The Mac Mini is a useless product for my needs other than having a bottom feeder Mac for Web/Mail and publishing. Nothing for Engineering even at the entry level for OpenCL.
Too bad.
The iMac obsession with thin is ultra disappointing. I'll not touch the Nvidia garbage and their yield issues in the 28nm stamp out. The lack of commitment from Nvidia with OpenCL alone has me p/o'd enough as it is, but the garbage 512MB and up to 1GB RAM on the GPGPUs is embarrassing Apple.
You sacrifice potential performance for being ultra-thin. Looks sexy, too bad she can't reproduce.
Mac Pro is the only option left for heavy computing work.
So... I'll sum up:
"I'm an engineer and heavy OpenGL user. I'm UPSETI can't use a Mac Mini or iMac for my ENGINEERING OpenGL WORK."
...to which I say: You can't use a Honda Civic to haul a horse trailer either.
My feeling is hybrid technology will be a massive improvement for the average consumer but will need tweaking for those of us editing HD video and massive RAW files. IMHO A Mac Pro or MBP with a large SSD for the OS and apps and 7200 rpm HDD for images and video won't be bettered until we have inexpensive SSDs 1 TB and upward. Although as I said earlier up the thread, of we had some control over the intelligent software it might just work. I'd want to specify what was always to go the the HDD. Not for speed but for price / capacity.
As a pro video editor, I strongly disagree. I'd rather boot off a single mechanical HDD and keep my media on an SSD, if that was my only choice - A single 7200rpm drive is way too slow for editing. As it is, I boot SSD and have a RAID of mechanical drives, since the latter remains the best value / speed / capacity combination. Though not for long, as larger capacity SSDs keep getting cheaper.
It's indeed very good to know Apple relatively quickly adopts this promising tech. We've been clandestinely installing hybrid drives with pitiful 4GB of Flash in our Macs for quite a while now and used to think Apple did not really like what we did. Apparently, they are with us and, sure, astounding 128GB of Flash --- which they subsidize when pricing the machine --- matter.
This traditional approach is nevertheless not that much convincing. The Mac OS X works for months without a restart and actively used applications are all just sitting in the RAM. Documents are loaded from disk and saved back. In fact, the configuration, keeping documents in the Flash storage and applications --- on the hybrid drive, seems showing even better performance in terms of daily usage.
You don't seem to understand subsidized pricing compared to base and cto configurations. There is a higher markup for customization at time of sale when purchasing a new machine. You see this as subsidized as opposed to not paying the cost of configured to order.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ivan.rnn01
Apple was quite good at bringing simplified enterprise-grade solutions to John "The Consumer" Doe.
The Fusion Drive should be to tiering what the Time Machine is to enterprise-grade backup.
It's not a new concept. Seagate did something like this with their drives on a conceptual level where the NAND was used as a cache. I'm not sure how much of this was custom work, but they definitely had reference material available. It's still cool. I'll be watching these displays. I want to see how much they've improved.
The Mac Mini is a useless product for my needs other than having a bottom feeder Mac for Web/Mail and publishing. Nothing for Engineering even at the entry level for OpenCL.
Too bad.
The iMac obsession with thin is ultra disappointing. I'll not touch the Nvidia garbage and their yield issues in the 28nm stamp out. The lack of commitment from Nvidia with OpenCL alone has me p/o'd enough as it is, but the garbage 512MB and up to 1GB RAM on the GPGPUs is embarrassing Apple.
You sacrifice potential performance for being ultra-thin. Looks sexy, too bad she can't reproduce.
Mac Pro is the only option left for heavy computing work.
I wonder if there is a way to enable the FusionDrive software in my current configuration. I took out the optical drive in my 15" MBP (early 2011) and I have a 180 gb SSD along with a 500 GB HDD. If it's already baked into Mountain Lion (which I'm running), I wonder if there will be a way to make it work? VERY interesting!
The Mac Mini is a useless product for my needs other than having a bottom feeder Mac for Web/Mail and publishing. Nothing for Engineering even at the entry level for OpenCL.
Too bad.
The iMac obsession with thin is ultra disappointing. I'll not touch the Nvidia garbage and their yield issues in the 28nm stamp out. The lack of commitment from Nvidia with OpenCL alone has me p/o'd enough as it is, but the garbage 512MB and up to 1GB RAM on the GPGPUs is embarrassing Apple.
You sacrifice potential performance for being ultra-thin. Looks sexy, too bad she can't reproduce.
Mac Pro is the only option left for heavy computing work.
You're being needlessly melodramatic. Web/mail? If that's all you need, you get a five year old computer. Doing heavy engineering work on a sub $1000 computer is asking for trouble anyway.
I use a quad iMac for my CAD/CAM work and it does better than the dual-dual Xeon it replaced, which was no old slouch either.
If you're really into super grunty-grunty heavy lifting, then a Mac Pro is what you should have been choosing in the first place.
As a pro video editor, I strongly disagree. I'd rather boot off a single mechanical HDD and keep my media on an SSD, if that was my only choice - A single 7200rpm drive is way too slow for editing. As it is, I boot SSD and have a RAID of mechanical drives, since the latter remains the best value / speed / capacity combination. Though not for long, as larger capacity SSDs keep getting cheaper.
I just find it amazing that when I was doing this work hot and heavy, years ago, and we were compressing video on our Targa boards for broadcast, mostly commercials, I jumped at buying four brand new Fuji 9GB 7200 rpm drives for $3,000 apiece. Didn't think anything of it either. Neither did it seem seem like a high price. But we really needed to raid four drives because of their small capacity, and because of slow performance, needed to partition the drives so that we only used the outer half.
The Mac Mini is a useless product for my needs other than having a bottom feeder Mac for Web/Mail and publishing. Nothing for Engineering even at the entry level for OpenCL.
Too bad.
The iMac obsession with thin is ultra disappointing. I'll not touch the Nvidia garbage and their yield issues in the 28nm stamp out. The lack of commitment from Nvidia with OpenCL alone has me p/o'd enough as it is, but the garbage 512MB and up to 1GB RAM on the GPGPUs is embarrassing Apple.
You sacrifice potential performance for being ultra-thin. Looks sexy, too bad she can't reproduce.
Mac Pro is the only option left for heavy computing work.
LOL i'm sure Apple feels really bad for you. Having to buy their high end product for your high end needs. Gee, why doesn't Apple start selling a workstation class system for the price of the Mini! What a rip-off!?!
As a pro video editor, I strongly disagree. I'd rather boot off a single mechanical HDD and keep my media on an SSD, if that was my only choice - A single 7200rpm drive is way too slow for editing. As it is, I boot SSD and have a RAID of mechanical drives, since the latter remains the best value / speed / capacity combination. Though not for long, as larger capacity SSDs keep getting cheaper.
I'm not sure we are in disagreement. My last sentence stated my point was HDD (RAID or otherwise) was the only cost effective solution for pro level capture of HD. Yes SDD would be nice if it were the same price and one day i'm sure it will be. As to booting, given a 512 GIG SSD can easily keep Mountail Lion and a ton of apps why not boot from it? PS CS6 is blindingly fast with the app and cache files on SSD even if my RAW files are in a Library on a fast HDD. It's all about cost performance at the moment and we are in a transitional phase. I was building RAIDs for TV production in the 1990's when a modest array of 16 GIGs cost over $10K so i appreciate seeing the changes and I am excited about hybrid technology too especially if it has user prefs for exclusions by name and file type for the time being until SSD is really cheap and far larger.
LOL i'm sure Apple feels really bad for you. Having to buy their high end product for your high end needs. Gee, why doesn't Apple start selling a workstation class system for the price of the Mini! What a rip-off!?!
Why the unpleasantness? Pros require high end gear and Apple has always excelled at providing it. The boundaries are always pushed at the bleeding edge and with photography and video it never stops getting bloodier. With RED Support now available in FCP X capture and editing will be like going back to a Quadra 840av with NTSC without something very high end from Apple! OMG what a thought ...
I just find it amazing that when I was doing this work hot and heavy, years ago, and we were compressing video on our Targa boards for broadcast, mostly commercials, I jumped at buying four brand new Fuji 9GB 7200 rpm drives for $3,000 apiece. Didn't think anything of it either. Neither did it seem seem like a high price. But we really needed to raid four drives because of their small capacity, and because of slow performance, needed to partition the drives so that we only used the outer half.
Things have changed so much since then.
Oh the memories ... I agree we thought nothing of the price of drives back then. It was just so amazing not to need tape! Hey, were you ever tempted by a Cube? I saw a demo of their wavelet technology and my draw dropped then I saw the price and it dropped again. Then I went back to my suite of Media 100 stations and waited for rendering...
I wonder if there is a way to enable the FusionDrive software in my current configuration. I took out the optical drive in my 15" MBP (early 2011) and I have a 180 gb SSD along with a 500 GB HDD. If it's already baked into Mountain Lion (which I'm running), I wonder if there will be a way to make it work? VERY interesting! :)
I use the Air Parrot answer to Air Play on older unsupported Macs as a model i.e. someone else will step in to fill that need. I'd suspect some 3rd party solution to achieve exactly that will be forthcoming. It may even be more configurable as Apple correctly focuses on the non technical folks these days with their mainstream products.
In the market for a new 15" MacBook Pro. Now wondering if I should hold off and see if they offer this Fusion drive as an option. 200 quid a bit of a hard-to-swallow premium, but might be worth it.
BootCamp installation is probably handled the same way it is on an Air. The BootCamp Assistant builds a complete Windows installer on a USB Thumb Drive from your Windows install DVD.
As a pro video editor, I strongly disagree. I'd rather boot off a single mechanical HDD and keep my media on an SSD, if that was my only choice - A single 7200rpm drive is way too slow for editing. As it is, I boot SSD and have a RAID of mechanical drives, since the latter remains the best value / speed / capacity combination. Though not for long, as larger capacity SSDs keep getting cheaper.
If the Fusion's 128 GB's not enough, what about bolting on, say, a 512 GB SSD external via TB? Would that get us anywhere else in terms of functionality for those who need it??
BootCamp installation is probably handled the same way it is on an Air. The BootCamp Assistant builds a complete Windows installer on a USB Thumb Drive from your Windows install DVD.
I wonder if there is a way to enable the FusionDrive software in my current configuration. I took out the optical drive in my 15" MBP (early 2011) and I have a 180 gb SSD along with a 500 GB HDD. If it's already baked into Mountain Lion (which I'm running), I wonder if there will be a way to make it work? VERY interesting!
This is what I'm wondering too. Will you be able to configure your own fusion drive out of a SSD and a HDD? I'm sure someone will find a way!
FWIW: GB SSD drives that are competitive on price with Single Platter GB HDD will take 5+ years and by then the traditional HDD will be a whole new beast.
Comments
Quote:
Originally Posted by mdriftmeyer
The Mac Mini is a useless product for my needs other than having a bottom feeder Mac for Web/Mail and publishing. Nothing for Engineering even at the entry level for OpenCL.
Too bad.
The iMac obsession with thin is ultra disappointing. I'll not touch the Nvidia garbage and their yield issues in the 28nm stamp out. The lack of commitment from Nvidia with OpenCL alone has me p/o'd enough as it is, but the garbage 512MB and up to 1GB RAM on the GPGPUs is embarrassing Apple.
You sacrifice potential performance for being ultra-thin. Looks sexy, too bad she can't reproduce.
Mac Pro is the only option left for heavy computing work.
So... I'll sum up:
"I'm an engineer and heavy OpenGL user. I'm UPSETI can't use a Mac Mini or iMac for my ENGINEERING OpenGL WORK."
...to which I say: You can't use a Honda Civic to haul a horse trailer either.
Quote:
Originally Posted by digitalclips
My feeling is hybrid technology will be a massive improvement for the average consumer but will need tweaking for those of us editing HD video and massive RAW files. IMHO A Mac Pro or MBP with a large SSD for the OS and apps and 7200 rpm HDD for images and video won't be bettered until we have inexpensive SSDs 1 TB and upward. Although as I said earlier up the thread, of we had some control over the intelligent software it might just work. I'd want to specify what was always to go the the HDD. Not for speed but for price / capacity.
As a pro video editor, I strongly disagree. I'd rather boot off a single mechanical HDD and keep my media on an SSD, if that was my only choice - A single 7200rpm drive is way too slow for editing. As it is, I boot SSD and have a RAID of mechanical drives, since the latter remains the best value / speed / capacity combination. Though not for long, as larger capacity SSDs keep getting cheaper.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ivan.rnn01
It's indeed very good to know Apple relatively quickly adopts this promising tech. We've been clandestinely installing hybrid drives with pitiful 4GB of Flash in our Macs for quite a while now and used to think Apple did not really like what we did. Apparently, they are with us and, sure, astounding 128GB of Flash --- which they subsidize when pricing the machine --- matter.
This traditional approach is nevertheless not that much convincing. The Mac OS X works for months without a restart and actively used applications are all just sitting in the RAM. Documents are loaded from disk and saved back. In fact, the configuration, keeping documents in the Flash storage and applications --- on the hybrid drive, seems showing even better performance in terms of daily usage.
You don't seem to understand subsidized pricing compared to base and cto configurations. There is a higher markup for customization at time of sale when purchasing a new machine. You see this as subsidized as opposed to not paying the cost of configured to order.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ivan.rnn01
Apple was quite good at bringing simplified enterprise-grade solutions to John "The Consumer" Doe.
The Fusion Drive should be to tiering what the Time Machine is to enterprise-grade backup.
It's not a new concept. Seagate did something like this with their drives on a conceptual level where the NAND was used as a cache. I'm not sure how much of this was custom work, but they definitely had reference material available. It's still cool. I'll be watching these displays. I want to see how much they've improved.
Nope! Not the same thing. If you had read the article I linked to before posting, you would know that.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mdriftmeyer
The Mac Mini is a useless product for my needs other than having a bottom feeder Mac for Web/Mail and publishing. Nothing for Engineering even at the entry level for OpenCL.
Too bad.
The iMac obsession with thin is ultra disappointing. I'll not touch the Nvidia garbage and their yield issues in the 28nm stamp out. The lack of commitment from Nvidia with OpenCL alone has me p/o'd enough as it is, but the garbage 512MB and up to 1GB RAM on the GPGPUs is embarrassing Apple.
You sacrifice potential performance for being ultra-thin. Looks sexy, too bad she can't reproduce.
Mac Pro is the only option left for heavy computing work.
actually, 2gb vram nvidia 680m.
I wonder if there is a way to enable the FusionDrive software in my current configuration. I took out the optical drive in my 15" MBP (early 2011) and I have a 180 gb SSD along with a 500 GB HDD. If it's already baked into Mountain Lion (which I'm running), I wonder if there will be a way to make it work? VERY interesting!
You're being needlessly melodramatic. Web/mail? If that's all you need, you get a five year old computer. Doing heavy engineering work on a sub $1000 computer is asking for trouble anyway.
I use a quad iMac for my CAD/CAM work and it does better than the dual-dual Xeon it replaced, which was no old slouch either.
If you're really into super grunty-grunty heavy lifting, then a Mac Pro is what you should have been choosing in the first place.
I just find it amazing that when I was doing this work hot and heavy, years ago, and we were compressing video on our Targa boards for broadcast, mostly commercials, I jumped at buying four brand new Fuji 9GB 7200 rpm drives for $3,000 apiece. Didn't think anything of it either. Neither did it seem seem like a high price. But we really needed to raid four drives because of their small capacity, and because of slow performance, needed to partition the drives so that we only used the outer half.
Things have changed so much since then.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mdriftmeyer
The Mac Mini is a useless product for my needs other than having a bottom feeder Mac for Web/Mail and publishing. Nothing for Engineering even at the entry level for OpenCL.
Too bad.
The iMac obsession with thin is ultra disappointing. I'll not touch the Nvidia garbage and their yield issues in the 28nm stamp out. The lack of commitment from Nvidia with OpenCL alone has me p/o'd enough as it is, but the garbage 512MB and up to 1GB RAM on the GPGPUs is embarrassing Apple.
You sacrifice potential performance for being ultra-thin. Looks sexy, too bad she can't reproduce.
Mac Pro is the only option left for heavy computing work.
LOL i'm sure Apple feels really bad for you. Having to buy their high end product for your high end needs. Gee, why doesn't Apple start selling a workstation class system for the price of the Mini! What a rip-off!?!
I'm not sure we are in disagreement. My last sentence stated my point was HDD (RAID or otherwise) was the only cost effective solution for pro level capture of HD. Yes SDD would be nice if it were the same price and one day i'm sure it will be. As to booting, given a 512 GIG SSD can easily keep Mountail Lion and a ton of apps why not boot from it? PS CS6 is blindingly fast with the app and cache files on SSD even if my RAW files are in a Library on a fast HDD. It's all about cost performance at the moment and we are in a transitional phase. I was building RAIDs for TV production in the 1990's when a modest array of 16 GIGs cost over $10K so i appreciate seeing the changes and I am excited about hybrid technology too especially if it has user prefs for exclusions by name and file type for the time being until SSD is really cheap and far larger.
Quote:
Originally Posted by RangerD
So... I'll sum up:
"I'm an engineer and heavy OpenGL user. I'm UPSETI can't use a Mac Mini or iMac for my ENGINEERING OpenGL WORK."
...to which I say: You can't use a Honda Civic to haul a horse trailer either.
Exactly
Why the unpleasantness? Pros require high end gear and Apple has always excelled at providing it. The boundaries are always pushed at the bleeding edge and with photography and video it never stops getting bloodier. With RED Support now available in FCP X capture and editing will be like going back to a Quadra 840av with NTSC without something very high end from Apple! OMG what a thought ...
Oh the memories ... I agree we thought nothing of the price of drives back then. It was just so amazing not to need tape! Hey, were you ever tempted by a Cube? I saw a demo of their wavelet technology and my draw dropped then I saw the price and it dropped again. Then I went back to my suite of Media 100 stations and waited for rendering...
I use the Air Parrot answer to Air Play on older unsupported Macs as a model i.e. someone else will step in to fill that need. I'd suspect some 3rd party solution to achieve exactly that will be forthcoming. It may even be more configurable as Apple correctly focuses on the non technical folks these days with their mainstream products.
In the market for a new 15" MacBook Pro. Now wondering if I should hold off and see if they offer this Fusion drive as an option. 200 quid a bit of a hard-to-swallow premium, but might be worth it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by RangerD
As a pro video editor, I strongly disagree. I'd rather boot off a single mechanical HDD and keep my media on an SSD, if that was my only choice - A single 7200rpm drive is way too slow for editing. As it is, I boot SSD and have a RAID of mechanical drives, since the latter remains the best value / speed / capacity combination. Though not for long, as larger capacity SSDs keep getting cheaper.
If the Fusion's 128 GB's not enough, what about bolting on, say, a 512 GB SSD external via TB? Would that get us anywhere else in terms of functionality for those who need it??
Quote:
Originally Posted by bigdog5142
I wonder if there is a way to enable the FusionDrive software in my current configuration. I took out the optical drive in my 15" MBP (early 2011) and I have a 180 gb SSD along with a 500 GB HDD. If it's already baked into Mountain Lion (which I'm running), I wonder if there will be a way to make it work? VERY interesting!
This is what I'm wondering too. Will you be able to configure your own fusion drive out of a SSD and a HDD? I'm sure someone will find a way!
FWIW: GB SSD drives that are competitive on price with Single Platter GB HDD will take 5+ years and by then the traditional HDD will be a whole new beast.