-
harware questions for you mac wizards
Okay, about to pull the trigger on a purchase:
mac pro 2.6 ghz
slightly upgraded video card – ATI Radeon X1900 XT 512MB (2 x dual-link DVI)and I want to get RAM and hard drives elsewhere. Do these look good, oh mac pros?
3 x 500 gig Seagate Barracude 7200 drives: https://eshop.macsales.com/item/Seagate/ST3500630AS/
4 x 1 gig memory set: https://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other%20World%20Computing/53FB1GD4GBK/
And I think I’ll save a few $ and get the 30″ Dell monitor (I’ve been happy w/my Dell 24″, the Apple looks good, but can use the 500 bucks elsewhere): https://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/productdetail.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=dhs&cs=19&sku=222-0863
Any comments, advice? Am I making any mistakes? Anything else to consider? Go for it now?
Thanks!
-
5 Replies
-
Other World Computing is the ONLY place to get RAM for the Mac Pro. As far as Hard drives, check out Fry’s @ outpost.com.
https://shop3.outpost.com/product/4924331?site=sr:SEARCH:MAIN_RSLT_PGSteve Eisen
Eisen Video Productions
Director-At-Large
Chicago Final Cut Pro Users Group -
Thanks. Is there any downside to going with 750 gig drives, rather than 500? Does it affect performance negatively? Or is it negligible, and having the extra storage is well worth?
-
You can get some interesting information on hard drives at http://www.storagereview.com
-
It depends on what you are using the drives for. If I was editing Uncompressed HD, I would stay away from a SATA RAID. The 750’s although fairly new will stand up to DV editing. I would personally use 500GB SATA’s if I were editing DVCProHD.
Steve Eisen
Eisen Video Productions
Director-At-Large
Chicago Final Cut Pro Users Group -
I had a client whose 500gig internal went south, after only 4 months of use. IT was the internal HD with the OS and the FCP software bundle and all the little fonts and everything else for the system. I personally think the 750gig is too big and just too large a platform to house the tiny little system files. Way too much for the OS to sift through to get to the info you want. Also, I would imagine there is a huge performace difference, from info on the inner part of the drive, versus the outer part of the drive as it fills up. Video files however, are large chunks of data so they don’t confuse drives at all like small files do. Just make it tough for some to play depending on how it’s connected to the cpu.
So I will recommend a smaller internal drive for you operating system and software. Then you still have space for 3 more dives in the new boxes. So get 750 gig or 500 gig drives in those slots and the RAID them together as one drive. This will give you the best performance and stability.
Matt James
Freelance FCP editor
Denver, CO
peacejames@aol.com
Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up