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Rate my purchases for my MP:

F

fs454

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Dec 7, 2007
1,987
1,876
Los Angeles / Boston
I have the stock early 2008 MP.

I had around a $400 budget for HDD/RAM, but I jumped it a bit.

I ordered from newegg:
Western Digital Raptor X 150GB HDD, 10000RPM - $169
Samsung Spinpoint 500GB 7200RPM HDD - $109


From OWC/Macsales:
4.0GB (2x2GB) DDR2 800 Mac Pro memory - $199

From Guitar Center today:
M-Audio 88es Keystation, 88 key midi controller - $199



Last one was a splurge, but I love it. Awesome for the price.

My main thing here is, did I do a good thing by grabbing a Raptor? I felt my stock 7200rpm drive wasn't really up to speed with the rest of this beast so I kinda went out on a whim and decided that I'd forfeit 1TB and get a Raptor for OS X and my pro apps and then 500+320+free bay for my stuff for now.

I plan on getting 8GB ram total in the form of two more 2GB sticks in the future, but I don't have the money. The 8800GT comes first, too.

Does anyone else run a Raptor?
 
fs454 said:
I have the stock early 2008 MP.

I had around a $400 budget for HDD/RAM, but I jumped it a bit.

I ordered from newegg:
Western Digital Raptor X 150GB HDD, 10000RPM - $169
Samsung Spinpoint 500GB 7200RPM HDD - $109


From OWC/Macsales:
4.0GB (2x2GB) DDR2 800 Mac Pro memory - $199

From Guitar Center today:
M-Audio 88es Keystation, 88 key midi controller - $199



Last one was a splurge, but I love it. Awesome for the price.

My main thing here is, did I do a good thing by grabbing a Raptor? I felt my stock 7200rpm drive wasn't really up to speed with the rest of this beast so I kinda went out on a whim and decided that I'd forfeit 1TB and get a Raptor for OS X and my pro apps and then 500+320+free bay for my stuff for now.

I plan on getting 8GB ram total in the form of two more 2GB sticks in the future, but I don't have the money. The 8800GT comes first, too.

Does anyone else run a Raptor?
Click to expand...

Raptors are exceptionally good drives, if not for the small speed increase, at least for their reliability because they are 'enterprise drives' which means they're designed to be used in servers and pro workstations, etc.

I'm not sure what pro apps you have, but my pro apps wouldn't fit on a 150GB hard drive, let alone with Leapard installed on it too. (I have Logic Studio (85GB Full Install), Final Cut Studio (122GB Full Install), and Adobe CS3 Master Collection (25GB Full Install)).

I'm not sure if you can install apps on a drive other than the boot drive, but if you can, keep the Raptor for just OSX, use your 320GB for Apps, and use your 500GB for data.
 
fs454 said:
My main thing here is, did I do a good thing by grabbing a Raptor? I felt my stock 7200rpm drive wasn't really up to speed with the rest of this beast

Does anyone else run a Raptor?
Click to expand...

That's because your stock drive wasn't a Seagate Baracuda 7200.11 or ES2.
You sacrifice too much space for little speed improvement (over the newer
Seagates) Maximum PC did a head-to-head test among the two and gave
the Seagate a kick ass award. I have the Raptors in 0+1 in my PC. Happy?
Yes, but too much space sacrifice. And with the high RPM, I'm not quite
comfortable running the drive alone without any redundancy (and backups).
Had a drive died on my once, fortunately it was in a RAID 1 so I was up
and running again in no time.
 
I actually had 2 x 74GB Raptors in my PC and they were set up in RAID config. Every couple of months, my computer started randomly rebooting until I format the drives and reinstall everything. Took the drives out, replaced them with a 500GB Seagate with 32MB cache, and had no problems since.
 
A Raptor is a vanity upgrade for most people. It's a waste of money.

It's not as though 10,000RPM drives are uncommon. And since when is an "enterprise" drive necessarily more reliable? I've had lots of 10K SCSI Cheetahs die. We only used them because we needed the throughput, and had to run a striped RAID, too. My point is that 10K drive mechanisms have been around for a long time. Rotational speed is great, but what you pick up in rotational speed you lose in platter density. The denser the data on the platter, the more data a drive head is exposed to for a given RPM. That's why the large drives compare well to the low capacity 10K RPM drives.

Are there good applications for Raptors? Sure. Does it sound like this is one of them? Only if a person involves their ego in their computer. How silly would that be?
 
I figured as I didn't really research, but I'll let the performance do the talking as well. Worst case I'll order a 1TB drive or something for the fourth bay if I need more space. An empty 500+320 is fine for me for a while, considering I keep all my archived media/programs/stuff I don't use frequently on a full 500GB external as well.

Btw for Pro apps I run Final Cut Studio 2 and Logic Studio, 55GB and 46GB? I don't know why yours are so big.

I'm carbon copying my drive image right now with my two new drives in the bays, I'll get back when its up and running on the Raptor.


As for sound tradeoff, its still damn quiet suprisingly. If this thing turned out to be a disappointment, and it was loud, I would sell it.
 
I do indeed do full installs of my pro apps, and your estimates are exactly double the required space that they take up, even at apple's recommendations.

The only thing I did not install for FCS2 was the video tutorials, which saves two gigs.
 
fs454 said:
I do indeed do full installs of my pro apps, and your estimates are exactly double the required space that they take up, even at apple's recommendations.

The only thing I did not install for FCS2 was the video tutorials, which saves two gigs.
Click to expand...

Apple's required spec states as follows:

Logic Studio 8: Total 78GB (so I was a little out)
  • 7GB to install all applications and required content
  • 39GB to install all optional content (large content packages can be installed on separate disk):
  • 10GB for Jam Pack collections
  • 16GB for sound effects
  • 6GB for surround music beds
  • 7GB for other optional content

Final Cut Studio 2: Total 121GB (I was 1GB out)
  • 4GB of disk space required to install all applications
  • 62GB required to install all optional templates, content, and tutorials (may be installed on separate disks):
  • 9GB for DVD Studio Pro content
  • 8GB for Motion templates and tutorial media
  • 24GB for Soundtrack Pro audio content
  • 12GB for LiveFonts and LiveType animated elements and templates
  • 2GB for Apple Pro Training Final Cut Studio Tutorials media

The Hard Drive requirements are taken directly from Apple's website. Maybe you need extra space to actually be able to use them when they are installed?
 
gazfocus said:
Apple's required spec states as follows:

Logic Studio 8: Total 78GB (so I was a little out)
  • 7GB to install all applications and required content
  • 39GB to install all optional content (large content packages can be installed on separate disk):
  • 10GB for Jam Pack collections
  • 16GB for sound effects
  • 6GB for surround music beds
  • 7GB for other optional content

Final Cut Studio 2: Total 121GB (I was 1GB out)
  • 4GB of disk space required to install all applications
  • 62GB required to install all optional templates, content, and tutorials (may be installed on separate disks):
  • 9GB for DVD Studio Pro content
  • 8GB for Motion templates and tutorial media
  • 24GB for Soundtrack Pro audio content
  • 12GB for LiveFonts and LiveType animated elements and templates
  • 2GB for Apple Pro Training Final Cut Studio Tutorials media
Click to expand...

The optional content in Logic is 39GB. The Jam Pack, SFX, etc are part of the 39GB, not seperate. In FCS2, the optional content includes DVDSP content, Motion templetes, etc.

Logic: 7GB + 39GB(10+16+6+7=39) = 46GB -NOT 78GB
FCS2: 4GB + 55GB(9+8+24+12+2=55)=59GB -NOT 121GB

On Apples info pages, they use basic tabbing to distinguish this. They individually list all the optional content options for user knowledge.
The sum for the list below is not 6GB, but 3GB.

  • Additional (3GB)
    • part a (1GB)
    • part b (1GB)
    • part c (1GB)
 
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