Since drive size is not unlimited, at a bare minimum an extra drive means doubling the internal storage capacity, possibly to the point of negating the need for high-speed outboard. That "makes sense" to me.
Also, since Pro Tools strongly discourages putting sessions on the system drive, having a second internal drive may mean being able to do a remote gig with just a li'l pocket drive for backups rather than having to lug around a big, heavy, noisy, power-hungry, high-speed outboard recording array.
100% agree. This thing is a portable Cray for musicians, Twin 1 TB SSDs inside would be truly cool. I wonder if some bright spark could come up with an adapter if there is space. Granted it would not be usable for striping if coming off a shared connector I assume, but plenty fast enough for Logic Pro etc..
Daft as it sounds after the living with the last Mac Pro, I can see me using this beast as a semi portable. I have monitors in other rooms for MacBook Pros and to carry the nMP to a monitor, if I happen to want to do some work in another part of the house, seems eminently doable. I'd even take it on road trips with me. :smokey:
I'm guessing there will be a Pelican Case with custom foam for the new Mac Pro very soon.
Just as I thought, user replaceable SSD. So the article is wrong. I cannot understand why the articles here so often have incorrect info.
The MP specs page says "user accessible" beside storage and has since the page went live. The writer could have checked the promo page you would think.
Intel changes their sockets every generation. The CPU being upgradeable will be limited to only that generation because Intel has the R&D to constantly change socket size and type. The only thing that is actually upgradeable will be the ram. The ram upgradability will be limited to the motherboard support.
But then the limiting factor would be that old USB2 plug, right?
Lightning outputs to a USB-A connector for charging and data but the speed of the Lightning interface doesn't have to be limited to USB 2.0 speeds. Still, I think you can go about 2.5x the current NAND sustained writes speeds before you hit the USB 2.0 wall.
Thank you for clearing that up once and for all. It is as most of us understood. It is amazing that when i pointed out Apple had the words 'User Accessible' next to storage on their own web site I was told, in this thread, i should not read too much into that.
That is what User Accessable means, but without any options on the market outside of Apple you're still buying from them. Hopefully it changes and hopefully the setup is the same as in the MBAs and MBPs but how long has it been without anything hitting the market?
That's true about the delivery date, but I was comforted by the knowledge I could get the 256 GIG, upgrading with far cheaper parts fairly soon. If I'd been told categorically there was never going to be an upgrade path I'd have had some serious heart burn. By the way, i have only one, small gripe with the design, that of the single SSD connection. Dual would have been better and it's hard to see there would not have been room. A dual striped 1 TB drives would be sweet. I am fine with external for data but I like my apps and utilities on board and then some space for caches.
I agree, if the GPU boards would allow for it a dual socket for the SSD would be very welcome. I must say though, I have a PCIe SSD and it’s 256GB. With OSX, stock apps, iWork, Aperture (100+ GB mnanaged lib), FCP, cough MS Office cough, Parallels with a 20GB Windows image, Garmin, couple of utilities and browsers, I still have 60GB available. And that’s after I put my 50GB ~ folder on there as well, save for the iTunes media folder. So you will have room for a FCP scratch disc, especially true if you’re doing HD and not 4k.
Daft as it sounds after the living with the last Mac Pro, I can see me using this beast as a semi portable. I have monitors in other rooms for MacBook Pros and to carry the nMP to a monitor, if I happen to want to do some work in another part of the house, seems eminently doable. I'd even take it on road trips with me. :smokey:
Cool! Easier than the old solution for moving the 40lbs tower around:
[video]
Just as I thought, user replaceable SSD. So the article is wrong. I cannot understand why the articles here so often have incorrect info.
[CONTENTEMBED=/t/161376/teardown-of-apples-new-mac-pro-reveals-socketed-removable-intel-cpu#post_2450466 layout=inline]The MP specs page says "user accessible" beside storage and has since the page went live. The writer could have checked the promo page you would think.[/CONTENTEMBED]
Crying shame that the authors don’t check these things, though I have no experience with writing or reporting, perhaps it’s way more difficult than one would expect from looking at it 'face value’.
Lightning outputs to a USB-A connector for charging and data but the speed of the Lightning interface doesn't have to be limited to USB 2.0 speeds. Still, I think you can go about 2.5x the current NAND sustained writes speeds before you hit the USB 2.0 wall.
2.5x; good to know. So around 480/2.5=192Mbps of theoretical throughput for the controller of iOS NAND? Is the speed of the lightening port known?
Thank you for clearing that up once and for all. It is as most of us understood. It is amazing that when i pointed out Apple had the words 'User Accessible' next to storage on their own web site I was told, in this thread, i should not read too much into that.
That is what User Accessable means, but without any options on the market outside of Apple you're still buying from them. Hopefully it changes and hopefully the setup is the same as in the MBAs and MBPs but how long has it been without anything hitting the market?[/quote]
Indeed, the MBA came out in June. Still no SSD upgrades available AFAIK.
Even so, Gates' alleged statement looks like one of the most dogmatic, short-sighted comments ever, a verbal blunder perhaps topped only by Digital Equipment Corp. founder Ken Olsen's 1977 quip, "There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in his home." (Olsen did actually say that, but he said later that the quote was taken out of context, and that he was referring not to PCs but to computers set up to control houses.)
It's just a port so it can be whatever Apple can make it. it currently connects to some sort of USB 2.0 controller in the device so it can plug into Macs and PCs, but Apple could technically add a TB controller so it could be plugged into a Mac or PC with a TB port, however that seems unlikely for reasons I assume are size and cost. If NAND speeds get better and there is a USB 3.0 controller that works well with a small, power efficient mobile device I would expect Apple to include it.
Even so, Gates' alleged statement looks like one of the most dogmatic, short-sighted comments ever, a verbal blunder perhaps topped only by Digital Equipment Corp. founder Ken Olsen's 1977 quip, "There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in his home." (Olsen did actually say that, but he said later that the quote was taken out of context, and that he was referring not to PCs but to computers set up to control houses.)
Even that is a shortsighted statement as home automation is happening and will continue, but on a broader stroke we all probably have at least dozens of computers in our homes that run appliances. Some very simple (like the fridge) and some fairly complex (like the cable/sat box) but we have them.
Even that is a shortsighted statement as home automation is happening and will continue, but on a broader stroke we all probably have at least dozens of computers in our homes that run appliances. Some very simple (like the fridge) and some fairly complex (like the cable/sat box) but we have them.
Crying shame that the authors don’t check these things, though I have no experience with writing or reporting, perhaps it’s way more difficult than one would expect from looking at it 'face value’.
The article was making the point that there's no 3rd party SSD for a user to replace the storage with. It's the same deal with the screen glue on the iMac. You can still technically open it but for all intents and purposes, the iMac is not user-accessible. While you can access the Mac Pro storage, without available upgrades, it's not user-serviceable.
I suspect some 3rd parties will buy machines from Apple or used ones to sell them in parts and this way make more money. If Apple moves the Mini to an SSD + HDD format, 3rd parties can buy the base Minis at $599 with the highest Apple options, pull out the SSD, put an HDD in the Mini and sell both separately. If there's enough demand for the parts, they'll make a reasonable enough markup.
There seems to be a move for a standard PCIe storage format:
Having the CPU in a socket is the most cost-effective solution for Apple when the highest-end CPUs are over $2000. If a machine ever had a motherboard failure, pulling the CPU out is much easier. Plus the sales volumes are much lower so it doesn't make sense to have them already soldered to the boards. They can assemble them later on in the order process.
It doesn't look like future CPUs will be compatible as Haswell EP uses LGA 2011-3 while Ivy Bridge uses LGA 2011:
However, Broadwell will use the same socket as that one so you might be able to upgrade a 2014 Haswell Mac Pro with a 2015 Broadwell processor. Also, if you do buy an entry model, you can always upgrade to a higher-spec CPU with the same socket type when prices drop a bit. You might find that upgrading the whole machine is more cost-effective than switching the CPU alone though. If it costs $2k to upgrade an 8-core machine after 3 years and gets you to 10-core for the same price and is overall 2x as fast as the old one, it's not worthwhile paying say $1k for a 12-core CPU to get 1.5x when the new one has the warranty and new GPUs.
The article was making the point that there's no 3rd party SSD for a user to replace the storage with. It's the same deal with the screen glue on the iMac. You can still technically open it but for all intents and purposes, the iMac is not user-accessible. While you can access the Mac Pro storage, without available upgrades, it's not user-serviceable.
Not having 3rd-party options makes the notion of being user-accessable/user-serviveable somewhat pointless but it's the option still exists and if for some reason you had access to a larger SSD from a different Mac Pro any of us here wouldn't think twice about being able to swap the SSD, but we would give it plenty of consideration if we were going to change the RAM on the 21" IMac because access to the RAM isn't user-serviceable.
Crying shame that the authors don’t check these things, though I have no experience with writing or reporting, perhaps it’s way more difficult than one would expect from looking at it 'face value’.
The article was making the point that there's no 3rd party SSD for a user to replace the storage with.
Ah, ok. I read 'user-replaceable components appear to end there' and thought that was incorrect after curveddesign.com posted a link to this:
edit: corrected the user-replaceable components appear to end there part
Comments
100% agree. This thing is a portable Cray for musicians, Twin 1 TB SSDs inside would be truly cool. I wonder if some bright spark could come up with an adapter if there is space. Granted it would not be usable for striping if coming off a shared connector I assume, but plenty fast enough for Logic Pro etc..
I'm guessing there will be a Pelican Case with custom foam for the new Mac Pro very soon.
Something akin to this (but MUCH smaller)
For sure. We also need a smaller, tough TB Monitor for road trips, perhaps a 17" would do.
BTW, My back hurts even looking at the old Mac Pro!
Just as I thought, user replaceable SSD. So the article is wrong. I cannot understand why the articles here so often have incorrect info.
I quoted that in this very thread, to be told I was reading too much into that. Some people just don't want to believe!
Lightning outputs to a USB-A connector for charging and data but the speed of the Lightning interface doesn't have to be limited to USB 2.0 speeds. Still, I think you can go about 2.5x the current NAND sustained writes speeds before you hit the USB 2.0 wall.
That is what User Accessable means, but without any options on the market outside of Apple you're still buying from them. Hopefully it changes and hopefully the setup is the same as in the MBAs and MBPs but how long has it been without anything hitting the market?
I agree, if the GPU boards would allow for it a dual socket for the SSD would be very welcome. I must say though, I have a PCIe SSD and it’s 256GB. With OSX, stock apps, iWork, Aperture (100+ GB mnanaged lib), FCP, cough MS Office cough, Parallels with a 20GB Windows image, Garmin, couple of utilities and browsers, I still have 60GB available. And that’s after I put my 50GB ~ folder on there as well, save for the iTunes media folder. So you will have room for a FCP scratch disc, especially true if you’re doing HD and not 4k.
Cool! Easier than the old solution for moving the 40lbs tower around:
[video]
edit: pipped by Michael Scrip with his CDP case
Ain’t it the truth! Also, journalism died with the introduction of blogging.
Crying shame that the authors don’t check these things, though I have no experience with writing or reporting, perhaps it’s way more difficult than one would expect from looking at it 'face value’.
2.5x; good to know. So around 480/2.5=192Mbps of theoretical throughput for the controller of iOS NAND? Is the speed of the lightening port known?
That is what User Accessable means, but without any options on the market outside of Apple you're still buying from them. Hopefully it changes and hopefully the setup is the same as in the MBAs and MBPs but how long has it been without anything hitting the market?[/quote]
Indeed, the MBA came out in June. Still no SSD upgrades available AFAIK.
640K ought to be enough for anybody.
- Bill Gates
That was an IBM guy, not Bill Gates.
If you think about upgrading the CPU: Apple only uses 130W max. TDP versions.
Quoted so often I really thought it was him saying that. Looks like you're right, many articles point to this 'misquote'. Here's one:
https://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9101699/The_640K_quote_won_t_go_away_but_did_Gates_really_say_it_
And that article has this funny bit:
It's just a port so it can be whatever Apple can make it. it currently connects to some sort of USB 2.0 controller in the device so it can plug into Macs and PCs, but Apple could technically add a TB controller so it could be plugged into a Mac or PC with a TB port, however that seems unlikely for reasons I assume are size and cost. If NAND speeds get better and there is a USB 3.0 controller that works well with a small, power efficient mobile device I would expect Apple to include it.
Even that is a shortsighted statement as home automation is happening and will continue, but on a broader stroke we all probably have at least dozens of computers in our homes that run appliances. Some very simple (like the fridge) and some fairly complex (like the cable/sat box) but we have them.
Shortsighted being the operative word here.
The article was making the point that there's no 3rd party SSD for a user to replace the storage with. It's the same deal with the screen glue on the iMac. You can still technically open it but for all intents and purposes, the iMac is not user-accessible. While you can access the Mac Pro storage, without available upgrades, it's not user-serviceable.
I suspect some 3rd parties will buy machines from Apple or used ones to sell them in parts and this way make more money. If Apple moves the Mini to an SSD + HDD format, 3rd parties can buy the base Minis at $599 with the highest Apple options, pull out the SSD, put an HDD in the Mini and sell both separately. If there's enough demand for the parts, they'll make a reasonable enough markup.
There seems to be a move for a standard PCIe storage format:
http://www.nvmexpress.org/
If that takes off, I imagine that Apple will support it, if their one doesn't already. Samsung has a 1.6TB 3GB/s 2.5" model for enterprise use:
http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20130717006185/en/Samsung-Develops-Industry’s-2.5-Inch-NVMe-SSD-Next-Generation
Having the CPU in a socket is the most cost-effective solution for Apple when the highest-end CPUs are over $2000. If a machine ever had a motherboard failure, pulling the CPU out is much easier. Plus the sales volumes are much lower so it doesn't make sense to have them already soldered to the boards. They can assemble them later on in the order process.
It doesn't look like future CPUs will be compatible as Haswell EP uses LGA 2011-3 while Ivy Bridge uses LGA 2011:
http://semiaccurate.com/2012/07/09/haswell-ep-to-use-the-same-socket-just-totally-different/
However, Broadwell will use the same socket as that one so you might be able to upgrade a 2014 Haswell Mac Pro with a 2015 Broadwell processor. Also, if you do buy an entry model, you can always upgrade to a higher-spec CPU with the same socket type when prices drop a bit. You might find that upgrading the whole machine is more cost-effective than switching the CPU alone though. If it costs $2k to upgrade an 8-core machine after 3 years and gets you to 10-core for the same price and is overall 2x as fast as the old one, it's not worthwhile paying say $1k for a 12-core CPU to get 1.5x when the new one has the warranty and new GPUs.
Not having 3rd-party options makes the notion of being user-accessable/user-serviveable somewhat pointless but it's the option still exists and if for some reason you had access to a larger SSD from a different Mac Pro any of us here wouldn't think twice about being able to swap the SSD, but we would give it plenty of consideration if we were going to change the RAM on the 21" IMac because access to the RAM isn't user-serviceable.
Ah, ok. I read 'user-replaceable components appear to end there' and thought that was incorrect after curveddesign.com posted a link to this:
edit: corrected the user-replaceable components appear to end there part
It's taken almost 6 years for Apple to push out a redesigned Mac Pro that's a whopping twice as fast and supports less memory than last year's model.
I am impressed.