modem in a Dongle" kind of doo-hicky that will hang off the back of the Pro and I can probably buy some kind of HD enclosure for my old SCSI and ATA disks so I can read them into the disks on the Pro.
My point though is that there is no internal solution for either. What's the point of purchasing a machine that has slots if no one manufactures cards for it? How dumb is it to have a multi-thousand dollar behemoth with 2 or 3 empty slots inside and then be forced to hang a stupid plastic modem dongle off the back in the dust under your desk?
All that is available that I have been able to find is that RAID card that Apple makes and a similar one from a third party that *might* work. Maybe I am just not finding the goods, but the Pro has been out for a long time now. You would think that whatever basic cards were being manufactured would either already be available by now or at least be announced.
I will buy it anyway just for the horsepower, but this seems extrordinarily dumb IMO. Isn't it a bit ironic that one of the biggest sales features of the Pro is it's expandability, yet there is virtually nothing but graphics cards to put in the thing? If I had a greater selection of video cards, memory and other specs, it would almost be better to purchase an iMac.
One of the key points of the Pro and it's predecessors is that it has actual slots like a "regular" (Windows/Linux) computer and therefore is upgradeable, but after a bit of research I can't see that there is really anything to upgrade it with.
In my current G4 tower, there are two cards in it (other than the graphics card). One is a SCSI card from Adaptec and the other is a Modem. Now I know as a given that these cards cannot be moved over to the Pro for a variety of reasons, but my intention was to re-buy cards with similar functionality. The problem is I can't see that they even exist.
There are no PCIe modems on the market at all that I can see, and I have yet to discover a SCSI card that mentions being able to run on the Mac Pro. Furthermore, I don't know where the heck I could locate an internal SCSI drive anyway, even temporarily just to suck the data off of it.
There are solutions. For instance Apple sells a "Modem in a Dongle" kind of doo-hicky that will hang off the back of the Pro and I can probably buy some kind of HD enclosure for my old SCSI and ATA disks so I can read them into the disks on the Pro.
My point though is that there is no internal solution for either. What's the point of purchasing a machine that has slots if no one manufactures cards for it? How dumb is it to have a multi-thousand dollar behemoth with 2 or 3 empty slots inside and then be forced to hang a stupid plastic modem dongle off the back in the dust under your desk?
All that is available that I have been able to find is that RAID card that Apple makes and a similar one from a third party that *might* work. Maybe I am just not finding the goods, but the Pro has been out for a long time now. You would think that whatever basic cards were being manufactured would either already be available by now or at least be announced.
I will buy it anyway just for the horsepower, but this seems extrordinarily dumb IMO. Isn't it a bit ironic that one of the biggest sales features of the Pro is it's expandability, yet there is virtually nothing but graphics cards to put in the thing? If I had a greater selection of video cards, memory and other specs, it would almost be better to purchase an iMac.