Andrew Richards
Forum Replies Created
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[Erik Lindahl] “Looking at the ASUS example a system like that – given not a “mac pro” system in regards to all aspects – could for example make a software like FCPX, Premier Pro, After Effects or Resolve dance.”
Could it? Don’t be fooled by the presence of physical slots. They are not all-lanes all-the-time. The Z77 chipset on that board only supports a single 16x slot for a GPU (it is halved to 8x+8x when in SLI/CrossFire duty on that board), and then there are only 8 more lanes of PCIe left to go around.
If the two 16x and two 4x slots on a Mac Pro are not enough, and that is a consistent complaint I read around here, then why is one 16x and one 8x on this ASUS enough? Never mind the RAM limit at 32GB and the single 4 core HTCPU.
One 16x PCIe GPU and 8 lanes of combined PCIe I/O? Sounds a lot like the I/O capacity on a 27″ iMac. The iMac may only be equipped with a mobile-class GPU, but it isn’t like Apple left any I/O on the cutting room floor.
Best,
Andy -
Well to be fair, that isn’t a Xeon mobo.
Best,
Andy -
[Jeremy Garchow] “We have seen this type of color commentary before”
Well, well, this guy Theo Valich has an axe to grind then. I have seen the meme elsewhere, but this example is hardly a mainstream or zeitgeist representative in the context you provide.
Thanks.
Best,
Andy -
[Alan Okey] “the company decided to give a silent treatment to its core audience, designers and content creators”
Erstwhile core audience.
The clear takeaway is that the meme of Apple giving the cold shoulder to its pre-post-PC-era devotees has taken hold in the zeitgeist.
Best,
Andy -
You’re two days early. But it has been quite a 363 days.
Best,
Andy -
What’s your budget?
Best,
Andy -
[Bob Cole] “But I don’t really understand their “Beyond RAID” system. Is it trustworthy? Cost-effective?”
“BeyondRAID” is Drobo’s proprietary software implementation of a few RAID-like approaches to striping and parity that permits the use of differently-sized disks without resorting to lowest common capacity like you get with conventional RAID. It is cost effective because it doesn’t require you to buy all your drives at once, and at the same capacity. There are some similar open-source alternatives like FreeNAS, but then you are building your own hardware and on the hook for your own support. I can’t vouch for trustworthiness since I’ve never used one, maybe others can chime in and endorse it (or not).
[Bob Cole] “Would I be better off just buying a bunch more external hard drives in nice large sizes, and making multiple backups for redundancy’s sake when I do a backup/reformat on the HDOne?”
Since this is backup and not archive, all you need to have is capacity equal to or greater than your primary storage (your HDOne). A pile of individual drives probably isn’t a huge savings over a storage appliance like a Drobo Pro, and they would be more of a hassle to backup to. You can also look at similar products from Synology and Qnap. They all are essentially little Linux servers with a bunch of drive bays.
[Bob Cole] “Alternatively, if I were to buy a Cache-A, is there a “sweet spot” for the one-person editing suite? This is a rough approximation, but I edit about three short-form (5-10 minute) finished videos a month, running through about 2 tb of storage in that time.”
The price breaks in the Cache-A line seem to be along the LTO generation fault lines, at least as the single drive units go. If you want to make use of LTFS, you need to be on the newest and thus most expensive LTO-5. The default format Cache-A writes is tar, so even if you aren’t getting LTO-5, you are getting an open format written to tape.
If you backup to tape via a Cache-A, then your backup can just become your archive since the data is already on LTO. If you maintain a live backup with a Drobo or similar NAS, you are still left to archive your data when you’re done with it. As long as you don’t need rapid restore of your entire HDOne, merging your backup and archive with a Cache-A can create some real efficiency in your protection routine compared to a NAS and your existing manually operated LTO-3 setup.
Best,
Andy -
[Gary Huff] “Shame on them for not including a link in the piece.”
Shame indeed! I assumed it must be a print-only piece with no link present. Bad form, MarcWorld!
Best,
Andy -
[Eric Santiago] “We have two ROCKETS costing as much as a 2003 Civic SI ;)”
When that car was new it cost as much as a Sony DSR-1500 with all the optional cards- I almost bought one!
Best,
Andy -
Wow, now we only need to hear the exact same list of grievances from the Logic guys and we’ll have a trifecta.
From the article:
“Writing for Photofocus, Scott Bourne notes that while he is intending to buy a MacBook Pro with Retina display he has a number of concerns.”
That’ll show ’em. I’ll buy it, but I’m also going to write a sternly worded letter about it!
Best,
Andy