Christian Schumacher
Forum Replies Created
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[Craig Seeman] ” Although I’d note that Apple has been expanding, not consolidating.”
Well, that depends on how you look at it. Pro Apps anyone? And do you REALLY see MacMinis, MacPros and iMacs as close to Apple’s heart as those products you just cited? Because that desktop line is not! That’s why they’ll be combined into one. Simplicity along with small footprint is the key here. Time will tell.
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[Marcus Moore] ” So being the most profitable computer company in the world is a business they’re just going to walk away from?”
No, that’s why they have those MacBookPros and MacBookAirs, plus the new one? How is that “walking away from computer business”? They are offering what actually is selling. And this new machine would be placed where those iMacs, Macminis and MacPross were. Add a 4K display and there you have it! Far fetched? Also, one could argue if the iOS ecosystem couldn’t be characterized as “computer business” as well?
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[Chris Kenny] “If they were going to cancel the Mac Pro, they’d have said so. That’s what they did with the Xserve. They haven’t said so here (in fact, Cook has said the opposite), so they’re up to something in this market. When it will show up, what it might be, and whether everyone will be happy with it, it’s hard to say. But they’re absolutely up to something.”
IMO there’s no room for MacPros, iMacs and Macminis anymore in Apple’s vision. They’re about to be consolidated into one product. Plus a 4K LED. And by the time their laptops get “fast enough”, they will kill it too.
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[Jeremy Garchow] ” Also, you can’t tell me 1.6TBs of really fast SSD storage on a laptop/iMac is not useful.”
If you’re willing to accommodate the PCIE enclosure at high dollars, yes! Powerful mobile setup…But why is Apple trying to solve a problem that simply doesn’t exist on a desktop computer? I guess they’re not keen on producing true desktop models any longer, so that makes sense. The problem with using those small footprint machines on a facility or office is that you going to have two of each of them in order to realistically service them in case of failure. You see a pattern here? More money for less power. That’s not going to be good for business, I think. Anyway, many MacPros will still walk the earth for the foreseeable future.
[Jeremy Garchow] “You can’t compare a big giant 8 drive array to a little PCIe card.
They are different pieces of gear and will be used in different situations.”Yes, but a big giant 8 drive array is pretty much aimed at a hungry user. And so is a PCIE SSD module in my understanding, as both are for workstation applications. More to the point, if Fusion-io were to release for Mac their other high end “little card”, for instance, that would be even more comparable. In this scenario the cap would be much higher than the TB array, as it cannot cope with 16x PCIE at 6.0GB/s, so there’s that.
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[Jeremy Garchow] ” WHAT WILL WE DO WITH THAT TERRIBLE SPEED???? ON A LAPTOP????”
Beyond that you’re capped, just that. It can be really WTF!!! I think, if one is planning on building an array of SSDs, for example, then you’re throwing money away, as they can’t reach the highest speeds they are capable of. See this for reference;
“Like all Thunderbolt devices, the transfer speed of 10 gigabit per second translates to something less than 1000MB/s — even if you load it up with eight 6Gbps SSDs capable of a combined speed of 4000MB/s. And, as you can see, even with eight 6Gbps HDDs capable of a combined speed exceeding 1200MB/s, they don’t come close.”There’s a typo there, but you get the point, and this;
“SSDs generally handle small random transactions much faster than HDDs. However, in the case of the ARC-8050, the aggregate random transfers per second is so close, one questions the need for solid state drives.”
https://www.barefeats.com/hard167.html
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[Jeremy Garchow] “OH NO!
IT’S ONLY 4X PCIE 2.0????
WHAT WILL WE DO????
Sorry, I am being facetious.”
Hey, I was googling this product and came up with this thread lol! You know what we’ll do Jeremy? We’re putting it into a MacPro. One thing that pertains to this conversation is when browsing their site, I reckoned that all high end cards this company produces were not available to Mac at all. And also noted that those same cards can reach six times Thunderbolt’s maxim speed at 16x PCIE. (but who needs that, right?) Even though today’s MacPros do have these slots, somehow Fusion-io is not supporting them. Well, those cards are excellent companions to maximize GPU processing with their powerful throughput, so it’s not a surprise that Macs are lagging there, really. But it is great news that more companies are supporting MacOS, albeit in a lighter fashion in this particular case. Just don’t put it in TB enclosure! It will be capped at 1.0 GB/s despite going 50% faster than that at a “real” 4x PCIE on a MacPro.
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[Charlie Austin] ” Poor Nvidia. Don’t they know that Apple doesn’t really make a computer this can be installed in anymore? ;-)”
It’s good news that they are releasing this one and the Quadro 5000 based on PCIe 2.0
This should give current MacPro users even more time to replace their gigs
You know, for the future transition to PC 🙂 -
[Julian Bowman] “Hey Christian, thanks for this.”
Glad I can help, Julian.
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[Julian Bowman] “Hoping it works :)”
It should work, but have you considered also my FCPX suggestions? Depending on media type or event size those practices can help a lot… Even when booting from SSD and your media is on a internal SATA RAID, mind you. But this hardware upgrade should improve things regardless.
For reference:
– When using two LCDs, place your Event Browser at the secondary monitor and leave the Viewer smaller at the main one along with the Timeline, when full screen is needed, then you press cmd+shift+f.
– Hide the Inspector as much as you can
– To delete project renders in File/Delete Project Render Files is a good recurring practice too
– Finally, get used to Preference Manager to delete your preferences.
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[Julian Bowman] “1) I have googled and I see what you mean about the SSD in the second optical drive. Overclockers do a Intel 520 Series 240GB 2.5″ SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive for £240. Is that one you would recommend?”
It’s a no-brainer, go for it! As to the 520 series, I only have experience with the 320 series, but the 520 should be good. What it’s appealing with the 320s is that they’re older than the 520s, so they have a smaller capacity and much cheaper prices. The boot drive (the SSD) should only have the OS and all applications and the RAID should contain all media, events and projects, thus your SSD can be like 80 GB without a problem, as we are pointing all the documents to the RAID we are leaving the boot drive alone. 320s are slower (3Gbs) and have been supplemented by the 520s’ technologies, but the MacPro will still be very snappy with it, and you will be saving salt. This is very easy to do, and it takes only a couple of minutes to install a SSD on the ODD lower bay, so there’s that. On the MacPro upgrade I did, we bought a couple of 320s with 80GB. One for a certain combination of softwares and another one for a different combination and both have access to the RAID. More on that later.
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[Julian Bowman] “2) You said to ensure my 4 drives are all the same. Do you mean just the same size or the same size and brand etc.? I currently have 4 x 2TB drives in my mac and Disc Utility suggests that they are all Hitachi HDS722020ALA330 Media”
Exactly, same size and brand/model. What you have should suffice.
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[Julian Bowman] “3) When I Raid them all together, does it format them and delete everything on them? I’m guessing so and am transferring stuff I need to an external, but I don’t know so it may leave data on there.”
It’s a complete and irreversible reformat operation. Back up!
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[Julian Bowman] “4) I do a fresh install of OSX on my SSD and then set that as my boot drive. At that point I can delete the OSX on my current boot drive and RAID my 4 internals. Is that correct and it as simple as that?”
Yes, simple as that! One thing to consider though is that you should get 8TB of backup in FW800 drives for your new working set up. Software RAID 0 is the fastest and cheapest internal SATA option for the MacPro, but as all RAID 0s do, they spread bits all over the sum of drives being used. Meaning that a failure of operation in one of them should render your entire RAID completely useless/unrecoverable. It’s a trade you make here; the more speed you have, more chances to fail. This is where the FW800 drives comes in. Do use them to set up your Time Machine for hourly backups of your RAID (and boot drive as well)
Another aspect of that upgrade that you should also consider is the ability to work with separate sets of HDDs. (That alone would give anyone extreme advantages over iMacs and TB drives. But ultimately, it depends on the sheer volume of media needed one person have to deal with, and budget and workflow, of course). Example, you have your current setup, keep them as they are now, slide them out of the case, replace them with additional drives that will be then your new RAID, install SSD and have your new upgraded setup. Later on, you have decided that you want to boot from your old SATA drive and revisit some old project or any other personal task. Fine, take your new drives out, place your old drives inside and boot using ALT to choose your old one on start-up. This way you can work off of a FCP classic boot or another software (or version) you don’t use as much as your current upgraded FCPX setup. So, when finished, take them out and replace them with new ones raided together via software. Take note! They even don’t have to be precisely in the same bays as they were before. Just don’t forget to unplug the MacPro from the electric outlet before swapping any drives! You are now in business with both your new fast setup and your oldies as well. It will cost you some more money but you will be much more comfortable doing so, as you can have multiple setups and all its advantages. For instance, you can have two SSDs for booting two different systems or you can have double two drive RAIDs or a single three drive RAID plus an older HDD and so on, depending on what you are working with this can be the real deal. Note that a Disk Utility RAID will mount on any OS you boot on, including older ones like Snow Leopard (but not sure if that works with earlier ones). At the end of the day it’s your call and it all depends on your needs and your current capabilities. Again, good luck!
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[Julian Bowman] ” I’ll keep trying stuff and hoping Apple release the new MacPros with expediency :)”
Don’t sell your MacPro yet, do this instead; Get an Intel SSD. Install it in ODD’s lower bay, It’s very simple to do. Do not transfer older OS account or clone, install fresh. Get 4 identical HDDs (1,2 or 3TB) Go to Disk utiity and build an internal RAID 0 with the HDDs (+500MB/s) You can swap those anytime you want for others you already have, no problems with this besides shutting it down, unplugging and sliding them out and in again. Your RAID will pick up again when you plug all drives back in. Get Backup Drives also (FW800) and set up Time Machine to back all up with those every hour. All this may provide you some headroom for you to wait without breaking the bank…Since you have already upped your RAM and GPU, you might try this. I’m telling you, It works.
EDIT- Don’t use cheap WD Green HDDs, go for the Black ones or preferably the Enterprise ones for a good RAID experience.
Regarding FCPX. You’re using two LCDs, right? Place your Event Browser at the secondary monitor and leave the Viewer smaller at the main one along with the timeline, when full screen is needed press cmd+shift+f, hiding the inspector helps a lot as well, to delete project renders in File/Delete Project Render Files is a good recurring practice too and finally get used to Preference Manager to delete your preferences. Good luck!
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[Oliver Peters] “You cannot open two or more bins (collections) as floating windows and place them over each other or side-by-side and compare clips within, or drag clips from one to the other. Yes, I know collections sort of do this same function, but the first method is visual, the second isn’t.
The second difference between X and others is that you can’t re-arrange clips in any other order than alphanumeric ascending/descending sorts of some field.”
FCPX should also have the ability to customise Sequences/Projects. Timelines could then be recalled in how they were before you left them. But I’m not holding my breath, really. Seeing how things are done in X, I have my doubts. Why would they prioritise the ability to have Bins open, freely as 7? Or customise your Timeline accordingly? The Event Browser is a fixed framework in which your Events, Folders, Keywords and Clips are displayed. And that seems to be very locked-up. Remember, one cannot even close an unwanted Event. Furthermore, there is a similar approach with the Timeline framework, that in its turn is the same physical space for every Project you put in there. And that is very constrained as well. Remember, one cannot have more than half a dozen Projects at the same time within the Timeline’s history. This is pretty much what they intended in the first place, I believe so. And it is a hell of an optimised design for sure, and it works great for fast turn arounds. In other words, that’s what matters and Apple is not changing it. It is sad, I know many Editors and Directors who appreciate to have an OPTION to work with the spatial thing, but this seems outdated according to the new order (of pricing?)
