Early '08 MacPro - multiple users or multiple drives?

[4God]

Not sure if I posted this in the right place but here it goes:

Okay, so currently I'm running 3 users on my MacPro. I have all drive bays full. There's 2x1.5TB and 2x1TB. I use the 1TB's for Time Machine and Scratch for Final Cut and Pro Tools. It seems as though having this many users has slowed things down a bit. I was thinking of setting up 1 user (mine) on a dedicated 1.5TB drive and the others on the other 1.5TB drive. Or, reinstalling the OS clean on one 1.5TB drive and putting all the users there and then moving their respective Home folders onto the other 1.5TB drive. Any suggestions or comments?

 

[goMac]

Multiple users doesn't slow things down. The only way moving users to different drives would improve performance is if multiple users were using the machine at the same time (i.e. if you were running it as a server.)

 

[4God]

Okay, how 'bout moving the Home folders on the other drive? I think I read somewhere on these forums that it might make a difference.

 

[goMac]

Okay, how 'bout moving the Home folders on the other drive? I think I read somewhere on these forums that it might make a difference.

If your drive is starting to get full, yes it can make a difference if you're moving stuff to another drive to free up large chunks of space.

Otherwise, no. Home folders are just normal folders, like any other folder.

 

[4God]

But I thought that moving the Home folders would help increase access times. If not, I'll just leave 'em alone. I did however, just install the OS clean on a new drive and man is it fast. Feels real snappy, don't why my system lags so much after only a couple weeks of use.

 

[goMac]

But I thought that moving the Home folders would help increase access times. If not, I'll just leave 'em alone. I did however, just install the OS clean on a new drive and man is it fast. Feels real snappy, don't why my system lags so much after only a couple weeks of use.

Only if your drive is getting full and the home folders have a lot of stuff in them. Otherwise no. Home folders are just like any other folder, and they don't use up any speed.

 

[flatfoot]

Only if your drive is getting full and the home folders have a lot of stuff in them. Otherwise no. Home folders are just like any other folder, and they don't use up any speed.

Yes, one point is that there should be plenty free space on your boot drive (for virtual RAM etc.) to speed things up in general.

Additionally it does make a difference when you have your system/apps and data on two seperate drives (note drives, not volumes on the same physical drive!) because then the system can use the system drive (for virtual RAM etc.) and you usually access the data drive, so you and the system don't "get in each other's way".

 

[4God]

Yes, one point is that there should be plenty free space on your boot drive (for virtual RAM etc.) to speed things up in general.

Additionally it does make a difference when you have your system/apps and data on two seperate drives (note drives, not volumes on the same physical drive!) because then the system can use the system drive (for virtual RAM etc.) and you usually access the data drive, so you and the system don't "get in each other's way".

Ah, thanks for clarifying.

 

[goMac]

Additionally it does make a difference when you have your system/apps and data on two seperate drives (note drives, not volumes on the same physical drive!) because then the system can use the system drive (for virtual RAM etc.) and you usually access the data drive, so you and the system don't "get in each other's way".

True, but this would only help if the op wanted to move his own home folder. He seem concerned about the number of home folders on the drive, and the number of users doesn't make any difference.

Generally, if you are using pro applications, they aren't writing to your home folder anyway. They're just writing to scratch instead of directly to your document, and you can move your scratch file to another disk. You should also move your footage to another disk if you do video. These make much bigger differences than moving home folders.

 

[sos85]

Multiple users doesn't slow things down.

But mass useless operate to the mac can slow down.

If you install too many program in your mac, the program cant fits each other well may slow down.

 

[Nilo Santos]

I am ordering an 8-Core Nehalem 2.66Ghz with 12GB RAM (6x2GB) matching sticks (matched sets balanced across 3 channels) with 3TB Western Digital Caviar Black (3x1TB) Hard Drives and the ATI 4870 graphics card, etc.

My question - Is it possible for more than 1 person to use the computer at the same time? - For example: 2 persons in video production and 1 person in audio recording? - Can this happen simultaneously with this one machine?

If not, what would be the set-up to do this? - Do I have to buy more computers? - or some kind of server trip?

Thanks.

 

[goMac]

I am ordering an 8-Core Nehalem 2.66Ghz with 12GB RAM (6x2GB) matching sticks (matched sets balanced across 3 channels) with 3TB Western Digital Caviar Black (3x1TB) Hard Drives and the ATI 4870 graphics card, etc.

My question - Is it possible for more than 1 person to use the computer at the same time? - For example: 2 persons in video production and 1 person in audio recording? - Can this happen simultaneously with this one machine?

If not, what would be the set-up to do this? - Do I have to buy more computers? - or some kind of server trip?

Thanks.

You mean if you hook up more than one keyboard and mouse and monitor?

No.

If you could, it would still be a bad idea for stuff like video audio production. You'll probably be pushing that hardware pretty well just with one person. Not that it's a slow machine, but that's just the nature of the beast.