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If you are considering a 27″ iMac….
On this forum I have been an advocate of Ethernet Based SANs for editing environments. They cost less than Fibre Channel, they’re incredibly easy to maintain and you can connect pretty much any Mac to the network and start editing.
In particular I’ve been advising people who have asked about connecting high speed storage to an iMac about the advantages of Ethernet based storage.
We have discovered that the new i7 and i5 27″ iMacs do not support high speed ethernet transport. Apparently we’re the first ones to try it because everyone we’ve spoken to, including contacts at Apple, were unaware this situation existed. I have put all the details in my blog, but apparently the Ethernet controller in these two machines is unique to the product line and they do not support speeds over 1500. Normally you can go to 9000 (Jumbo Frames.)
We have returned our i7 iMac and have placed an order for the 27″ 3.33Ghz Core Duo version which does support high speed ethernet transport.
I wanted to let everybody know as this has been a very confusing two days for us here sorting out all the facts. The other iMacs will work, the i5 and i7 won’t.
https://www.biscardicreative.com/blog/?p=655
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Editor, Colorist, Director, Writer, Consultant, Author.
HD Post and Production
Biscardi Creative Media“Foul Water, Fiery Serpent” now in Post.
Creative Cow Forum Host:
Apple Final Cut Pro, Apple Motion, Apple Color, AJA Kona, Business & Marketing, Maxx Digital. -
23 Replies
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So, the big question is, was this by design to insure that the top of the line iMac could never be used by professionals as a substitute for MacPros?
What’s you feeling on that one Walter?
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los AngelesPOST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™
A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, Indie Film & Documentary, and Film History & Appreciations forums.
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[David Roth Weiss] “So, the big question is, was this by design to insure that the top of the line iMac could never be used by professionals as a substitute for MacPros?
What’s you feeling on that one Walter?”
Wouldn’t even venture a guess.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Editor, Colorist, Director, Writer, Consultant, Author.
HD Post and Production
Biscardi Creative Media“Foul Water, Fiery Serpent” now in Post.
Creative Cow Forum Host:
Apple Final Cut Pro, Apple Motion, Apple Color, AJA Kona, Business & Marketing, Maxx Digital. -
What’s the delay in putting the i7 in macPros
Peter McAuley
Axyz Edit
Toronto
G5 dual 2.0
4 gigs ram
10.4.3
FCP 5.04
QT 7.03
Kona 2 v1.1.4 with K Box
4 X 250 gig external F800 Lacie firewire drive
2 X 23″ Apple cinema display -
[walter biscardi] “Wouldn’t even venture a guess.”
Well, as a wise man once said, “sometimes two plus two adds up to five, but not very often.”
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los AngelesPOST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™
A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, Indie Film & Documentary, and Film History & Appreciations forums.
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[David Roth Weiss] “Well, as a wise man once said, “sometimes two plus two adds up to five, but not very often.”
“I definitely see your point David…but it also not my impression that Apple really markets the iMac as a pro machine…and I’m sure the bean counters wouldn’t see the value in including high bandwith ethernet in a consumer machine. I mean, even a large percentage of FCP users wouldn’t be using this, let alone the average family or small business. If I were looking for ways to keep the cost down, this might be one of the features that’s the first to go.
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John, I think you are missing the point Walter is making, SLOWER iMacs have the faster ethernet architecture. some is throttling back the potential of what is on the i7 iMacs.
I’m an All Apple guy but Apple does slow things down on a lot of their stuff for whatever reason.
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Man Walter, that stinks! Nothing worse than going through the troubleshooting of that type of problem.
I was really thinking that a group of i7 iMacs would be a very nice addition to a lot of studios. So much for that. Thanks for the heads up.
-Russ
Russell Lasson
Colorist/Digital Cinema Specialist
Color Mill
Salt Lake City, UT
http://www.colormill.net -
[Michael Sacci] “John, I think you are missing the point Walter is making, SLOWER iMacs have the faster ethernet architecture. some is throttling back the potential of what is on the i7 iMacs. “
I did realize that…but aren’t the slower ones an older model/design? I was speculating that they are cutting costs on the newer model. I’m not apologizing for Apple, and you may well be right about their motives in this….but we all tend to see things through the pro video lens, as if every decision Apple makes revolves around pro video customers. The iMac is Apple’s consumer machine, and decision making surrounding its design is going to largely be based on that. If I wanted to make the new iMac bigger and faster, and still wanted to keep costs down and margins up, putting a cheaper Broadcom card in might be something I would think about, considering over 90% of the people buying an iMac would never know or care.
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[John Pale] “I did realize that…but aren’t the slower ones an older model/design?”
No. Every product in the Apple computer lineup can do high speed ethernet connectivity except the i5 and i7 iMacs. So not, it’s not older model / older design. It’s all current products except these two models.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Editor, Colorist, Director, Writer, Consultant, Author.
HD Post and Production
Biscardi Creative Media“Foul Water, Fiery Serpent” now in Post.
Creative Cow Forum Host:
Apple Final Cut Pro, Apple Motion, Apple Color, AJA Kona, Business & Marketing, Maxx Digital. -
[Russell Lasson] “I was really thinking that a group of i7 iMacs would be a very nice addition to a lot of studios. So much for that. Thanks for the heads up.”
My thinking exactly. We are going to have 8 edit suites in our new facility and my plan was to outfit four of them with 27″ i7 iMacs because we do so much long form work here. They are very well suited for both offline and even online editing.
For finishing, we would use one of the four Mac Pro / Kona 3 / FSI based suites or the Color Grade suite, but for day to day editing, the iMacs really do work well when connected to the Ethernet SAN.
I’ll let everyone know how the Core Duo 2 machine works out. Total of a $400 savings, but definitely a big drop in processor power going from Quad to Dual. I’m not even going to repeat what the Apple tech said when he saw the i7 truly did not support Jumbo Frames, but it was funny.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Editor, Colorist, Director, Writer, Consultant, Author.
HD Post and Production
Biscardi Creative Media“Foul Water, Fiery Serpent” now in Post.
Creative Cow Forum Host:
Apple Final Cut Pro, Apple Motion, Apple Color, AJA Kona, Business & Marketing, Maxx Digital.
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