Replacing an old Mac Pro?

Dante_Stella

Dante_Stella

Rex canum cattorumque
Local time
6:16 PM
Joined
Apr 28, 2007
Messages
1,864
View My Gallery
Well... it's gotten to the point where Lightroom 5 won't work on my Mac Pro 1,1 (4 x 2.6) because it won't take Mountain Lion. Besides that, the computer - even with 13gb of RAM - still drags on Lightroom rendering (no doubt because the OS only does 32 bits on this machine....)

So if you had to replace a Mac Pro today, what would you do if:

- You needed Firewire to run a scanner
- You needed to account for 3Tb++ of digital photos and scanned negatives
- You need to hardwire into a 4Tb NAS device to back up
- You do not trust LaCie or Western Digital external products
- A MacBook or iMac is challenged for connectivity
- A big part of the program is Lightroom

The Mac Pro options are pretty poor (and not cheap).

Oddly, the leading candidate seems to be the 4 x 2.6 Mac Mini (i7), which runs at double the Geekbench of my Mac Pro, has a million and one ports - and does not require you to use a Thunderbolt port to get FW800 or Ethernet.

Buying a PC is out, since the software replacement costs would make buying a $4K 12-core Mac Pro a no-brainer!

Ideas? Anyone use a mini for heavy image editing?

Dante
 
A month ago I upgraded to a Mac Mini, 2.6GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7, 16GB 1600MHz DDR3 SDRAM with the 1TB Fusion Drive.

This computer yawns at LR 4.4. I also use PSE, the new Nik Suite and Photomatix Pro. The 2.6 Mac Mini laughs at these.

The 2.6 GHz models are not in stock. Mine took about a week to arrive.

Godfrey will chime in that he does not trust the Fusion drive technology as it a first generation implementation for Apple. By contrast the reviews are positive and having your LR catalog(s) and Preview(s) in SS memory enhances performance. Of course you could also do something similar with an external SSD. But OS X would not be able to swap your most used files in and out of the external SSD to match you usage patterns.

Your scanner will need a FireWire 400 to FireWire 800 adapter. FireWire 800 is fast. I use an external portable 500 GB FW drive just for my iTunes library.

I recommend Fantom GreenDrive external HDs. The USB3 models are fast. I own two, 2 TB Fantoms. If you want the ultimate performance you can purchase Thunderbolt drives but they are significantly more expensive. I did not research Thunderbolt Drives. I have did not research large capacity FireWire drives. It seems there aren't too many out there.

I highly recommend the 2.6 GHz Mac Mini for hardcore photo processing.
 
I think a Mac Mini is the way to go, just max it out with RAM and get the fastest one you can. I have a Mac Mini of an older generation, and it's pretty slow, but the newer ones would seem a fair bit faster.

Your Mac Pro is still a good machine, and still worth something, so you might not be out of pocket all that much.
 
Is there something about the FW800 port on the Mini that cannot be used with the usual 800-->400 cable? The port is backward-compatible on my Mac Pro.

I could keep the Mac Pro around, but an object that big is hard to house in an apartment as small as mine.

I will say that with the proliferation of Thunderbolt multi-disk housings, expansion chasses (what is this? A Vic-20?), etc., it's clear that Apple has become a little too minimalist.

Dante
 
I use a FW 800 to FW 400 adapter for external HDs and a CF memory card reader. The adapter I own is not tiny so the only downside is it can be knocked loose a easier than a FW 800 cable.

I was not aware a 400/800 cable exists. I should pick one up.
 
I have windows 7 and a dual monitor setup. On the second monitor I run Mac OS 10.8.3 as a virtual machine using vmware.

In my own thinking I have the power and flexibility of PC with all its cheap components, but also the option for MAC in order to run some photography applications that are MAC only.
 
I have a 27" core i7 iMac (last fat generation) w/ 4GB Ram and additional 8GB I plugged in myself. I find it has plenty of I/Os (FW,TB,lots of USB) - I can't upgrade the drive myself anymore on this generation but I think I really want an external TB raid one day anyway (when they stop being so fckn pricey).
I calculated myself to a point where I actually started off wanting to buy a large screen and a Mac mini and found that at that point the iMac was just the better deal at comparable specs. I don't use lightroom so I can't tell you how good it would run .. probably not worse than on a mini.
 
If you absolutely have to replace an old Mac Pro I would just buy another one or try the Mini - I'm using a FW 400/800 adapter on one of mine and it seems to work fine (both ways). You know FW400 is really slow, right? Like slower than USB2. Is your scanner FW400?

If you get a Mini you can sell it (for nearly what you paid for it) and get the Thunderbolt Mac Pro when it comes out in 9 months or so. You'll probably want one. If the iMac goes Retina I would consider that route as well - even though it would require one of those crazy Thunderbolt hubs for FW.

It's easy enough to have a virtual Win 7 machine on any of these when you need to work in that world. I use Virtual Box.
 
If you want to downsize, the mini will probably work fine - but you'll have to cook up an external drive arrangement that you trust and that is fast.

The more I think about it, current Mac Pro may be the best answer. Stuff it full of solid state drives (or a mixture of mechanical and solid state) and connect to your NAS backup solution with hard wire ethernet. Transfer system and working files. Bingo. Done for another seven years. (Of course, one would confirm that the scanner works on the FW port. I think it will.)

The current Mac Pro is no longer as sexy as it was (who is?) but there's no rational reason to demand "newer technology" if the current tech does what you need it to do for the foreseeable future.

Find a nice refurb if you want to save a few bucks.
 
I've been using the "new last year" macmini server model, 16gb of ram, 2 500tb drives. Works fine for image editing etc. My son just got a 2012 model, even more powerful, more room, etc.
Yes, you need external drives for backup, etc. USB 3 on new model, with backwards-compatible thunderbolt, a big plus now.
I'm glad I did it.
 
Dante_Stella said:
So if you had to replace a Mac Pro today, what would you do if:

- You needed Firewire to run a scanner
- You needed to account for 3Tb++ of digital photos and scanned negatives
- You need to hardwire into a 4Tb NAS device to back up
- You do not trust LaCie or Western Digital external products
- A MacBook or iMac is challenged for connectivity
- A big part of the program is Lightroom

The Mac Pro options are pretty poor (and not cheap).
Click to expand...

Dante -- What do they say at the Genius Bar?
 
ColSebastianMoran said:
Dante -- What do they say at the Genius Bar?
Click to expand...

Besides the blank look, the question about why I would need so much disk space, and a pitch for Aperture? Ok, just kidding, but that's about the extent of it for the Geniuses. They can't even intelligently discuss the performance differential between a current 4 x 2.8 Mac Pro versus my ancient 4 x 2.6 Xeon.

And MaxElmar, it isn't about chasing new technology (as you may have ascertained by the fact that I have a 6-year-old machine 🙁). The problem I am experiencing is related to this:

- The machine I have is so old that it's off the supported list for 10.8, and 10.7 might be the workaround - but it's hard to come by. Either one is necessary to use Lightroom 5.

- New technology (like Thunderbolt) only really comes into play to the extent I need to have a bunch of disk space out of the computer.

- I would like to avoid ending up with more computers/boxes/cords or any single-purpose computers. It's not really about downsizing, but it is about increasing performance and hopefully eliminating some cables.

I don't know where you get the idea that FW400 is as slow as USB 2.0. USB 2.0 is not only inherently slower, but it also uses your CPU to manage things (not that this matters, since the interface on a scanner is not exactly a bottleneck).

Thanks.
Dante
 
sepiareverb said:
The Mini is it for FW no? The i7 is wonderful for PS & the like, but it does not run the Sigma software for the Merrill cameras.
Click to expand...

Any Thunderbolt equipped Apple system can use FW 800 and FW 400 devices by means of the Apple Thunderbolt to FireWire Adaptor cable. The only limitation of this adapter is that Thunderbolt can only support 7A current (FW800 can support up to about 40A, I think) so some high-end devices that are entirely bus-powered (like medium format digital backs) require a supplementary power connection.

I don't know what the issue with the Sigma software is. But it sounds like poor application design if it has a problem on specific cpu implementations.

G
 
I'm a big fan of the iMac over here. I have the older 27" mid 2011 model and still have the firewire ports. I've recently invested in a thunderbolt mirroring raid solution and feel much more comfortable knowing my photos are mirrored across two drives.

Per your concern with connectivity options with the latest model, have you considered the Belkin Thunderbolt hub? This takes the singular thunderbolt cable and adds ethernet, firewire 800 and USB3 ports. It can sit under the display/computer and should be a match. As thunderbolt is 12 times faster than Firewire 800, there is plenty of bandwidth. It might be a good solution.

thunderbolt-dock-back-diagram.png

Thunderbolt™ Express Dock*
http://www.belkin.com/us/p/F4U055tt​
 
You can easily (and cheaply) get a Thunderbolt to Firewire adapter, and setting up an external memory array with products you are comfortable with shouldn't be too hard; so I would suggest you could get whatever Mac you like best; I wouldn't let connectivity be the deciding issue, especially with Thunderbolt and hubs- not to mention the new studio monitors which can act as hubs to peripherals and external memory arrays. To illustrate this, let me share my system. I have a not quite two-year old Macbook Pro (2.8GHz i7, running Mountain Lion with 4 gigs of RAM and 1TB of internal memory) that I use as a portable machine (obviously) but also as the guts of my studio set-up (since for now I could only afford one machine, but I really needed both a portable computer and a dedicated studio set-up). I run Lightroom 4 and CS5, along with a bunch of other software. At my studio I plug the laptop into a large monitor, a separate keyboard and trackpad, and a firewire hub to several large external drives. This uses the laptop as the guts for the studio set-up. It's not perfect, but works well enough and gives me almost the flexibility of two computers without having to invest in two (very expensive!) Macs.

I'm not sure whether my next set-up will be another laptop doing double-duty like this or two machines (one dedicated studio and one portable) but it will feature Thunderbolt hub connectivity- either a stand-alone hub or something like the new Apple monitors that can act as a hub, so that my several drives and other externals can all be plugged into a computer with one Thunderbolt cable.

Anyway, I hope this is helpful.

EDIT: I had this window open for a while; I got interrupted by work while composing my answer. In the meantime several folks chimed in above me along the same lines; the Thunderbolt express dock linked above is exactly the kind of thing I mean to use for my next set-up. One Thunderbolt connection will replace the three or four cables I use on my current (pre-Thunderbolt) machine.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Cyriljay
How to recover your photos from an old Corrupt SSD card and advise.
Replies
14
Views
2K
joe bosak
J
robert blu
Mac Mini with M1 chip
2
Replies
23
Views
3K
stephaneb
S
Bololoco
Cameras to fix
2
Replies
31
Views
1K
fub
F
S
Which CPU and how much RAM for photoshop in 2018?
2
Replies
38
Views
6K
blue4130
B
J
Top Travel Accessories for Savvy Shooters on the Go16 must-have Items that’ll keep you operational away from home.
Replies
2
Views
1K
Jason Schneider
J
Back
Top Bottom