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My mac pro in a MacBook pro - how to ?

P

phildog33

macrumors regular
Original poster
Nov 1, 2006
109
0
I have a general open question:

For photo editing, large Nikon D3X files through CaptureOne Pro program,
I use my MacPro 2x quad 2.8
14gb of Ram
12TB raid 5 with Areca card

The speeds I'm getting with the tower are phenomenal, and extremelly helpful in my work load and processing 1500 RAW files at once.

My MacBook pro 2x 2.33, 3GB ram, and FW800 200gb 7200 drive... Is completely slow with my D3X files. It was ok with the 12mp cameras last year, just slow... Now it's a crawl, unable to keep up with shoots when clients need a batch processed on the road/on location.


So what can I do.??? Can you guys recommend a setup which would be a Noticeable improvement... A big difference, not just a small speed bump

I like the 15" size, but the New ones are limited with ram and screen type.

What about using some express card to etc.. And a mini raid 0 using ssd's etc...

Is the biggest bottleneck on my current setup, the Fw800 single drive?

My speed is so slow on this laptop, I'm wondering what the biggest difference is from the tower . The array, the ram, the CPU strength??

Please help me create the best laptop for editig photo and video on the road, which is somehow up there to the mac pro you guys helped me build last year.
Thanks
P
 
increase yr RAM to 6GB
buy a MAGMA express card
then plugin a fibre channel card
hook up a fibre channel drive from G-Tech setup as RAID
point your SD to FC G-Tech drive
good luck :D
 
minus the upgrade to 6GB ram you are correct!

(not running matched sets decreases performance + benchmarks show that 4GB is just as good as 6GB)
 
michael.lauden said:
minus the upgrade to 6GB ram you are correct!

(not running matched sets decreases performance + benchmarks show that 4GB is just as good as 6GB)
Click to expand...

hmmm. i find the extra 2GB Ram much more useful to run extra apps or give PS as much onboard Ram as possible. I also read that the unmatched chip performance was negligible compared to matching sets :)
 
sparkie7 said:
increase yr RAM to 6GB
buy a MAGMA express card
then plugin a fibre channel card
hook up a fibre channel drive from G-Tech setup as RAID
point your SD to FC G-Tech drive
good luck :D
Click to expand...

To be honest with you, I don't think the OP's MBP can utilize anything more than 3Gb RAM. So upgrading to 6GB would be a complete waste of money. It's to do with the chipset, it's pre-Santa Rosa thus RAM limit to 3GB.
 
opps. i thought it was a late MBP. yes youre right 3GB ram is max. and only a PCI express.

OP you are stuck with what you have. You are better off upgrading to a newer MBP. B/c you are comparing apples to oranges. As your MP is high spec new tech and your old MBP just isnt meeting your requirements. time to upgrade
 
I'm ok with getting a new 15 " machine if you guys think it will offer me a huge boost in processing time

Not 20% bump,, but a big bump

P

And what's the consensus.. 4gb is better than 6gb? For photo editing
 
6GB is better than 4GB. What they were discussing is that your current computer can only recognize up to 3GB, regardless of how much you have in.
 
phildog33 said:
I'm ok with getting a new 15 " machine if you guys think it will offer me a huge boost in processing time

Not 20% bump,, but a big bump

P

And what's the consensus.. 4gb is better than 6gb? For photo editing
Click to expand...

I'd be surprised if you get more then a 20% bump though.
 
Maybe try a second HDD in your MBP, there are a few options.

Maybe an eSATA Express card with a decent eSATA enclosure (no bridges, or fast port multyplying).

For batch processing, imho you want a fast seperate drive(s) for scratch and files. RAM , too.
That is your bottleneck, I think; FW 800 won't help you with scratch and files .

The inevitable link .
You can also find comparisons of MP and MBP setups on Amug .

I'm a pro photographer as well, wondering why any client might demand processed files during a shoot, usually I process the selects afterwards.

An MBP is ok for shooting to (tethered), as the connection to the camera will limit speed anyways, processing is a whole different animal, though.

Well, check the links, I doubt it gets any better with a laptop than described there.
 
Get the newer 17" model. You have room for 8gb of memory and a 256gb SSD drive. Also the WUXGA screen wouldn't hurt either as I'm sure you can use all the real estate that you can get.
 
OrangeSVTguy said:
Get the newer 17" model. You have room for 8gb of memory and a 256gb SSD drive. Also the WUXGA screen wouldn't hurt either as I'm sure you can use all the real estate that you can get.
Click to expand...


256 SSD is purported to be a Toshiba. ie. SLOW
 
Buy ...

... a new Macbook Pro and stick a Intel X25 SSD in there. Keep the photoshop caching on this drive only and it will be fast, for sure.

As others mentionned before, do also upgrade your RAM to the maximum, which is 6GB for now.

When dealing with drives for your RAW images, I would recommend a port multiplier capable eSata Expresscard, like from Sonnet. You musn´t use any RAID on it (but RAID 0 on up to 10 drives gives you way overhead for heavy bandwith), but you always will be able to get at least maximum bus speed from the HD itself. SATA/eSATA beats Firewire 800 on this quite significantly.
 
You might want to go with the 17" for best performance. It can take up to 8GB of matched pairs of RAM & a 2.93GHz dual core 2.

edit: OrangeSVTguy beet me to it :)
 
But if I get the Sonnett eSata card with port multiplier.. and stripe together 4 drives in Raid 0, etc ... isnt the expresscard slot limited to 140mb/s, like another poster said?

i want to get the fastest rendering time from a macbook pro.. like my mac pro
 
phildog33 said:
But if I get the Sonnett eSata card with port multiplier.. and stripe together 4 drives in Raid 0, etc ... isnt the expresscard slot limited to 140mb/s, like another poster said?

i want to get the fastest rendering time from a macbook pro.. like my mac pro
Click to expand...

You can get 200 MB/s with this eSata card.
http://www.amug.org/amug-web/html/amug/reviews/articles/sonnet/pro-expresscard/

If you dont need tons of storage you can get similar perfomance using an Intel X-25m SSD
 
phildog33 said:
But if I get the Sonnett eSata card with port multiplier.. and stripe together 4 drives in Raid 0, etc ... isnt the expresscard slot limited to 140mb/s, like another poster said?

i want to get the fastest rendering time from a macbook pro.. like my mac pro
Click to expand...

Did you check the links ?

Make sure to read through macperformanceguide's MBP sections, and the amug article Javier posted, that's what is available and doable.

The Mac Pro will always be faster, HDD, memory, bus, etcetc speeds are higher and can be tweaked more easily.
 
im still using the D3X, and still looking for a solution to this problem... processing times, and its too slow using my FW800 drive 2.5"

should i do the marvell based Tempo™ SATA Pro card and two intel X25 ssd's? in a raid0 via PM 2 bay enclosure?

is that still the best speed in the market right now for editing from a laptop?

i need as much speed as possible, thanks
p
 
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