The 'Trashcan' Mac Pro: Remembering One of Apple's Most Controversial Designs Nine Years Later

we used it for our main server for a while replacing our old server (old server is now a file sharing/back up server)


getting a dell tower or rack server to replace it and use it as our new file sharing server.

It worked well, getting a tower because Bootcamp and upgrades were difficult to maintain at times, especially when replacing the PCIE ssd and cloning it. Took nearly a week. Our program runs on windows but otherwise in terms of testing and developing/compiling our builds it Wass great.
 
I still use my 12 Core Trashcan Mac Pro, it's still a great machine. Everyone jokes about Phil Schillers 'Cant innovate any more my ass' comment, but it was truly a fantastic piece of engineering. Had they actually kept it up to date, and perhaps offered it as a Mac Studio like product as well as a full blown tower, I'm sure it would still be successful today Considering they were selling it up until 2019, I'm surprised and a bit annoyed that Ventura doesn't officially run on it.
 
steve09090 said:
At least they were trying and didn’t produce a beige machine like the other mob do.
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The thing is pro-users mostly care about a machine that does the work they need it to do far more than one that looks pretty on the desktop. A beige workhorse might have gone over far better with that class of users.

Honestly it's a beautiful-looking machine, but it's also symbolic of Jony Ive's hubris. He thought he could dictate to the userbase what they wanted instead of listening to what they wre telling him. And it's not like it's the first time he did that. Remember the Cube, another beautiful but utterly impractical machine he was responsible for?

And on top of that, they engineered themselves into a corner. They were expecting processors and GPUs to remain within more or less the same thermal envolope, but as soon as the next generation of GPUs hit that needed even more cooling than the then state-of-the-art it became abundantly clear that Apple had backed he wrong horse.

And the technology to support the ambition of "Everything is Thunderbolt" just wasn't there in 2013. The Mac Studio shows that the idea had merit -- provided you weren't selling into a market that NEEDED PCI slots and user-expandable memory. But there is no way a power-user with some heavy investment in PCI hardware that they need to keep in service was ever going to spring for a trash can. And of course the Thunderbolt peripheral market is much more mature than it was in 2013
 
andrewxgx said:
basically what mac studio became, minus the controversial shape
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Very true; for practical purposes the Mac Studio basically is a resurrection of the old concept.

By pure coincidence, I was just tonight putting one of these old-school Mac Pros in service as a low-end shared workstation, and was marveling at just how nice the thing is physically. Leaving aside any performance or upgradability issues, it's an absolute marvel of industrial design--how it looks, how it feels, how it fits together, even the subtle animation of the LED-backlit labeling on the back when you power it on. And hey, it runs macOS 12 and has a ton of RAM, so it's still pretty capable.

Not that the Mac Studio's design has anything wrong with it in, but if it had been something descended from this form factor, it would have been pretty awesome.
 
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R2FX said:
My daily desktop driver, hooked to 27“4K Eizo via eGPU.

Always loved the design, shame they didn’t care to update it with newer HW (GPUs, CPUs). In my opinion this would have been perfect design for Apple silicon machines, not the fat Mac mini masquerading as a Sususudio :)
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Nice. Also using one daily with 2 27" 1440 displays. What eGPU are you using and how is the performance?
 
It was so innovative that it did not need to be refreshed for the rest of the decade. Expect next Mac Pro around 2030.

Imagine if someone had told you in 2013, that it would be almost 2020 before the next update. And it was almost canceled altogether.
 
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SvenSvenson said:
Nice. Also using one daily with 2 27" 1440 displays. What eGPU are you using and how is the performance?
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Vega Frontier inside Razer Core X with Kryptonite (https://egpu.io/forums/mac-setup/kr...u-support-with-filevault-sip-and-art-enabled/). Have another eGPU box with RX580 on 2012 Mac mini, but haven’t had time to try connecting both at the same time to Mac Pro. I don’t do video so not sure I’d see any benefits for my use cases. 😀

Eizo is connected all the time but occasionally I connect vertical 24“ when working with photos and 4k TV for some background noise. eGPU doesn’t skip a beat and leaves internal D700 do computations. I did notice better responsiveness when doing edits, previews and exports in Capture One, but don’t have any numbers on hand.

Been using this 8-Core Mac for past 3y and still love it despite the reputation it has in the forums here.
 
PassiveSmoking said:
The thing is pro-users mostly care about a machine that does the work they need it to do far more than one that looks pretty on the desktop. A beige workhorse might have gone over far better with that class of users.
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That’s probably true. But Apple users don’t want bland. Notwithstanding. It was a very very capable machine. Best in its class in various areas. But ultimately, not that upgradable. Yet it still holds up with its multicore compared to the M1/M2. 10 years later!
PassiveSmoking said:
Honestly it's a beautiful-looking machine, but it's also symbolic of Jony Ive's hubris. He thought he could dictate to the userbase what they wanted instead of listening to what they wre telling him. And it's not like it's the first time he did that. Remember the Cube, another beautiful but utterly impractical machine he was responsible for?
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I really don’t know why people blame Sir Jonny for all the faux pas on their design. Engineering has a lot to say about what a design will be. I mean it really was a beautiful design but Ive was not responsible in any way for the lack of upgrades.

I think Steve Jobs is just as responsible for the Cube as Ive. Thermals have always been their Achilles heel, being ignored to reduce size etc. At least they’ve pretty much solved that.

PassiveSmoking said:
And the technology to support the ambition of "Everything is Thunderbolt" just wasn't there in 2013. The Mac Studio shows that the idea had merit -- provided you weren't selling into a market that NEEDED PCI slots and user-expandable memory. But there is no way a power-user with some heavy investment in PCI hardware that they need to keep in service was ever going to spring for a trash can. And of course the Thunderbolt peripheral market is much more mature than it was in 2013
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Yeah. Thunderbolt 1 just didn’t get the traction. And Apple being apple just don’t like upgrading internals.
Gudi said:
Why isn't the Mac Studio more controversial though? It's quite ugly, not very upgradable and even loud for a Mac.
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I’ve never heard of the Studio being loud?? It’s funny. People want practical, and complain when they don’t like the look. It’s an amazing machine for its size. For any size actually. And I think it looks great. They’ve nailed the aesthetic imo.

The thing about upgradability is that you can choose what you want it to be. I don’t know anyone who upgrades their Window PC motherboards any more, which you need to do if you upgrade the CPU. What upgrades can you want? It has plenty of storage for software and I can’t see people needing more data space for media that can’t be dealt with infinite options with up to 6x40GB/s Thunderbolt 4 slots.

Horses for courses I guess.
 
I used mine in a recording studio for 9+ years. It sadly died a couple of months ago and I replaced it with a Mac Studio (which has been a phenomenal upgrade as software has caught up). I wish I could have waited for the next mac pro, but sadly timing didn't allow for this.

I think as a design it was quite interesting, but it didn't really fit into any spaces that well. It felt very much form over function/aesthetic. It was quite attractive when no cables were attached to it. But when you're in a studio with all ports in use sans the second ethernet port, it becomes much less visually appealing. Most of my clients were surprised to even know it was the computer, and that became a talking point.

Performance wise, it was a very good machine. Could do a lot, but was quite noisy, and difficult to clean. So was prone to running quite hot. I don't have the same issues with the Mac Studio.
 
sshambles said:
Bought one cheap and upgraded it to 12 core this year, comparable to the base iMac Pro for music production for a fraction of the price. Love the design. Perfection.
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The processor can be upgraded or did you replace the entire machine?
 
Gudi said:
Mysterious Noise Sparks Mac Studio Complaints
Mac Studio fan noise - it's going to be one of the loudest Macs at idle.
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Fair call. As I said, I hadn’t heard/seen that. I do note though, that the original poster recorded it at 25dB with a quiet office being 24dB, but if it’s louder, it’s louder I guess. Apple record it at 15dB so it might just be their machine? But that’s also at idle, and it rarely spins up, especially compared to other desktop machines. So when it’s being used it will almost be quieter. But I get your point. I’m just not sure it’s an issue.
 
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