Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Critique My Purchase

bennyboi

bennyboi

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jun 1, 2006
133
0
West Coast
k- here goes! I finally gave in and bought an intel mac and wanna know what the pros think. Here's what I got and what I'm using it for. Let me know what u think.

Macbook Pro:
Refurbed MBP 17 (HiRes option) / 2.4 Ghz /2GB ram /160-7200rpm
1st off- sweet that they had the candy stuffed in a refurb. Usually just stock, and I really had my heart set on a 7200. How big a difference from 5400 anyone? Also, what do you REALLY think of refurbs?
$2,599.00 - refurbed, saved around $500 :):):)
$18 shipping charge due to impatience ;)

Want an inexpensive RAID. Got referred to MacGurus and after speaking to Brian (very helpful), I was sold on:
Burly 4 drive SATA enclosure with 4 320 Seagates to RAID together. (I'm about to try rehashing knowledge)- The RAID set is capable of pushing around 220 (?) mb/s but the macbook pro with its express card 34 will only allow 180 tops (while the mac pro handles over 500! Stupid Mac Pro. Fit in my backpack! And lose 1000 dollars. And be portable with a display. And grant me wishes), but that's cool. Still better than single SATA.
By the way- Brian at MacGurus is possibly the nicest, most helpful and knowledgeble Customer Service person I've dealt with in years. Thanks MacGurus

I'm a tv editor and hobbyist music creator. I feel confident in playing with higher res video formats given the SATA RAID capability to handle more HD codecs (up to 160 mb/s) and exceed FW800's pull (and annoying latency).
I'm hoping it will also allow for many tracks in Logic Express as I choke with my 1.5 ghz g4 and firewire drives. Oh also- I so want to intall XP or Vista and play some Halo 2 and some windows games. Halo 1 is great, but I really enjoy the gaming experience (story + multiplay). soo coool. Anyone recommend XP vs. Vista?

Here's some more useless stuff in the post: I started on a 733 Quicksilver OS9,went to 1.5 ghz powerbook, now upgrading to 2.4 macbook pro. Also- after your comments, I think I'm donating to macrumors because I've been a loyal reader for a long time and just got into posting with you fine people a few months ago. Thanks for letting me share in this exciting and daunting purchase! Critique away!
Ben
 
i'll give you a 9.6 on your macbook pro purchase. brownie points for getting a refurb, but you get a penalty for paying extra for shipping. sorry, better luck next time. ;)

congrats for real, though. could you ever have really gone wrong? :)
 
bennyboi said:
k- here goes! I finally gave in and bought an intel mac and wanna know what the pros think. Here's what I got and what I'm using it for. Let me know what u think.

Macbook Pro:
Refurbed MBP 17 (HiRes option) / 2.4 Ghz /2GB ram /160-7200rpm
1st off- sweet that they had the candy stuffed in a refurb. Usually just stock, and I really had my heart set on a 7200. How big a difference from 5400 anyone? Also, what do you REALLY think of refurbs?
$2,599.00 - refurbed, saved around $500 :):):)
$18 shipping charge due to impatience ;)

Went to MacGurus and after speaking to Brian (very helpful), I was sold on:
Burly 4 drive SATA enclosure with 4 320 Seagates to RAID together. The RAID set is capable of pushing around 220 (?) mb/s but the macbook pro with its express card 34 will only allow 180 tops (while the mac pro handles over 500! Stupid Mac Pro. Fit in my backpack! And lose 1000 dollars. And be portable with a display. And grant me wishes), but that's cool. Still better than single SATA.

I'm a tv editor and hobbyist music creator. I feel confident in playing with higher res video formats given the SATA raids capability to handle more HD codecs (up to 160 mb/s) and exceed FW800's pull (and annoying latency).
I'm hoping it will also allow for many tracks in Logic Express as I feel I've been severely limited with my 1.5 ghz g4 and firewire drives. Oh also- I so want to intall XP or Vista and play some Halo 2 and some windows games. Halo 1 is great, but I really enjoy the gaming experience (story + multiplay). soo coool. Anyone recommend XP vs. Vista?

I started on a 733 Quicksilver OS9,went to 1.5 ghz powerbook, now upgrading to 2.4 macbook. Also- after your comments, I think I'm donating to macrumors because I've been a loyal reader for a long time and just got into posting with you fine people a few months ago. Thanks for reading. Critique away!
Ben
Click to expand...

Well, since you will be doing your media editing on the external drive, the internal 7200 won't make a big difference.

Until I read that you do media editing, I was going to suggest a Drobo instead of the 'just plain RAID', but Drobo is slow. My only suggestion would be that if speed is more important than capacity, go for a RAID of 150 GB Raptors. If capacity is vital, then go all-out and get a bunch of 7K1000s. Not only are the 1 TB drives, but they benchmark as fast as the Raptor! (They do cost a lot more, though.)

For games, it's a tough call. Vista is still a little immature for games, but there will be DirectX 10 games coming soon that require Vista. I'd say if you will be playing mostly 1+ year old games, go with XP, if you are planning on buying some new games, go for Vista. (I have Vista Ultimate on my dual-boot MBP, and my three games are acceptable on it.)
 
ehurtley said:
Well, since you will be doing your media editing on the external drive, the internal 7200 won't make a big difference.

For games, it's a tough call. Vista is still a little immature for games, but there will be DirectX 10 games coming soon that require Vista. I'd say if you will be playing mostly 1+ year old games, go with XP, if you are planning on buying some new games, go for Vista. (I have Vista Ultimate on my dual-boot MBP, and my three games are acceptable on it.)
Click to expand...

Thanks Man- appreciate the advice. I'm not much a gamer and need to 'catch up' on the old stuff. Definitely gonna go with XP then. Also- interesting suggestions on the drives. Speed and Capacity are factors, but budget is too.Wish I could just go SCSI! Hell, Fiber!!!

you get a penalty for paying extra for shipping. sorry, better luck next time.
Click to expand...

I actually appreciate you marking me -.4 You are merciful great one. BTW your avitar rules. Mine is Glass Joe from Punch Out but it doesn't display... YET
 
bennyboi said:
Thanks Man- appreciate the advice. I'm not much a gamer and need to 'catch up' on the old stuff. Definitely gonna go with XP then. Also- interesting suggestions on the drives. Speed and Capacity are factors, but budget is too.Wish I could just go SCSI! Hell, Fiber!!!
Click to expand...

If you really want to go nuts, you can get an ExpressCard to PCI Express enclosure, then plug in a SAS RAID card, and RAID up a bunch of Cheetah 15K.5 drives. :D

(Yeah, you're looking at a price tag right around $5000 just for the storage system, but that'll be the fastest notebook storage system around!)

Or put in a FibreChannel card, and hook up an Xserve RAID. (Topping $15000 for 10 TB.)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back