Mac Pro Configuration

withuk

withuk

Active member
Hi, I’m going to be ordering a Mac Pro after the release of Leopard on the 26th. I have compiled this configuration from posts on this site. Just wondering if it is agreed that this set up would work well editing HVX200 footage using Final Cut Pro Studio 2.

Mac Pro

Two 3.00 GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon
4GB (4 x 1GB) Ram
ATI Radeon X1900 XT 512MB (2 x dual-link DVI)
500GB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s
One 16x SuperDrive
Mac OS X Leopard (English)
Apple Keyboard & Mighty Mouse
Final Cut Pro Studio 2


Any opinions or recommendations would be greatly appreciated.

Also will they update hardware for the Mac Pro with the release of Leopard? and if so, will this happen on the 26th?

Thank you
 
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1) Don't buy memory from Apple - much cheaper from another (reputable) source

2) Don't upgrade the drive - much cheaper from another (reputable) source, and your money is much better spent on additional drives rather than a bigger system drive. You can stuff 3 more drives in there, and either manage data carefully or RAID them to get speed benefits...
 
Thank you for the reply

ullanta said:
1) Don't buy memory from Apple - much cheaper from another (reputable) source
Click to expand...

I get a very good teachers Higher education discount through apple.

ullanta said:
2) Don't upgrade the drive - much cheaper from another (reputable) source, and your money is much better spent on additional drives rather than a bigger system drive. You can stuff 3 more drives in there, and either manage data carefully or RAID them to get speed benefits...
Click to expand...

So if I get a primary drive of 250GB and a second of 500GB for storage, should I buy a RAID card? (this seems very expensive) or can I just set it up in Disk utility? What are the risks if I don't get the RAID card?

Thank you
 
What I did for mine was to buy a 750gb main drive and keep the RAM at 1gb default. Then, through Tigerdirect.com or newegg.com or whatever place you want to go to, I bought three 750gb Seagate Barracuda drives, turned out to be the exact same drives Apple uses surprisingly. Saved about $100-$150 per drive.

Then I went to Other World Computing for the RAM and, for more than half the price of Apple's RAM options, I got a nice 16gb set. Little did I know that they would release a range of up to 32gb option a week later. But still, it saved me a ton of money and my Mac Pro is now considered fully decked out.

Oh, just in case, if you're going to decide to buy a 30" Apple Cinema Display, I would first take a look at Gateway's new 30" monitor. By the technical specifications alone, it really beats both the Cinema Display and Dell's 30" monitor. I'm definitely considering getting one unless Apple releases an updated range of displays in November. Speaking of which, if you can hold off until November, I would because rumors abound that the Mac Pro is in serious need of updating in both the graphics and storage department (ie. 1TB hard drives).
 
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Apple higher ed discounts are the best prices you can get for the Macs.... but still high prices for memory and drives.

You can't RAID HDs of unequal size. And, frankly, I'm not a big fan of RAIDs for most of what I do... a single decent drive is fine for one or two streams DV and DVCPRO HD, and you actually get better performance if you're able to spread streams over multiple drives than if they're all on the same RAIDed set of drives (avoiding seek time and drive thrashing is more important than peak data rate). So, I typically use three-four drives at a time (one or two for source media, one as a destination for output, and one for renders, etc).

Of course, this requires careful management of where files are, while a single big RAID doesn't. So if you don't want to be bothered with worrying about where files are, a RAID will give you some speedup with less hassle....

One other difference: a "speed" RAID (as opposed to a "safety" RAID) is a little more prone to failure than other approaches, and for simple 2-drive RAIDs, failure of one drive loses ALL the data. Some RAIDs provide safety (redundancy) AND speed... but those won't fit inside your Mac... and require more drives...
 
Thank you for all the replies! It's been a great help.

Jack_Felis said:
Speaking of which, if you can hold off until November, I would because rumors abound that the Mac Pro is in serious need of updating in both the graphics and storage department (ie. 1TB hard drives).
Click to expand...


How likely is it that these hardware upgrades will definitely happen in November? I think I could wait until then, but if it becomes like the release of Leopard and extends for months on end, then that may be a problem.
 
If you go with the raid, buy a raid card from a third party vendor. The one Apple is selling when you configure your Mac Pro is ridiculously overpriced. Its even worse than the RAM and HDD gauging they do.

As for the hardware updates, those are not too likely to get delayed if there is a real plan to release the updated ln November. The big upgrade thing for them these days is the processor. Intel is always ready to fire up the assembly line for new chips and Apple is aggressively using those chips and constantly updating their lines. So if Jobs is expected to speak somewhere in November, I'd be really shocked to not see the Mac Pro line get new chips. As for the 1TB drive, well again, Apple will overprice that anyway. So might as well just stick to the default drive and then upgrade yourself once its at home. The new Mac Pro hard drive slots could not be easier to stick drives into, so much better DIY option there I think.

Cheers.
 
Yep, those would be the ones.

$210 from Newegg vs. $500 from Apple

Looking further into Newegg, for $110 or so more you can get 1TB Seagate drives if you wanted to! What the heck is Apple thinking? Installation in the Mac Pro couldn't be easier, take the drive, screw in the hard drive enclosure to the bottome of it, slide it into one of the HDD slots. That's it, it's not a $200+ procedure.
 
Awesome thank you, wow those TB Hard drives would be amazing. There are a lot of things like that that we do not understand about apple, But i'm sure 1TB will be available in the next mac pro.

So you have to have all the same sized drives in order to run raid? Does anyone know where you can find that Raid card? I don't want to pay $1000 from apple

Thank you
 
Hi Everyone,

Just wondering if there was any news on the dates of release of the new hardware for the Mac Pro. I have been told that it will be sometime this November, but does anyone know exactly when or might it be actually delayed.


Thank you for any replies
 
withuk said:
Hi Everyone,

Just wondering if there was any news on the dates of release of the new hardware for the Mac Pro. I have been told that it will be sometime this November, but does anyone know exactly when or might it be actually delayed.


Thank you for any replies
Click to expand...

Im waiting on news of the new vid card also.
 
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