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New Mac and Storage
Hey,
currently running a 2×2.26 Quad Mac pro with 32g ram, SSD drive, Radeon 5770 and 8TB of drives raided together. I back the pertinent files up to a smaller external HD with a second for my system drive.
I am self employed, self contained and trying to wrap my head around my next machine and storage without breaking the bank. I shoot on DSLRs and usually just encode the files to ProRes with QT7. I work for the not for profit sector.
MAC MACHINE
Although I appreciate the iMac i7 works really well with FCPX I have some gripes with it with regards to me and my way of using my machine:
Single monitor – I have 2 x 24″ samsungs which do me fine and I use both a lot.
Monitor doesn’t appear to have an off button, but turns off with the mac, but I leave it on overnight sometimes doing stuff and turn my monitors off.
It appears to be Thunderbolt 1 but now TB2 is coming out so it seems like I may hamper myself with the future.If I was to get one I would get a 1TB fusion drive, 27″ i7 with the 2GB graphics card and buy 32gb ram from Crucial – all in around £2400
I know it is speculation but £2400 would probably by me a lower specced new Mac Pro, and allow me to use my old monitors (I hope). It seems to me, though prices are unknown, that even though i wouldn’t need all the power of a new Mac Pro it would be sensible to buy that over the iMac above to make it slightly future proof and because the power of it should be greater than the above at a similar cost.
>>>> How do people feel about that?
STORAGE
It seems to me 8TB of storage is enough for me, but having been burnt by a HD crash in the past I want all 8TB backed up.
So the Pegasus r4 will give me that for about £1400, but I still need a backup, and a 8TB G-Raid with Thunderbolt Array Hard Drive has been recommended at about £570.
Given my workflow, and simply wanting FCPX to run without the sluggishness I get at the moment despite the RAM, SSD drive, etc., so I may NOT need the pegasus speed boost:
>>>> so would 2 x the G-Raids suffice? One as my main Thunderbolt storage and the other backing up.
if so that would be £1140 instead of £2000 on storage.
I also believe USB3 can use adaptors to make my Blue Ray burner work as it is USB2.
>>> is that correct?
Think that is it unless someone can think of something I haven’t thought of within the parameters of my work, set up and computing needs.
Many thanks
Jules
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11 Replies
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There’s a lot of debate about how much the new Mac pro will cost, Apple don’t usually price now models much higher than the old ones, but looking at the cost of the Intel Chip and the GPUs I’m not sure how much the new base model will cost, but it will almost certainly perform better than the best iMac.
It may also give you enough power to easily skip the transcoding stage of your workflow.
If you get the Pegasus I would recommend using it in RAID 5, you lose 2TB but it gives you valuable redundancy.
Steve Connor
There’s nothing we can’t argue about on the FCPX COW Forum
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cheers steve. good to have my inklings confirmed about the machine itself.
any experience of or thoughts on the 2x g-raids instead of a r4? the r4 and a g-raid is an extra grand which would hurt – though would find it if the 2 x g-raids just won’t cut it.
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I’m in about the same position. In a more or less next future, I’ll have to upgrade both my MBP and MP, with all that comes with them (storage, RT HD output card, etc), without breaking the bank too much. Since I already have a lot of esata arrays or just backup or spare drives, I don’t think I’ll go TB for backup. I think I’ll buy a € 150,00 Lacie TB to e-sata adapter and keep going with my current backup sets, until it’s natural time to replace them, and maybe the prices will have dropped a bit then. I backup, sync or archive during the night time, so a few less MB/s won’t change things much on that side. Or you could consider USB3 sets, that are much cheaper than TB, and should be good for backups.
As for the iMac, USB3 is backwards compatible, so the port accepts USB2 devices, and you can hook one of your current displays via the TB adapter to achieve a two displays setup.Fabrizio D’Agnano
Rome, Italy
early 2008 MacPro, BM Intensity Pro, early 2008 iMac, 2011 MacBook Pro, FCP7, FCPX, OSX 10.8.3 -
[Julian Bowman] “any experience of or thoughts on the 2x g-raids instead of a r4? the r4 and a g-raid is an extra grand which would hurt – though would find it if the 2 x g-raids just won’t cut it.
“As I mentioned, having the redundancy with Raid 5 on the Promise Raid would be a big bonus, a as the main the G-Raids will only run Raid 0.
Steve Connor
There’s nothing we can’t argue about on the FCPX COW Forum
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I have a setup with a 27″ iMac + 24″ monitor and it works quite nicely. The one (and only one) advantage of the way FCP X organizes it’s displays is that they don’t really need to match. I found with FCP 7, it didn’t work well if they didn’t match.
And the monitor goes to sleep on the iMac, I’m not sure how energy wise that’s a lot different than pushing the power switch.
I think bottom-line is that you will save a lot of money going the iMac route. When you’re self-employed (I used to be) those few thousand dollars make a difference.
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A $15 USB3 to eSata adapter is a simpler solution for hooking up your eSatas. That’s what I did with my graid when I switched to iMac. I’m also on a raid 5 Pegasus for projects, then back them up to a mirrored USB 3 raid when they’re done.
RAID 5 is a good idea, but if a drive dies, I have to find an exact replacement and rebuild the system. I’m starting to think my project file should be on the USB 3 mirrored raid, and just keep the event media on the raid 5. Since the media always exists elsewhere (field drives, producer/DP backups, etc) then it wouldn’t be too much of an issue to rebuild in a catastrophe of the raid 5 crashing. Project would still be there and if rebuild event onto a different drive while the RAID 5 is dealt with.
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Yes, I am aware of that and I need to do more research on how that works but if a Pegasus drive goes down I am in limbo until I replace it aren’t I?
Even if not then there is still the financial side of things. Food for thought of course but as a cost saver it seems like 2 g-raids will work because the likelihood of both dying at the same time must be remote so if one goes I can just use the data on the other until I replace the broken one.
Any other opinions welcome though.
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[Julian Bowman] “but if a Pegasus drive goes down I am in limbo until I replace it aren’t I?”
No, it continues to work after it has rebuilt, but you lose the RAID 5 protection until you replace the faulty drive
Steve Connor
There’s nothing we can’t argue about on the FCPX COW Forum
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[Bret Williams] “I’m starting to think my project file should be on the USB 3 mirrored raid, and just keep the event media on the raid 5. “
A problem with the FCPX projects is that you don’t have a real backup if you just mirror them, meaning if you want to go back to an earlier version you can’t, unless you build duplicates along your work. I am using Digital Rebellion Pro Versioner, so I keep the FCP Projects folder on the fast drive together with the Events, but have Pro Versioner build backups in a folder on the system drive, that is time machined, so I two times safe.Fabrizio D’Agnano
Rome, Italy
early 2008 MacPro, BM Intensity Pro, early 2008 iMac, 2011 MacBook Pro, FCP7, FCPX, OSX 10.8.3 -
Yeah, you phrased the issue perfectly. Bob Zelin has a good entry about it: https://library.creativecow.net/zelin_bob/NAB_2013/1
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