Godfrey
somewhat colored
I've had bad luck with WD enclosures, the drives inside them seem fine. No problems with my LaCie drive so far, but I've only had the one of them.
G
Replacing an old Mac Pro?
- Thread starter Dante_Stella
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I've had bad luck with WD enclosures, the drives inside them seem fine. No problems with my LaCie drive so far, but I've only had the one of them.
G
Stephen G
Well-known
I have also had horrendous luck with WD external products. Poor design/firmware. Had one with a fan that sounded like a hair dyer... by design, was not broken.
Lacie I've been mostly OK with over the years.
My setup as of a few months ago-
i7 Mac Mini
Dual SSDs installed internally myself (a bit tricky, you can pay macsales.com to do it for you)
16GB RAM
External USB3 2.5" enclosures from macsales.com - fast, quiet, bus powered (1 cable)
This gives me -
* fast boot SSD
* fast photo-data SSD
* HDDs on USB3 (USB3 fast enough that it does not limit HDD throughput) for:
* Time Machine
* SuperDuper
* Other data I don't need fast read/write on
It was a huge step up from a 2009 core2duo iMac, and a great value proposition.
Plus I can upgrade my compute power without re-paying for my display.
This machine handles XPro1 files in LR4 without breaking a sweat. I rarely hear the fan kick in while doing photo edits, as the CPU has enough headroom.
Lacie I've been mostly OK with over the years.
My setup as of a few months ago-
i7 Mac Mini
Dual SSDs installed internally myself (a bit tricky, you can pay macsales.com to do it for you)
16GB RAM
External USB3 2.5" enclosures from macsales.com - fast, quiet, bus powered (1 cable)
This gives me -
* fast boot SSD
* fast photo-data SSD
* HDDs on USB3 (USB3 fast enough that it does not limit HDD throughput) for:
* Time Machine
* SuperDuper
* Other data I don't need fast read/write on
It was a huge step up from a 2009 core2duo iMac, and a great value proposition.
Plus I can upgrade my compute power without re-paying for my display.
This machine handles XPro1 files in LR4 without breaking a sweat. I rarely hear the fan kick in while doing photo edits, as the CPU has enough headroom.
robert blu
quiet photographer
I am in the process o replace my 6 years old i.mac 24 (matt screen, 3 G RAM). A few days ago I had to replace to HD (no problem thanks to multiple back up!) and took the opportunity to discuss the options with an apple technician, tired to wait for a new mac pro (if there will be any?!) having to decide between a new i.mac (27 + so much ram as possible) or the mac mini. His answer was no i.mac but go for the mini (plus a thunderbolt raid hd) for sure or eventually buy a still available mac pro.
Later a met a friend of mine, passionate photographer and he told me to be very satisfied with his i.mac 27. Even without calibration colors on prints are very good.
Personally I'm leaning towards the mini...but not yet sure!
robert
Later a met a friend of mine, passionate photographer and he told me to be very satisfied with his i.mac 27. Even without calibration colors on prints are very good.
Personally I'm leaning towards the mini...but not yet sure!
robert
Exdsc
Well-known
Dual monitors are great for editing, in the first monitor looking at an images full screen and then opening it in the second monitor to be precessed while keeping the original as reference in the first monitor.
mugent
Well-known
You could consider keeping the Mac Pro for a while longer, Mountain Lion can be made to run on it....
http://www.jabbawok.net/?p=47
I'm not recommending you do this, as it's really quite technical, but your MacPro is a great machine, it would be a shame to dispose of it just because Apple won't support it.
EDIT : The Lightroom 5 beta page claims it will work with Lion, so maybe you don't need ML at all? I can't test this as I'm a Mountain Lion user anway.
http://www.jabbawok.net/?p=47
I'm not recommending you do this, as it's really quite technical, but your MacPro is a great machine, it would be a shame to dispose of it just because Apple won't support it.
EDIT : The Lightroom 5 beta page claims it will work with Lion, so maybe you don't need ML at all? I can't test this as I'm a Mountain Lion user anway.
matthewm
Well-known
I recently decided to combine/replace my MacBook Pro 13" and 21" iMac. I like to be portable as I work as a freelancer for CreateSpace and I might work from home or a hotel or a restaurant or an airport or any number of places. I got tired of carrying around my MacBook Pro and finding that the file I needed was on my iMac at home. So... I recently purchased a refurbished MacBook Pro 15" Retina. It's perfect for working on the go. For home, I picked up a Thunderbolt Display from Apple (also refurbished). My MBP has the 2.3 GHz Intel Core i7 and 16GB of DDR3 RAM. The harddrive is a measly little 250GB, but that's what my one before was and I have never needed more than that on a local drive anyway. I don't store crap on my computer. Not even iTunes. Computers get lost, stolen, broken, etc. They're not a safe place.
I can run Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator, Pandora, Chrome and Linotype FontExplorer X all at the same time and this computer never even hiccups. It's fast. It boots quickly. Shuts down quickly and runs really, really well. The battery life is also incredible.
The Thunderbolt Display is also pretty incredible. I snagged a 12South BookArc for my MBP so it would have a nice home and it's a great setup. The display has 27" of awesomely sharp goodness with plenty of ports on the backside. You can also get something like the Thunderbolt Express Dock mentioned above to give you more connectivity if you need it.
Anyway... I thought this might give you some versatility in your setup and let you be portable if you want to. Hope this is helpful!
I can run Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator, Pandora, Chrome and Linotype FontExplorer X all at the same time and this computer never even hiccups. It's fast. It boots quickly. Shuts down quickly and runs really, really well. The battery life is also incredible.
The Thunderbolt Display is also pretty incredible. I snagged a 12South BookArc for my MBP so it would have a nice home and it's a great setup. The display has 27" of awesomely sharp goodness with plenty of ports on the backside. You can also get something like the Thunderbolt Express Dock mentioned above to give you more connectivity if you need it.
Anyway... I thought this might give you some versatility in your setup and let you be portable if you want to. Hope this is helpful!
GaryLH
Veteran
If I remember correctly u could get spp to work on an older mac, but not on a newer one, correct?
It is rare that sw like spp has a hw dependency on a Mac, unless it is using a non-apple approved hook. Normally, they should be going thru well known API function calls...
There can be instead changes to the well known API call that are operation system dependent, for example lion vs mountain lion.
I am running lion, not the latest mountain lion os but also a year and half old iMac i5 and have not had problem w/ spp..good thing I don't need to upgrade for a long while. I will wait for the all clear on spp or w/ any luck aperture or adobe will start supporting sigma raw files..
Gary
mgilbuena
San Francisco Bay Area
For those in a similar situation where they have a thunderbolt-equippied iMac and a Macbook laptop also with thunderbolt, keep in mind that by attaching a thunderbolt cable from the laptop to the iMac, you're able to use the iMac screen as an external second monitor or for display mirroring.
Dante_Stella
Rex canum cattorumque
Thanks for all the good ideas - looks like an SSD is going to be the short term. Any way to install one as a boot drive without taking up an existing drive bay?
Thx
Thx
Godfrey
somewhat colored
I went with a mini because this way I can just swap cpus when i want to rather than having to swap whole systems. For some of the work I do very occasionally, I could see myself having a couple of different mini systems, configured differently, and swapping to a different working environment would be as simple as pulling a mini out of my desk drawer and swapping the wires for display and keyboard over.
Also, I use the same display (Thunderbolt display 27") with my work machine (MacBook Air 13"). I have one of these displays at the office and the other one here at home, normally connected to the mini, so when I work at home, I just unplug the mini, plug in the MBA, and it's as if I was sitting at my desk in the office.
With the mini, I can also connect my older Apple Cinema Display 23" display if I have a need for a two monitor working environment. I don't normally work that way, but it does have some usefulness, particularly when working on video editing (less often still editing) for me.
G
Godfrey
somewhat colored
Depends on what CPU you're using, but it's always best to fit an SSD to your fastest drive interface, typically one of the internal drive bays. Of course, with OS X, any drive that can be connected via Thunderbolt, USB or FireWire native ports can boot the system if set up as a boot drive. I'm not sure about how well this works when using protocol converters (e.g.: using a FireWire or USB drive connected to a Thunderbolt 27" Display USB or FW ports), but I suspect that will work too.
G
Stephen G
Well-known
SSDs still perform quite well over USB3 or Thunderbolt, but Dante's Mac Pro will have neither of these available.
Over USB2 or FW800 connection, you won't see an SSD perform much faster (if at all) than a standard HDD.
Over USB2 or FW800 connection, you won't see an SSD perform much faster (if at all) than a standard HDD.
Dante_Stella
Rex canum cattorumque
I was actually thinking either internal drive tray or somewhere else inside but connected to one of the spare internal SATA ports. Unfortunately, it looks like the SATA 3 PCIe card mounts won't boot...
Dante
Dante
GaryLH
Veteran
Fusion drive vs ssd
Fusion drive vs ssd
So I have one friend w/ a fusion drive setup. He bought the new Mac mini w/ fusion when it was first announce.. He loves it. So far no problems.. His other mac machines are 17 inch mac book pro and Mac Pro. He always tries to put the most memory on his machines. 8gb min and normal 32gb.
I have another friend who hacked a ssd drive into his MacBook Pro by using the DVD/cd drive approach. The performance difference is night and day. It is used for his boot and app drive. His HD has all the user related stuff like music and photos.
But since the ssd he used was not an Apple normal recognized one, he had to play some games in the os level to make the os handle the ssd housecleaning related stuff. Right now I cannot remember what he did special or what the changes were about..
Gary
Fusion drive vs ssd
So I have one friend w/ a fusion drive setup. He bought the new Mac mini w/ fusion when it was first announce.. He loves it. So far no problems.. His other mac machines are 17 inch mac book pro and Mac Pro. He always tries to put the most memory on his machines. 8gb min and normal 32gb.
I have another friend who hacked a ssd drive into his MacBook Pro by using the DVD/cd drive approach. The performance difference is night and day. It is used for his boot and app drive. His HD has all the user related stuff like music and photos.
But since the ssd he used was not an Apple normal recognized one, he had to play some games in the os level to make the os handle the ssd housecleaning related stuff. Right now I cannot remember what he did special or what the changes were about..
Gary
Dante_Stella
Rex canum cattorumque
The product to use on the Mac side is an Apricorn Solo X1 PCIe card that gives a SATA III interface, a physical mounting point for a 2.5" SSD, and costs about $50. It also boots on the older Mac Pros. You can also walk into a Micro Center on a Sunday and buy one (as I did). Installation takes all of about 10 minutes (excluding the time when your three-year-old is trying to be helpful by poking a large plastic toy screwdriver into the memory bays and mistaking capacitors for "M&Ms" - I gave him a rocket blower and put him to work cleaning dust bunnines on the motherboard).
Stickier is the issue of how to subsequently get Windows onto another partition - because most (if not all) Windows cloning programs want to use an entire target disk (or reserve the right to). The Windows installer CD (the nuclear solution) does not see the PCIe host because the driver is not on the antiquated XP installer CD. I may just temporarily connect the SSD directly to one of the internal SATA bays or a USB adapter, which should solve this problem of getting a "blessed" SSD boot volume.
The performance boost from putting System, Library, and Applications on the SSD (a Sandisk SATA 3 256Gb) is pretty considerable - you get a 10 second startup and about twice the speed in rendering on Lightroom. You do need to manually redirect the system to your home directory (this is a one-time isse). The only thing that is weird is that Lightroom "lost" the catalog (which I had to re-select manually because the Finder oddly wouldn't find it) and caused some fracas by moving one of my internal SATA drives under volumes, which unlinked all the files. This was pretty easy to fix using the update disk location function.
Dante
Stickier is the issue of how to subsequently get Windows onto another partition - because most (if not all) Windows cloning programs want to use an entire target disk (or reserve the right to). The Windows installer CD (the nuclear solution) does not see the PCIe host because the driver is not on the antiquated XP installer CD. I may just temporarily connect the SSD directly to one of the internal SATA bays or a USB adapter, which should solve this problem of getting a "blessed" SSD boot volume.
The performance boost from putting System, Library, and Applications on the SSD (a Sandisk SATA 3 256Gb) is pretty considerable - you get a 10 second startup and about twice the speed in rendering on Lightroom. You do need to manually redirect the system to your home directory (this is a one-time isse). The only thing that is weird is that Lightroom "lost" the catalog (which I had to re-select manually because the Finder oddly wouldn't find it) and caused some fracas by moving one of my internal SATA drives under volumes, which unlinked all the files. This was pretty easy to fix using the update disk location function.
Dante
MaxElmar
Well-known
Dante - did you see the new Mac Pro? All we need are some 4k video cameras and displays to see what it can do. Somehow I think even a LARGE Aperture or LR library won't slow that beast down....
Dante_Stella
Rex canum cattorumque
Yeah, but having seen the design, I am worried that if I touched it, I would have an alien burst out of my chest later
Dante
Ronald M
Veteran
My Mac Pro is a month old. The new one was coming, but not announced.
I do Not want the new. The whole idea is to get all the drives inside the box and not have junk wired from everywhere. Mine has 4 drive bays full, nothing outside.
I put all the programs in, then cloned it to a small partition on 2 other drives.
They are bootable. I then removed the original, and the others boot and run the programs. In case of a failure, I have a 2 minute fix to have a new drive up and running.
Got q 27" Eizo Color Edge and it is one beautiful set up.
A Mac Pro is self maintainable. More memory is a simple plug in, no tools.
Drives are the same, 1 minute swap if you are slow.
Now that I see the new Pro, I see it is like buying a television. Unmaintainable. Slick design and fast, but non functional.
I do Not want the new. The whole idea is to get all the drives inside the box and not have junk wired from everywhere. Mine has 4 drive bays full, nothing outside.
I put all the programs in, then cloned it to a small partition on 2 other drives.
They are bootable. I then removed the original, and the others boot and run the programs. In case of a failure, I have a 2 minute fix to have a new drive up and running.
Got q 27" Eizo Color Edge and it is one beautiful set up.
A Mac Pro is self maintainable. More memory is a simple plug in, no tools.
Drives are the same, 1 minute swap if you are slow.
Now that I see the new Pro, I see it is like buying a television. Unmaintainable. Slick design and fast, but non functional.
Godfrey
somewhat colored
Difference of opinion. I prefer my storage system to be external with its own independent power supplies. I buy my machines, load them to capacity with ram, and forget changing them until its time to replace them. Upgrades are simple: clone old machine to new machine, plug in storage system, done.
I look forward to buying a new Mac Pro next year... 🙂
G
I look forward to buying a new Mac Pro next year... 🙂
G
bwcolor
Veteran
I'm also looking at my upgrade path and I can share with you what I'm doing. My requirements are mostly driven by the need for power when editing/rendering video. So, you might find that my offhand dismissal of the iMac, or Mac Mini to be a bit harsh in that these are perfectly reasonable photo editing platforms.
I have an early 2008 eight core Mac Pro 2.8ghz. This computer works well as a room heater. I've upgraded my video card and moved to SSD a couple of years ago, but a new quad-core I7 is now faster. The new Mac Pro will be here within six months. I can wait, but I would guess that entry will be close to $4K. My photo editing needs are easily handled by the newer fast i5/i7 Macs, but non-linear video editing and rending does require a fast processor and GPU. In fact, the purchase of Final Cut Pro X is why I upgraded my video card.
I'm now thinking of cutting the cord and moving to a dual boot, mildly overclocked i7-4770K computer. I rarely use Photoshop, so my two orphaned programs are Aperture (50K images) and Final Cut Pro X. I will not buy into Adobe's cloud. I'll either run Lightroom on the Windows partition, or use Darktable on Ubuntu. I would prefer to go all Linux in that I have some concern that Lightroom will be cloud only in the future. Lightworks NLE (many modern Hollywood movies have been edited using this software) has the horsepower to replace Final Cut, but it uses a more film oriented editing process. They have a Linux Beta out now and have a full production Windows version. So, I will run the Linux version. For me, Linux is the most stable O.S. and the lowest security risk of the three major platforms. I've been using Ubuntu Linux and have been happy with this distribution. I've not found a Photoshop replacement. Gimp comes closest, but is only eight bits. Darktable looks promising as an Aperture replacement, but it isn't Aperture. I find that I have a harder time in Darktable getting the white balance just right, but it is a good candidate for replacing Aperture.
Someone can correct me here, but I believe that all of the Mac Minis and iMacs use laptop chipsets. They also have limited choices of GPUs. That said, they are a simple plug and play replacement for your present system. Migration Assistant makes transferring your programs and data a matter of a few clicks. One warning, do so before your old Mac dies. I waited one day too long with one of my computers, but transition to the new Mac can also use your Time Machine backups.
I have an early 2008 eight core Mac Pro 2.8ghz. This computer works well as a room heater. I've upgraded my video card and moved to SSD a couple of years ago, but a new quad-core I7 is now faster. The new Mac Pro will be here within six months. I can wait, but I would guess that entry will be close to $4K. My photo editing needs are easily handled by the newer fast i5/i7 Macs, but non-linear video editing and rending does require a fast processor and GPU. In fact, the purchase of Final Cut Pro X is why I upgraded my video card.
I'm now thinking of cutting the cord and moving to a dual boot, mildly overclocked i7-4770K computer. I rarely use Photoshop, so my two orphaned programs are Aperture (50K images) and Final Cut Pro X. I will not buy into Adobe's cloud. I'll either run Lightroom on the Windows partition, or use Darktable on Ubuntu. I would prefer to go all Linux in that I have some concern that Lightroom will be cloud only in the future. Lightworks NLE (many modern Hollywood movies have been edited using this software) has the horsepower to replace Final Cut, but it uses a more film oriented editing process. They have a Linux Beta out now and have a full production Windows version. So, I will run the Linux version. For me, Linux is the most stable O.S. and the lowest security risk of the three major platforms. I've been using Ubuntu Linux and have been happy with this distribution. I've not found a Photoshop replacement. Gimp comes closest, but is only eight bits. Darktable looks promising as an Aperture replacement, but it isn't Aperture. I find that I have a harder time in Darktable getting the white balance just right, but it is a good candidate for replacing Aperture.
Someone can correct me here, but I believe that all of the Mac Minis and iMacs use laptop chipsets. They also have limited choices of GPUs. That said, they are a simple plug and play replacement for your present system. Migration Assistant makes transferring your programs and data a matter of a few clicks. One warning, do so before your old Mac dies. I waited one day too long with one of my computers, but transition to the new Mac can also use your Time Machine backups.
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