[Andre Labranche]

… time passes …

I’m now using a 2013 Mac Pro (6c / d700 / 32GB / 1 TB) and a pegasus2 r6 with 2TB drives. Not a cheap upgrade by any means, but it should last many years (goal is 6 or better).

Here’s a short writeup on this new combo, including some benchmarks:
https://dreness.com/blog/archives/809

FCP X is just so nice with a dual GPU config:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Srl2LuMED0Y

I know none of this is news at this point, but I wanted to add some data points for anyone else who may be considering such a transition.

Cheers,
-dre

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[Andre Labranche]

Hi Bob,

Thanks for the reply. Comments / answers inline:

[Bob Zelin] “so exactly what are you asking? … Do you really need to buy anything right now ?”

Somehow I forgot this important information. I will sheepishly add three soft constraints to the hard constraint of throughput minimum I already mentioned: 1) I do intend to acquire a new mac pro reasonably soon after they are available, 2) The new mac pro needs access to some bulk storage to be fully useful to me, and 3) I would prefer to not have multiple mac pro machines online, for heat / power / noise reasons (this stuff lives in my bedroom), and also because somebody is waiting for a hand-me-down of my current machine. 2 and 3 together two would seem to rule out re-purposing the existing machine as a file server, which would otherwise be technically feasible, but… I’m calling these ‘soft’ requirements for a reason – more on that later.

[Bob Zelin] “I believe that you are asking (what so many people ask) – what is the LEAST EXPENSIVE WAY I CAN DO THIS”

This is a perfectly reasonable assumption. However, in my case, overall cost is not a top-level constraint, at least not in this ballpark. What can I say… I work in high-tech and live frugally 🙂 What *is* important to me is VALUE, but value still ranks behind my other constraints. As I seem to have identified multiple ways to satisfy the primary constraints, this thread is about maximizing value.

My notion of value includes consideration of the longevity of the solution. I don’t want to be re-rolling stuff every 1 to 2 years, which also means that I tend to avoid adding new requirements once the system is built. My current setup would last another couple years at least were it not for my pesky and arguably capricious requirement of upgrading to a new mac pro 🙂 In the long term, another platform-level requirement is the ability to run new versions of OS X as they become available, which I need for my profession. It’s hard to estimate longevity of the new mac pro in this respect. I find myself wanting to make optimistic estimates (e.g. major architecture upheavals seem to have died down after the intel and 64 bit transitions), but I will stop short of doing that, because I do agree with your points about how technology industries work 🙂

[Bob Zelin] “EVERY DAMN DRIVE MANUFACTURER will have TBolt 2 drive arrays, and they will all compete for price, so buying day 1 is probably not a great idea.”

This is a very strong argument for using a stop-gap solution of keeping my existing mac pro online as a file server, at least until there are more tbolt2 options. I have an inkling suspicion that Promise won’t budge on their prices, and if so… bully for them. I’m not set on buying Promise, and I can certainly handle the rough edges of unwieldy administration tools and / or bad English that seem to be more common with other vendors, provided the product is performant and robust. Right now, cost and value of the Pegasus2 stuff seems acceptable to me, but I like the idea of waiting to see how things develop, given that I have a stop-gap option, even though it violates my third soft constraint.

Thanks again for your perspective and sanity check of my findings so far. I did move my R380 to slot #2 last night, and indeed it’s running faster now!

Cheers,
-dre