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Changed of graphics card on Mac Pro2009 !! now SSD??
Changed of graphics card on Mac Pro2009 !! now SSD??
Using the information below:-
Is it worth me buying a ssd drive for the mac Pro?
I have just had to buy a new graphics card.
Buying a new Black mac pro is out of the question financially.
So how far do I go in upgrading this?
As I am HD working mostly on FCPX 10.1.1. and after effects.I have a mac pro 2009
2 x 2.66 Quad Core intel Xeon
20 GB 1066 MHz DDR3
Early 2009 Mac PRO
software OS x 10.9.1
Graphics card Radeon HD 7950 sapphire 3 GBModel Name: Mac Pro
Model Identifier: MacPro4,1
Processor Name: Quad-Core Intel Xeon
Processor Speed: 2.66 GHz
Number of Processors: 2
Total Number of Cores: 8
L2 Cache (per Core): 256 KB
L3 Cache (per Processor): 8 MB
Memory: 20 GBI have been and am pretty happy with this…. its just that I don’t understand something”-
how to work out what the difference would be.?I recently had to change the graphic card. I was using nvidia GT 120 and it crashed about 6 times a day (was fine with lion)… looking through the forums it seemed that the card was the problem esp as Mavericks resorted to a macs default generic video driver.
I asked around and there were very very few graphics cards available. Most suppliers have no stock. So I bought this card. graphics card Radeon HD 7950 sapphire 3 GB. rightly or wrongly… If I scrub quickly along the time line FCPX now longer crashes and seems that the card is coping with the display refreshes. But how does the graphics card make a difference with this next question:-What if any does a graphics card have to do with rendering times.?
Having upgraded the card… I started looking at SSD’s but this 2009 is only SATA 300.
So to test benchmark test I did this.I made a 3 min project added transitions, effects etc…..deleted the render files and timed each of the renders on each of my HARD drives. The results puzzled me particularly on the MacBook Pro retina which IS ssd flash. ….everyone tells me sad is MASSIVELY faster. !! but how much?
these are the tests off the Mac PRO, (all drives 50 %or so empty. computer restarted afresh.)
Mac Drive 1.39 mins
Physical Drive: 7200 RPM
Media Name: WDC WD6400AAKS-41H2B0Velociraptor 1.19mins
Physical Drive: 10000 RPM
Media Name: WDC WD3000HLFS-01G6U02nd drive 1.23mins
Physical Drive: 5400 RPM
Media Name: WDC WD20EARS-00MVWB0BUT below are the tests off the Mac PRO RETINA
Latest high spec Macbook pro retina.
these are the tests off the Mac PRO. I know its only 2 core but the result was a staggering render time of …………………. 5 mins !!! this does not tell me anything about how a ssd compares. but it is a good portable machine. 16 gb ram.Model Name: MacBook Pro
Model Identifier: MacBookPro11,1
Processor Name:
Processor Speed: 2.8 GHz
Number of Processors: 1
Total Number of Cores: 2
L2 Cache (per Core): 256 KB
L3 Cache: 4 MB
Memory: 16 GBSo how can I tell if its worth buying a ssd for this 2009? how much difference will it make?
should I put in a SATA 600 pcIE card too? what can I do to the existing machine to improve things. if any?I bet you all tell me to start saving !!!
Cheers. AnitaThanks for all your help
Anita Sancha. -
6 Replies
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The graphics card helps because it has off board GPU processing. This is like adding lots of additional CPU cores to your system. Your own tests give you an idea of what a faster disk drive can do – the 10K Velociraptor is the fastest of all of your drives.
An SSD writes and reads data even faster than that drive.
Keep in mind these numbers:
5400 RPM disk – approx 60MB/sec maximum sustainable I/O
7200 RPM disk – approx 110MB/sec maximim sustainable I/O
10K RPM disk – approx 140MB/sec maximum sustainable I/OOn the other hand, most 250GB+ SSD drives average around 400MB/sec or more.
However, I would start with a less expensive test – purchase 3 7200 RPM, 1TB SATA disks. Place them into the three bays in your Mac Pro. Using Disk Utility, create a 3 disk striped array. This results in you getting the capacity and performance of 3 drives (should be around 310MB/sec). Try your render with that volume as your working environment and you’ll see even better speed than the Velociraptor.
If you do decide to move to SSD, I would still recommend the 3 drive stripe option – buy three 250GBs instead of one 750GB. In my Mac Pro 4,1 using 3 Samsung EVO 840 500GB drives gives me incredible numbers. Connecting the SSDs to a PCIe SAS card makes this even faster. I see I/O numbers in the 1.2-1.4GB/sec range.
However, if your options are a single SSD or 3 7200RPM HDDs in a stripe, I’d go with the 3 HDD drive stripe. Plus you get much greater capacities for the same money in that case.
Tim
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Tim Jones
CTO – TOLIS Group, Inc.
https://www.productionbackup.com
BRU … because it’s the RESTORE that matters! -
Gosh Tim, Thanks….
lots of info there for my wee small brain to take in…
What I did not mention is that I am already full of drives. 4TB time machine and 2 2TB basic storage (I used up the slot below the optical drive) So 5 in total. So I would have to do some moving about. I tried to think about getting rid of the optical drive to use that bay., But I cant work out if a mac superdrive I got along with the laptop would work on it. I also use externals too !!!But I have no BIG pegasus or raid…. only separate drives. and time machine for back up.
Mac Drive 650GB
Physical Drive: 7200 RPM
Media Name: WDC WD6400AAKS-41H2B0Velociraptor 300GB
Physical Drive: 10000 RPM
Media Name: WDC WD3000HLFS-01G6U0storage archives (no 1) 2TB
Physical Drive: 5400 RPM
Media Name: WDC WD20EARS-00MVWB0storage archives (no 2) 2TB
Physical Drive: 5400 RPM
Media Name: WDC WD20EARS-00MVWB0Time machine 4 TB I think 7200
HGST HDS724040ALE640I now almost there to try the 3 drive stripe option ? If I moved everything around…? and off onto only externals…
Seems though you think the Mac pro is worth improving.
AnitaThanks for all your help
Anita Sancha. -
5400 RPM disk – approx 60MB/sec maximum sustainable I/O
7200 RPM disk – approx 110MB/sec maximim sustainable I/O
10K RPM disk – approx 1640MB/sec maximum sustainable I/OOn the other hand, most 250GB+ SSD drives average around 400MB/sec or more.
Tim sorry not sure about this comment of yours.
Have I got this right? 250GB+ SSD drives average around 400MB/sec or more is slower that the 10K RPM disk – approx 1640MB/sec maximum sustainable I/Ois it?
Thanks for all your help
Anita Sancha. -
Typo – should have been 140MB/sec on the 10K Velociraptor.
Tim
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Tim Jones
CTO – TOLIS Group, Inc.
https://www.productionbackup.com
BRU … because it’s the RESTORE that matters! -
I definitely believe that the old Mac Pros still have a lot of life in them with proper updates.
My recommendation to you is that you look into an external USB 4 drive chassis and move all of your existing drives into it. You won’t even need to worry about the contents of the drives as they will just show up as they are now.
Here’s one that I use in a lot of instances:
Mediasonic HF2-SU3S2 ProBox 4 Bay Hard Drive Enclosure
Even though it’s USB 3, it works fine as USB 2. This would free up those 3 internal drive bays for the array.
Tim
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Tim Jones
CTO – TOLIS Group, Inc.
https://www.productionbackup.com
BRU … because it’s the RESTORE that matters! -
Thanks for all your advice… I had never head of stripped arrays. and I am looking into them more in google. So I understand it. Also the rack enclosure would give me loads more space..
I think also the main boot drive could be a basic SSD 250 … and then the rest standard stripped arrays.
I could also try out the 2 2TB drives as stripped array as they are identical to try out the system..with what I have already. Thanks a bunch.
Thanks for all your help
Anita Sancha.
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