SSD for 12 core MacPro

[Paradiseapple]

Hello friends,

I´m sorry if this question might have been asked before, but expecting the Trim-support in 10.6.7 during the next two weeks I would like to ask which SSD you recommend for my MacPro2010 12core 2.66 with 32Gb Ram. I think about one for the system-HD and one for streaming my big audio-sample-libraries. To be quite honest I am a bit disappointed about the performance-increase compared to my 2006 Quad 2.66.
Some people were not satisfied with SSDs for example streaming huge libraries like Eastwest Hollywood-strings because it is said that Macs are not using the full capacity of SSDs. But some should do it. But which one is the right one for me?

Thanks in advance

Alfred

 

[DeeEss]

After al lot of research I'm happy with mine. I have 2 OWC Mercury Pro RE's in Raid 0 with 2 partitions.

Sequential
319.00 MBs Uncached Write
361.11 MBs Uncached Read

Random
287.27 MBs Uncached Write
336.99 MBs Uncached Read

I haven't tried any others so couldn't compare but I've had them 3 months now and they blitz. These RE's have a decent amount set aside for over provisioning so the need for TRIM isn't that vital. It seems most Sandforce SSD's are OK without TRIM too.

I'm going to add a third SSD to the RAID set as I hear it leaps up alot in speed to the point where it saturates the bandwidth available.

 

[Paradiseapple]

Thanks for your advice. Don´t laugh about me, but what do you exactly mean when you mention a "0 Raid with 2 partitions"? Do I need a Raid-card for that? If yes, which one is appropriate for my Mac?
OWC´s are not that easy to get in Germany - what do you think about the OCZ Revodrive?

So many questions - I know...

 

[DeeEss]

Thanks for your advice. Don´t laugh about me, but what do you exactly mean when you mention a "0 Raid with 2 partitions"? Do I need a Raid-card for that? If yes, which one is appropriate for my Mac?
OWC´s are not that easy to get in Germany - what do you think about the OCZ Revodrive?

So many questions - I know...

No it's fine man, I was in the same boat and loads of people helped me

So I have two drives, made into one with software RAID. You don't need a RAID card to do this, you do it very simply with Disc Utility which is in your apps folder. It's a very simple process, if you google it you will find loads of step by step tutorials. It really is a doddle.

So these 2 drives are now made into one. This allows the same data to be spread to two drives at the same time and usually makes it 2 times as fast (it's a bit different for SSD but it still makes it alot faster). I have then split this array into 2 partitions which divides the discs into two. You can do this with the same Disc Utility app. I have a 60GB partition for my scratch and cache and the rest as a boot/app and working drive. So I work on a project and when it's finished I move it off the SSD's to another drive.

How big are your libraries?

 

[philipma1957]

make sure you don't buy until trim is a done deal.

right now a few ssd's are hitting the market such as intel gen 3 series 320 is due april. Sandforce second generation is coming out the ocz vertex 3.

you need to give yourself a little time maybe the end of april.

 

[DeeEss]

I'm in the UK. I bought these from OWC. It's actually simpler and quicker than you might think. Fed Ex international is the best postage option and a sizeable order of about $800 left me with postage and import of £178

But yes, you know what, it's probably a good idea to wait a little if you can. Intel have just announced a new SSD that has 500+MBs speeds.

 

[Paradiseapple]

I´m moved by all the support. Thanks a lot. My libraries are huge. The Hollywood Strings only are 300Gb but I haven´t bought it yet. The demanding libraries I already own are about 200Gb.
But maybe it´s smart to wait.
To be quite honest: I am a bit puzzled about to the performance-increase of the new MacBook Pro. I´m just afraid that the coming MacPro will give a kick to my 12core.
Anyway - maybe I should wait till end of April...
Or is it possible that Thunderbold makes SSDs as streaming-disk obsolete?

 

[DeeEss]

Yeah, big Libraries. OK, so you have 500GB of libraries you want to put on an SSD.

Well it may be best 2 have just 2 separate drives. a 60GB boot/app drive for your Apps and system and either a single 500GB for your libraries, but I think you're likely to get get a faster stream if you RAID two 250GB's together, even faster with 3 but you may need a hardware RAID card for 3 I'm not certain. For your not so critical data like email, docs etc you can just have a separate data HDD.

Once I've finished a project I move it to a 4x3tb disk Raid which has 12TB of storage. In some regards it's quicker than the SSD's but in other ways it's slower. But it has a huge amount of fast storage for a not so pricey as SSD cost.

The two kinda compliment each other and works well for me.

If you wait you will see newer drives come out with faster speeds and probably bigger capacities.

 

[philipma1957]

yes we are at an interesting time for fast hdd/ssd . 3tb hdds will be common .
intel has the 510 series 250gb ssd out

now they are coming out with a series 320 600gb ssd in late april (trade rumors)

lacie is making a raid0 T-bolt ssd this summer


http://www.tomshardware.com/news/In...yPort-External-SSD-Little-Big-Disk,12275.html

this unit would be good for you . Maybe? Problem is right now a lot of unknown with t-bolt hookups and new ssd's coming out.

 

[Paradiseapple]

You are right - maybe waiting a bit is smart. Don´t I need a certain card to use the "LaCie Little Big Thunderbolt RAID" with my MacPro? And if yes - will it get the same performance as the regular Thunderbolt-slot on a MacBookPro?

 

[philipma1957]

unknown.
right now no one has a working t-bolt external hdd or ssd.
release is upcoming . Have to wait.

 

[alphaod]

You are right - maybe waiting a bit is smart. Don´t I need a certain card to use the "LaCie Little Big Thunderbolt RAID" with my MacPro? And if yes - will it get the same performance as the regular Thunderbolt-slot on a MacBookPro?

Intel said you need a motherboard with built-in support for Thunderbolt as that links the PCIe and the GPU to the new connection interface, which cannot be done via an expansion card.

 

[Paradiseapple]

Intel said you need a motherboard with built-in support for Thunderbolt as that links the PCIe and the GPU to the new connection interface, which cannot be done via an expansion card.

... so that means I was quite stupid to buy a Mac Pro last December. Because changing the motherboard doesn´t sound realistic...

 

[mdgm]

You weren't to know the requirements of Thunderbolt would mean it couldn't be added later to your Mac Pro.

You can still put SSDs in your Mac.

 

[octatonic]

... so that means I was quite stupid to buy a Mac Pro last December. Because changing the motherboard doesn´t sound realistic...

Not exactly.
Mac Pro's have good resale.
You can sell you existing system and upgrade and will have had 6 months + use of your system.

Apple could be anywhere from 1 month to 1 year away from upgrading the Mac Pro.
The 2010 models took forever to appear- the Mac Pro isn't exactly Apple's highest priority these days.

 

[DeeEss]

I did the same thing. I've only had mine 2 months. Feel a bit cheated to be honest but what can you do. Some people say that it will possible to get a Tbolt card and others are saying it will be impossible. Just need to wait and see.

 

[Paradiseapple]

You help me calming down a bit. The performance increase of my new machine wasn´t that huge compared to my 2.66 2006 Quad. While I´m waiting for Final Cut to become 64bit and multicore and Logic Pro to be optimized for more cores I hoped for more performance with SSDs - especially when ins about audio-sample-streaming.
Most people gave me the advice to get a PC-slave - and now I see that would have been the more realistic solution. But just dislike windows so much....

 

[Paradiseapple]

I did the same thing. I've only had mine 2 months. Feel a bit cheated to be honest but what can you do. Some people say that it will possible to get a Tbolt card and others are saying it will be impossible. Just need to wait and see.

So we are in the same boat: me as a newbie and you as a smart one - funny isn´t it?

 

[DeeEss]

So we are in the same boat: me as a newbie and you as a smart one - funny isn´t it?

ha. Don't know about smart. Have spent too much time reading about it though. Am a 13 year Mac user (sounds like an AA meeting intro), have a had a Mac Pro before, and while things change it's all pretty much the same dog, different leg. I know it may seem daunting at first but once you've read it a couple times it kinda just gels.

If you haven't already seen this site have a look. Probably the best for info I think.

http://macperformanceguide.com/index_topics.html

 

[Paradiseapple]

The MacPerformance-guide is great but I thought I´m smarter and got the 12- instead of the 6-core. I thought logic pro and FCP would be updated for full core- and thread-support sooner.
And just this morning I found out that my trader installed Western Caviar Green instead of Black. Maybe that´s one of the bottlenecks. Tomorrow I will change them and see.
This world is crazy and I was just not aware enough to check my Mac when I got it.

 

[DeeEss]

The MacPerformance-guide is great but I thought I´m smarter and got the 12- instead of the 6-core. I thought logic pro and FCP would be updated for full core- and thread-support sooner.
And just this morning I found out that my trader installed Western Caviar Green instead of Black. Maybe that´s one of the bottlenecks. Tomorrow I will change them and see.
This world is crazy and I was just not aware enough to check my Mac when I got it.

Yes the 12 core is rockin if what you do can use the setup. So good move for you. I think Logic in particular, (which I use a bit of will too just for a hobby) will be pushed for multi processor support as it's Apple owned. For me it was a no brainer and I got the 6 for Photoshop, it will be a couple years before a 12 core is viable for what I use it for.

I had a Caviar Black when I got the machine. It was quite noisy, though I've heard others say theirs are quiet. I went with Hitachi Deskstar 3TB's in the end mainly just for the size. Not server grade but very fast and practically silent even with four of them.

How many drives do you have in it? Consider RAID for sure. I get 463 MBs write speeds with my setup of 4x3TBs. Which is faster than my SSD's and at 12TB storage there's room to move.

 

[cutterman]

OP: don't get too caught up in benchmarks. Sure they are helpful in guiding your purchase, but you really need to find out what the pattern of disk access is with your software. You will really notice an improvement with SSD's if it is random access; if sequential not so much and a couple of software raid 0 mechanical disks would probably be fine.

You can get an idea by running activity monitor and looking at byte/sec and io/s while the software is running.

 

[Paradiseapple]

"Once I've finished a project I move it to a 4x3tb disk Raid which has 12TB of storage. In some regards it's quicker than the SSD's but in other ways it's slower. But it has a huge amount of fast storage for a not so pricey as SSD cost."

What kind of Raid-Card do you have and what RAID and HDs?

 

[DeeEss]

"Once I've finished a project I move it to a 4x3tb disk Raid which has 12TB of storage. In some regards it's quicker than the SSD's but in other ways it's slower. But it has a huge amount of fast storage for a not so pricey as SSD cost."

What kind of Raid-Card do you have and what RAID and HDs?

No Raid card needed. Just stick the drives in their sleds and open disc utility. You can create the raid set there by dragging and dropping the disc image onto the Raid dialogue box. Hit Create Raid and it's done.

 

[Paradiseapple]

Thanks a lot for this information! What do you think about this one?
ocz-revodrive-x2-pcie-ssd-240gb-pcie-x4. It seems that this fits to my Mac Pro and should be really fast.