are Mac Pros really expandable/upgradeable?

[MikeL]

If it isn't an OS update killing cards, it is Apple jumping to a new slot without legacy slot backup.

...

Until Apple releases a consumer tower, we might not see a flood of upgrade options coming back to market.

I'd suggest something a bit different. Part of the "future proofing" is in providing modern slots. Three years from now, you'll be able to add capabilities that simply don't exist right now to a Mac Pro. Expandability isn't about being able to drag your obsolete past equipment with you--it's about being able to adopt new capabilities to extend the working life of your machine.

Macs tend to be very feature-rich in terms of the ports and such that they ship with. Certainly not in the number of ports, but in the types of them. An iMac isn't going to age well in terms of adding capability. Look at those G4s that have USB1, and can't quickly work with a modern iPod. A PowerMac of the same vintage can cheaply and easily be upgraded.

I've never really filled an expansion slots in my Macs for the first year or so of ownership. The old G3 got FW, USB, a Voodoo 2 (and later 3) card, and had a TV tuner in it once. The G4 had USB2, more FW ports, and a SATA card. It's on it's 4th AGP card now. My G5 has had three different video cards and a USB2/FW combo card in it. When I get a MacPro later this month (let's hope), I don't foresee any immediate need for a card. Sometime in the next few years there'll be something new, and that's where the expandability comes in. The cards will be there as the capability is there.

The eSATA cards are an example of that. I hope the next MP has eSATA ports.

The OP is just confused as to how to migrate his system, and is stuck in the 1990s as far as his connectivity goes.

 

[LouisBlack]

I know it's been touched upon, but just to reiterate, the Mac Pro is a pro machine. Just look at the cards on the apple website. The cards available are things like hardware RAID and fibre channel - really high end pro stuff. TV tuners are more consumer and therefore a USB interface is sufficient because it can be used with iMacs, Minis and notebooks. Apple towers are and will always be aimed more at the professional market, not gamers...

 

[Sesshi]

Instead of complaining that you can't find cards for using obsolete technologies with a computer that has yet to be released, why not look for solutions?

There's no difficulty in getting your data off the SCSI drives. Network your computers. This is 2007, and it's super easy to do.

As for the modem, well, the market just doesn't support it. Sorry. Such is life. Time moves on.

Don't blame Apple. They can provide all the expandability that iMac/laptop/mini customers need via USB and FW. The MP is aimed at pros--there are plenty of uses for the slots when someone wants to make use of them for modern applications. Is it Apple's fault that you haven't purchased a new computer in the better part of a decade? I don't want hardware that's bogged down with legacy support.

Except for the last paragraph, the above poster is correct. You can't expect manufacturers to support legacy stuff forever, when there are better solutions that make a complete break from older established standards.

The expandability of the Pros in terms of a 'card ecosystem' may indeed be a very small benefit these days beyond GPU's. But unlike the old days, many forms of expansion is possible without cards that required a card before.

However I can blame Apple for second-class "premium" hardware. Part of my many issues with the Pro is that it can't even support the state of the art. It uses SATA drives only, and the RAID capability is also SATA only. My Dell Precisions are not only more robust and the HDD bays work better than the pretty-but-somewhat-lame Pro, but it also has support for SAS. For the types of use I put a Pro-class machine to, SAS has a benefit... And I'm not going to stick an XServe on it's side beside a desktop.