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Old 2008 MP upgrade?
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Just one doubt: the SAS to eSATA cable means you want to plug external drives? Or should it be sata for internal drives? In my case the problem is I already have the graphic card, a Sonnet Tempo e-sata card, and an intensity Pro card, so all that’s left is a 4x slot, while the RAID card requires an 8x. A HW RAID5 option would be much better than a SW 0+1, I guess
Fabrizio D’Agnano
Rome, Italy
early 2008 MacPro, BM Intensity Pro, early 2008 iMac, 2011 MacBook Pro, FCP7, FCPX, OSX 10.8.3 -
Yes, well, both internal and external. There are two mini sas connections, one inside and one outside. Upgrading the internal bays (not bootable, no bootcamp) to SATA iii and also allowing for 4 external esata iii ( sata iii only on Mac Pro 3,1 and above) connections with the fan out cable. It would replace the Sonnet Tempo card (in my case LaCie 4x esata ii card, almost all of my external devices are esata: RAIDs, dual bare-drive dock, Blu-ray burners etc. otherwise the built in FW and USB are fine for me). My thought was also to have an internal 4-drive Hardware RAID-5 Media Drive, will that take advantage of sata iii speeds?
What graphics card do you have installed?
Also the accelsior e2 (bootable, no bootcamp) has two more external esata iii ports, which could reduce the demand on the mini sas card. Also looks like good reviews, tech support and upgradeable storage cards.
The intensity pro card should be fine on any pci slot, right? (in my case Matrox MXO2 host card).
The question I have about all these potential upgrades is, will there be a noticeable improvement in performance in FCPX/Motion/Compressor and if so, what part the workflow is the improvement seen?
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[Christian Schumacher] “The nVidia / FCPX article is old, I’m guessing…”
Ahh, I think I still needed to take a closer look at that article, but that saves me from bothering.
[Christian Schumacher] “AMD 3Gb offering that you also linked to. So, regarding FCPX-Motion performance, anybody with a MacPro capable of upgrading should have it as the best choice for now.”
The Sapphire Radeon 7950? From reading other threads it does seem like it would be the best for FCP X in Legacy Mac Pros. Any particular real-world FCPX comparisons with this card that I should check out? Wondering if it’s cost to benefit ratio will be worth it for me.
[Christian Schumacher] “The truth is the Mac Pro in its current form is still viable for running standartized components such as PCIe SSd, GPU cards and general expansion”
My thoughts exactly. I plan to keep it around for some time, easing the transition to the new Mac Pro and all of its extra costs of Thunderbolt devices and adapters.
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[David Eaks] “The question I have about all these potential upgrades is, will there be a noticeable improvement in performance in FCPX/Motion/Compressor and if so, what part the workflow is the improvement seen?”
I can’t tell about the graphic card for render or export speed, which is not a problem in my case, but the reason I am thinking about the upgrade is mainly about media management and safety, and a bit about speed. My couple of 2TB internal drives in sw RAID0 offer enough speed for what I need. I then have a system drive and an export drive. However, I need an external 4TB RAID set to mirror the Events internal RAID every day I add footage, just in case one of the drive fails. An internal RAID5 of great capacity (4 x 3Tb, resulting in 9 usable Tb) would save me that time, would allow me to keep more events alive (I work on 26′ documentaries that often require months of shooting and editing before being completed and delivered, and many of them can overlap), and to reverse the external 4TB RAID0 drive into a 2TB RAID1 one for fcparch archive. Since I want to use the 5 drives option the MP gives me, I was thinking about going for the fastest system drive. Maybe with about the same money of the sas card, that looks like a great option, I could buy an external esata RAID box that I could migrate to the future MacPro. That would be the only doubt. Of course, while I want my current machine to be up and running for another year at its best pace, I’d rather spend money on something that could be still used in the future than something going to be buried together with the old horse.Fabrizio D’Agnano
Rome, Italy
early 2008 MacPro, BM Intensity Pro, early 2008 iMac, 2011 MacBook Pro, FCP7, FCPX, OSX 10.8.3 -
[David Eaks] “Mac Pro upgrades-
Internal sata iii hardware raid-
MAXPower RAID mini-SAS 6G-1e1i (which slot?) Link-
https://eshop.macsales.com/item/NewerTech/MXPRMS6G1E1I/“I was just about to order the card, when I had a doubt: how do I connect the sata cable to the internal drives? don’t they plug direct onto the motherboard? I am sure I’m missing something easy, but…
Fabrizio D’Agnano
Rome, Italy
early 2008 MacPro, BM Intensity Pro, early 2008 iMac, 2011 MacBook Pro, FCP7, FCPX, OSX 10.8.3 -
[David Eaks] “The Sapphire Radeon 7950? From reading other threads it does seem like it would be the best for FCP X in Legacy Mac Pros. Any particular real-world FCPX comparisons with this card that I should check out? Wondering if it’s cost to benefit ratio will be worth it for me.”
If one has a FCPX-MOTION workflow – and also has a working MacPro – the AMD 7950 should be the best bet for future pro apps updates.
I’m not sure if is good only for the 4,1 and 5,1 though, but there’s the 5770 and 5870 for those older machines (or Q4000, or even PC cards )
Given the complete Mac line boosting dual GPUs now and Mavericks reportedly enhancing graphics capabilities, FCPX should eat VRAM too.[David Eaks] “My thoughts exactly. I plan to keep it around for some time, easing the transition to the new Mac Pro and all of its extra costs of Thunderbolt devices and adapters.
“I bet there’s a lot of people going that route. This isn’t an overnight switch like software can be.
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Basically there is mini sas in there already, you bypass the logic board so the internal drives go to the new card. but its in the front of the mac, so you need the extender to reach that far- $87
https://eshop.macsales.com/item/MaxUpgrades/SZDCMSASR2MS/
Quote below from- https://blog.macsales.com/12247-upgrade-your-06-08-mac-pro’s-internal-bays-to-sata-3-0
“How does it work?
The backplane (where the drives in the bays are connected) consists of four pass-thru SATA connections which are, in turn, connected to the SATA controller on the logic board (located near the front of the Mac Pro) via a mini-SAS connector.The great thing is that mini-SAS is a fairly common connector for PCIe SATA controller cards. The trick is to find one with that mini-SAS connector on the inside. Fortunately, the Newer Technology MAXPower RAID mini-SAS 6G-1e1i controller card happens to fit the bill nicely. Not only does it feature an internal mini-SAS port, it also has a built-in (hardware) RAID controller which supports RAID Level 0, 1, 5, 10, and 50 along with individual drive support and disk spanning, as well as an external port for more expansion options.
But we’re getting ahead of ourselves; let’s concentrate on upgrading those drive bays.
What’s involved in the process?
Once you install the MAXPower card in your Mac, you’ll notice that the mini-SAS cable that connects to the logic board is located near the front of the Mac Pro and the internal port on the card is located near the rear – much too far away from each other to connect. This is easily remedied, however, by using a mini-SAS extender cable to bridge the distance.Once connected, the four drive bays in the Mac Pro are now being controlled by the RAID card, making it capable of both high-speed data transfer and more advanced RAID options.
At this point, we run into a bit of a problem; the MAXPower card isn’t bootable in a Mac. You will need to put your OS on a drive installed in one of the optical bays.”…
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Thank you David.
Fabrizio D’Agnano
Rome, Italy
early 2008 MacPro, BM Intensity Pro, early 2008 iMac, 2011 MacBook Pro, FCP7, FCPX, OSX 10.8.3 -
Curious if you ordered the card, or any other upgrades?
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That card was not available at the moment, so I did not order it. I installed a SSD drive in the optical bay, and a cheap USB3 card, and I bought a couple of USB3 two drives boxes. The internal RAID I use for editing is fast enough for my purposes. I sync the events RAID set on an external 4Tb drive, and I backup/archive on other external RAID1 or RAID0 two drives sets. I am very happy with my machine. I am sure it will continue to allow me working for another year or more without a hitch.
RegardsFabrizio D’Agnano
Rome, Italy
early 2008 MacPro, BM Intensity Pro, early 2008 iMac, 2011 MacBook Pro, FCP7, FCPX, OSX 10.8.3
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