High Sierra firmware suggests Secure Enclave, Intel 'Purley' chips coming to iMac Pro

AppleInsider

A report on Thursday suggests Apple's forthcoming iMac Pro all-in-one will run Intel's server-class "Purley" Xeon platform, as well as a Secure Enclave Processor similar in function to the ARM-based chip embedded in the MacBook Pro with Touch Bar.

According to Pike's Universum, code in the latest macOS 10.13 High Sierra beta release suggests iMac Pro will be Apple's first desktop to feature Secure Enclave integration.

Borrowed from the iOS line of products, Secure Enclave Processor technology was introduced to the Mac platform with the MacBook Pro with Touch Bar late last year. Like its iPhone and iPad siblings, the MacBook Pro uses an ARM processor to authenticate Touch ID operations.

Today's report notes Secure Enclave compatibility will extend to a variety of system-level hardware and software functions including AppleSecureBootPolicy, ApECID, ApChipID, ApBoardID, ApSecurityDomain, ApProductionStatus and ApSecurityMode. The presence of a Secure Enclave also opens the door to Touch ID access, though Apple did not mention such capabilities when it previewed iMac Pro at WWDC.

As for processors, High Sierra code points to the use of Intel's LGA3647 socket, a server-grade component reserved for the Purley Xeon platform. Purley is based on the Xeon E5 and E7 platforms and supports high-end Skylake class Xeon silicon. The information lines up with Apple's promise to equip the desktop with 8-, 10- or 18-core Xeon processors. Entry-level 8-core versions are expected to start at $4,999.

Pike's Universum also found reference to Intel's Basin Falls chipset, high-end hardware that supports the chipmaker's new Core X-Series processors. The X299 chipset is interoperable with Kaby Lake-X and Skylake-X parts, the latter of which is being offered with up to 18 cores.

Beyond the inclusion of Xeon processors and Radeon Pro Vega GPUs, Apple has said very little about iMac Pro's specifications. The company is expected to provide more detail as the desktop's December launch date nears.

soli

But will it only be accessible via the iMac Pro? I'm hoping Apple has worked out the additional logistics, security, power draw, and wireless bandwidth to make a Touch Bar with Touch ID and Apple Pay on a wireless keyboard.

jkichline

We tried to get some details out of this guy at WWDC 2017. He was a rock that wouldn’t break! I can tell you it looks awesome! 

shapetables

I plan to buy one without hesitation, even after being horribly betrayed with the UltraFine BS, but they had better not use the ASIC/ARm coprocessor to lockout the Hackintosh crowd (which is mainly composed of people who can't afford to pay for Apple's quality or have special needs that Apple isn't willing to address), at least not without offering them an alternative (like open/cheap macMinis and a RPi-like board).

aegean

Can't wait to get mine. The only thing I am worrying about is 4TB SSD and how much it will add up.

edited June 2017

macxpress

shapetables said:

I plan to buy one without hesitation, even after being horribly betrayed with the UltraFine BS, but they had better not use the ASIC/ARm coprocessor to lockout the Hackintosh crowd (which is mainly composed of people who can't afford to pay for Apple's quality or have special needs that Apple isn't willing to address), at least not without offering them an alternative (like open/cheap macMinis and a RPi-like board).

I seriously doubt Apple doesn't really give a shit about the Hackintosh community. At the same time, I doubt they're concerned about it either. Its not like most people are willing to go through all of the crap you have to in order to make a Hackintosh and keep it running properly. The people who really need to use a Mac for work will just buy one because well, time is money and most don't have time to continuously screw around with a Hackintosh. 

I wish I would just get a regular 27" iMac in Space Gray. I'm kinda sick of the current design. Its been the same way for years now. Just something simple like a space gray model changes that. 

edited June 2017

macpro

I wonder what the CPU and GPU plans are for the next Mac Pro?

jdw

Mikey Campbell, what are the caveats to the new XENONS versus the base model chips?

You will recall that H.264 encoding is slower on the existing Mac Pro (Xenons) that current iMacs due to the lack of a hardware encoder in the XENON chip. Will we have similarly silly problems with the new XENONS that are to be used in the iMac Pro?

edited June 2017

strangedays

shapetables said:

they had better not use the ASIC/ARm coprocessor to lockout the Hackintosh crowd (which is mainly composed of people who can't afford to pay for Apple's quality or have special needs that Apple isn't willing to address), at least not without offering them an alternative (like open/cheap macMinis and a RPi-like board).

If Apple adds an ARM processor it's because they feel it adds value and helps them achieve their engineering objectives -- not because they're twirling their mustaches dreaming up ways to lock out a few DIY nerds. If it also has the side effect of doing that, I don't think they'll give a shit either.

sflocal

shapetables said:

I plan to buy one without hesitation, even after being horribly betrayed with the UltraFine BS, but they had better not use the ASIC/ARm coprocessor to lockout the Hackintosh crowd (which is mainly composed of people who can't afford to pay for Apple's quality or have special needs that Apple isn't willing to address), at least not without offering them an alternative (like open/cheap macMinis and a RPi-like board).

Apple couldn't care any less about the hackintosh community.  I'm all for garage tinkerers but little to zero love will be lost so get over it.  

If the secure enclave is indeed going into the iMac, that will be a boon for secure transactions.  That means from iPhone to Mac, I will not have to transmit in any form my credit card number to anyone.  That is just great for consumers.

But hey... too bad so sad for the .0000001% that makes up the hackintosh crowd.

edited June 2017

suddenly newton

shapetables said:

 but they had better not use the ASIC/ARm coprocessor to lockout the Hackintosh crowd (which is mainly composed of people who can't afford to pay for Apple's quality or have special needs that Apple isn't willing to address), at least not without offering them an alternative (like open/cheap macMinis and a RPi-like board).

What does Apple owe the Hackintosh crowd? Free copies of macOS?

suddenly newton

StrangeDays said:

shapetables said:

they had better not use the ASIC/ARm coprocessor to lockout the Hackintosh crowd (which is mainly composed of people who can't afford to pay for Apple's quality or have special needs that Apple isn't willing to address), at least not without offering them an alternative (like open/cheap macMinis and a RPi-like board).

If Apple adds an ARM processor it's because they feel it adds value and helps them achieve their engineering objectives -- not because they're twirling their mustaches dreaming up ways to lock out a few DIY nerds. If it also has the side effect of doing that, I don't think they'll give a shit either.

He apparently feels the Hackintosh crowd is entitled to "open/cheap" something or other. I don't know what, I just saw the words "open/cheap" and thought: like Apple does that, ever.

edited June 2017

netrox

aegean said:

Can't wait to get mine. The only thing I am worrying about is 4TB SSD and how much it will add up.

Ok, please explain to me why you want that much SSD storage. I am trying to see the rationale for that amount of storage since MacOSX and several professional applications don't take more than 400 GB of space and I always think it's a good idea to use external drives for data. I mean, if speed is a concern, get Thunderbolt 3 drives which can theoretically go up to 5 GB per second. The latest SSD doesn't even reach that speed yet as for as I know. 

rotateleftbyte

netrox said:

aegean said:

Can't wait to get mine. The only thing I am worrying about is 4TB SSD and how much it will add up.

Ok, please explain to me why you want that much SSD storage. I am trying to see the rationale for that amount of storage since MacOSX and several professional applications don't take more than 400 GB of space and I always think it's a good idea to use external drives for data. I mean, if speed is a concern, get Thunderbolt 3 drives which can theoretically go up to 5 GB per second. The latest SSD doesn't even reach that speed yet as for as I know. 

Have you seen the price of say a 2 disk TB3/USB-C storage container (with no disks)? I've looked and the price of half decent ones is more than a 1TB SSD. I currently have my Photo Archive on a Drobo. that is more than 3TB of data. I'm not saying that I want it all on an iMac local storage but moving to USB-C/TB3 at the moment is going to be a costly operation. I'm looking at a normal iMac at the moment but the storage transition is going to be a major operation. Having a big internal SSD (rotating rust is so 1990's) is one way to go.
Time Machine backups are going to also need some serious storage. It all adds to the cost of moving forward with the technology.

shapetables

Hmm, I hope someone is taking note of all that --if they don't introduce luxury models simultaneously with any "maker kits" or other entry-level Macs they might ever decide to sku some prophets heads will explode. 

Keeping a mainstream operating system away from enthusiasts (and other special needs users) has been shown to result in a special event opening with a new CEO announcing that the latest edition will boot "Linux in a subsystem" [google], though the delay before that consequence may exceed the retirement parameters of current decision makers rofl

ksec

Purely? Xeon? Radeon Pro?

I really wish Apple just give me a ProSumer iMac, Core i9, Normal Top range Radeon VEGA Graphics.

The improved GPU in iMac is still not good enough. 

And how about a new Design? I mean we could use a Thinner Bezel now. 

edited June 2017

tenthousandthings

Well, Apple specifically says "Xeon" and every bit of information that has been officially released so far about Skylake-SP Xeon is for Purley. But there is a lot we don't know.

marvin

aegean said:

Can't wait to get mine. The only thing I am worrying about is 4TB SSD and how much it will add up.

Right now, Apple charges $0.78/GB. The iMac Pro has 1TB SSD in the base model, that's partly what makes the base model so expensive. If the base unit had 16GB/512GB, they might have been able to hit a $3999 entry price.

At $0.78/GB, given the 1TB base storage, this means a 3TB upgrade cost, so $2400. They charge $1200 for a 1.5TB upgrade for the MBP. I doubt SSD prices will have changed by the end of the year. This model with the upgrade would be $7400.

External storage is a bit cheaper at $1500 for a full 4TB so you could have 2TB internal for $800 plus a 4TB external for $1500 for 6TB total vs 4TB internal. However, the 4TB internal would be much faster at ~3GB/s vs ~0.5GB/s over SATA.

sennen

rotateleftbyte said:

netrox said:

aegean said:

Can't wait to get mine. The only thing I am worrying about is 4TB SSD and how much it will add up.

Ok, please explain to me why you want that much SSD storage. I am trying to see the rationale for that amount of storage since MacOSX and several professional applications don't take more than 400 GB of space and I always think it's a good idea to use external drives for data. I mean, if speed is a concern, get Thunderbolt 3 drives which can theoretically go up to 5 GB per second. The latest SSD doesn't even reach that speed yet as for as I know. 

Have you seen the price of say a 2 disk TB3/USB-C storage container (with no disks)? I've looked and the price of half decent ones is more than a 1TB SSD. I currently have my Photo Archive on a Drobo. that is more than 3TB of data. I'm not saying that I want it all on an iMac local storage but moving to USB-C/TB3 at the moment is going to be a costly operation. I'm looking at a normal iMac at the moment but the storage transition is going to be a major operation. Having a big internal SSD (rotating rust is so 1990's) is one way to go.
Time Machine backups are going to also need some serious storage. It all adds to the cost of moving forward with the technology.

Better to have an external box with some form of redundancy, I think, for important data like a photo collection rather than maxing out the internal SSDs

sennen

ksec said:

Purely? Xeon? Radeon Pro?

I really wish Apple just give me a ProSumer iMac, Core i9, Normal Top range Radeon VEGA Graphics.

The improved GPU in iMac is still not good enough. 

And how about a new Design? I mean we could use a Thinner Bezel now. 

Just go an eGPU with a regular 27" iMac. You'll also be able to upgrade the cards if you are that concerned with GPU performance.

They won't change the design for the sake of change, but I wouldn't be surprised if in the second half of 2018 (or around a year after the iMac Pro is released) the space grey becomes an option for the non-Pro 27" at the very least, or a possibly tweak of the design.

gmgravytrain

I can hardly wait for that iMac Pro. I'm hoping those 8 cores will help me in a few ways. I hope it will be good for running Parallels Desktop or VMWare Fusion Desktop. Sometimes it's hard for me to choose what I really need in terms of hardware. I hear people talking about some apps mainly take advantage of high clock speed and how many apps don't support lots of CPU cores. I mainly want the extra grunt to do video encoding using Xilisoft Video Converter Ultimate which can support extra cores. I'm going to need to ask a lot of questions a look at a lot of benchmarks for the iMac Pro before I buy it. I don't care if buying the iMac Pro is overkill because it will be running 24/7 as all my Macs have. I mainly want an Apple computer with a decent GPU. Not for games but for other types of graphics like some of those that show the universe with stars, planets, galaxies and such. That should be a lot of fun.

nht

rotateleftbyte said:

netrox said:

aegean said:

Can't wait to get mine. The only thing I am worrying about is 4TB SSD and how much it will add up.

Ok, please explain to me why you want that much SSD storage. I am trying to see the rationale for that amount of storage since MacOSX and several professional applications don't take more than 400 GB of space and I always think it's a good idea to use external drives for data. I mean, if speed is a concern, get Thunderbolt 3 drives which can theoretically go up to 5 GB per second. The latest SSD doesn't even reach that speed yet as for as I know. 

Have you seen the price of say a 2 disk TB3/USB-C storage container (with no disks)? I've looked and the price of half decent ones is more than a 1TB SSD. I currently have my Photo Archive on a Drobo. that is more than 3TB of data. I'm not saying that I want it all on an iMac local storage but moving to USB-C/TB3 at the moment is going to be a costly operation. I'm looking at a normal iMac at the moment but the storage transition is going to be a major operation. Having a big internal SSD (rotating rust is so 1990's) is one way to go.
Time Machine backups are going to also need some serious storage. It all adds to the cost of moving forward with the technology.

You looked where?  Not Amazon. 

http://a.co/gZDbD17 - Two drive (up to 15mm) RAID 0/1/JBOD USB-C drive enclosure $99.  About 1/3 the price of a 1TB SSD ($289).

For 4TB of RAID 1 storage (total 8TB worth of disk) the total cost is $400.  Without redundancy you can make a 4.5TB Fusion drive (4TB HDD + 512GB SSD) using that enclosure for the same price (you'll have to buy the drives yourself). 

http://a.co/0ZVpQtt - Two drive (up to RAID 0/1/JBOD USB-C drive enclosure $72

One user reported these speeds:

Sequential Read : 773.286 MB/s
Sequential Write : 746.424 MB/s
Random Read 512KB : 624.298 MB/s
Random Write 512KB : 654.270 MB/s
Random Read 4KB (QD=1) : 23.792 MB/s [ 5808.5 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=1) : 65.863 MB/s [ 16079.7 IOPS]
Random Read 4KB (QD=32) : 25.493 MB/s [ 6223.8 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=32) : 102.398 MB/s [ 24999.5 IOPS]

USB-C is more than fast enough.  And the meme that HDDs is so 1990s is simply dumb.

baconstang

ksec said:

Purely? Xeon? Radeon Pro?

I really wish Apple just give me a ProSumer iMac, Core i9, Normal Top range Radeon VEGA Graphics.

The improved GPU in iMac is still not good enough. 

And how about a new Design? I mean we could use a Thinner Bezel now. 

I like the bezels, especially at the bottom.  I use them for post-it notes.  Wouldn't want to stick them on the screen.

sflocal

nht said:

rotateleftbyte said:

netrox said:

aegean said:

Can't wait to get mine. The only thing I am worrying about is 4TB SSD and how much it will add up.

Ok, please explain to me why you want that much SSD storage. I am trying to see the rationale for that amount of storage since MacOSX and several professional applications don't take more than 400 GB of space and I always think it's a good idea to use external drives for data. I mean, if speed is a concern, get Thunderbolt 3 drives which can theoretically go up to 5 GB per second. The latest SSD doesn't even reach that speed yet as for as I know. 

Have you seen the price of say a 2 disk TB3/USB-C storage container (with no disks)? I've looked and the price of half decent ones is more than a 1TB SSD. I currently have my Photo Archive on a Drobo. that is more than 3TB of data. I'm not saying that I want it all on an iMac local storage but moving to USB-C/TB3 at the moment is going to be a costly operation. I'm looking at a normal iMac at the moment but the storage transition is going to be a major operation. Having a big internal SSD (rotating rust is so 1990's) is one way to go.
Time Machine backups are going to also need some serious storage. It all adds to the cost of moving forward with the technology.

You looked where?  Not Amazon. 

http://a.co/gZDbD17 - Two drive (up to 15mm) RAID 0/1/JBOD USB-C drive enclosure $99.  About 1/3 the price of a 1TB SSD ($289).

For 4TB of RAID 1 storage (total 8TB worth of disk) the total cost is $400.  Without redundancy you can make a 4.5TB Fusion drive (4TB HDD + 512GB SSD) using that enclosure for the same price (you'll have to buy the drives yourself). 

http://a.co/0ZVpQtt - Two drive (up to RAID 0/1/JBOD USB-C drive enclosure $72

One user reported these speeds:

Sequential Read : 773.286 MB/s
Sequential Write : 746.424 MB/s
Random Read 512KB : 624.298 MB/s
Random Write 512KB : 654.270 MB/s
Random Read 4KB (QD=1) : 23.792 MB/s [ 5808.5 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=1) : 65.863 MB/s [ 16079.7 IOPS]
Random Read 4KB (QD=32) : 25.493 MB/s [ 6223.8 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=32) : 102.398 MB/s [ 24999.5 IOPS]

USB-C is more than fast enough.  And the meme that HDDs is so 1990s is simply dumb.

Seriously?  I would never, EVER consider trusting my data to some cheap, Chinese knockoff junk like this.  That's the problem with people that base their decisions solely on price.  What's the support and warranty on these?  I know, close to nothing.

My Promise 12TB, 6-bay Thunderbolt2 RAID system costed a mint, but was worth every penny.

Seriously, are you going to now recommend the $2 iPhone chargers too because certainly they must be as good as the real thing!

jdgarvin50

Here, let me right-click on "Xeon," add it to the dictionary and make sure it doesn't spell-check to "Xenon." Ah! That's better…

nht

sflocal said:

nht said:

rotateleftbyte said:

netrox said:

aegean said:

Can't wait to get mine. The only thing I am worrying about is 4TB SSD and how much it will add up.

Ok, please explain to me why you want that much SSD storage. I am trying to see the rationale for that amount of storage since MacOSX and several professional applications don't take more than 400 GB of space and I always think it's a good idea to use external drives for data. I mean, if speed is a concern, get Thunderbolt 3 drives which can theoretically go up to 5 GB per second. The latest SSD doesn't even reach that speed yet as for as I know. 

Have you seen the price of say a 2 disk TB3/USB-C storage container (with no disks)? I've looked and the price of half decent ones is more than a 1TB SSD. I currently have my Photo Archive on a Drobo. that is more than 3TB of data. I'm not saying that I want it all on an iMac local storage but moving to USB-C/TB3 at the moment is going to be a costly operation. I'm looking at a normal iMac at the moment but the storage transition is going to be a major operation. Having a big internal SSD (rotating rust is so 1990's) is one way to go.
Time Machine backups are going to also need some serious storage. It all adds to the cost of moving forward with the technology.

You looked where?  Not Amazon. 

http://a.co/gZDbD17 - Two drive (up to 15mm) RAID 0/1/JBOD USB-C drive enclosure $99.  About 1/3 the price of a 1TB SSD ($289).

For 4TB of RAID 1 storage (total 8TB worth of disk) the total cost is $400.  Without redundancy you can make a 4.5TB Fusion drive (4TB HDD + 512GB SSD) using that enclosure for the same price (you'll have to buy the drives yourself). 

http://a.co/0ZVpQtt - Two drive (up to RAID 0/1/JBOD USB-C drive enclosure $72

One user reported these speeds:

Sequential Read : 773.286 MB/s
Sequential Write : 746.424 MB/s
Random Read 512KB : 624.298 MB/s
Random Write 512KB : 654.270 MB/s
Random Read 4KB (QD=1) : 23.792 MB/s [ 5808.5 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=1) : 65.863 MB/s [ 16079.7 IOPS]
Random Read 4KB (QD=32) : 25.493 MB/s [ 6223.8 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=32) : 102.398 MB/s [ 24999.5 IOPS]

USB-C is more than fast enough.  And the meme that HDDs is so 1990s is simply dumb.

Seriously?  I would never, EVER consider trusting my data to some cheap, Chinese knockoff junk like this.  That's the problem with people that base their decisions solely on price.  What's the support and warranty on these?  I know, close to nothing.

My Promise 12TB, 6-bay Thunderbolt2 RAID system costed a mint, but was worth every penny.

Seriously, are you going to now recommend the $2 iPhone chargers too because certainly they must be as good as the real thing!

Promise had issues early on with some of their units and I've seen issues with every brand up to the high end EMC and NetApp stuff.  The Oyen has a ASMedia ASM1352R.

If you want to spend more you can but for a RAID 0 high speed work disk it's a non-issue and for RAID 1 also a non-issue.  There are enclosures for more money using the same chipset.

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1066188-REG/cru_dataport_36020_3010_0100_toughtech_duo_enclosure_3sr.html?c3api=0980,144904813854&gclid=CLqL14DP1NQCFcaFswodfSEN9Q 

As well as drives:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01127E6RM?tag=anandtech01-20&ascsubtag=[site|anand[cat|NA[art|10245[pid|B01127E6RM|NA[bbc|manual

What SanDisk doesn't tell you is that it's two SanDisk Ultra II SSDs in RAID-0.  But you probably wouldn't know or care because of the brand name.  Enjoy your now obsolescent RAID array.  And if you're going to be a brand snob paint me unimpressed with Promise over Areca.

Keep a spare if it bothers you.  OP claimed these don't exist at a reasonable price.  He's wrong.

And his Drobo certainly isn't safer and Oyen is about the same quality level as OWC which I've had issues in the past.  

macpro

So ... no rumors yet on CPUs for next Mac Pro?  O did I miss that?

lorin schultz

nht said:

sflocal said:

nht said:

rotateleftbyte said:

netrox said:

aegean said:

Can't wait to get mine. The only thing I am worrying about is 4TB SSD and how much it will add up.

Ok, please explain to me why you want that much SSD storage. I am trying to see the rationale for that amount of storage since MacOSX and several professional applications don't take more than 400 GB of space and I always think it's a good idea to use external drives for data. I mean, if speed is a concern, get Thunderbolt 3 drives which can theoretically go up to 5 GB per second. The latest SSD doesn't even reach that speed yet as for as I know. 

Have you seen the price of say a 2 disk TB3/USB-C storage container (with no disks)? I've looked and the price of half decent ones is more than a 1TB SSD. I currently have my Photo Archive on a Drobo. that is more than 3TB of data. I'm not saying that I want it all on an iMac local storage but moving to USB-C/TB3 at the moment is going to be a costly operation. I'm looking at a normal iMac at the moment but the storage transition is going to be a major operation. Having a big internal SSD (rotating rust is so 1990's) is one way to go.
Time Machine backups are going to also need some serious storage. It all adds to the cost of moving forward with the technology.

You looked where?  Not Amazon. 

http://a.co/gZDbD17 - Two drive (up to 15mm) RAID 0/1/JBOD USB-C drive enclosure $99.  About 1/3 the price of a 1TB SSD ($289).

For 4TB of RAID 1 storage (total 8TB worth of disk) the total cost is $400.  Without redundancy you can make a 4.5TB Fusion drive (4TB HDD + 512GB SSD) using that enclosure for the same price (you'll have to buy the drives yourself). 

http://a.co/0ZVpQtt - Two drive (up to RAID 0/1/JBOD USB-C drive enclosure $72

One user reported these speeds:

Sequential Read : 773.286 MB/s
Sequential Write : 746.424 MB/s
Random Read 512KB : 624.298 MB/s
Random Write 512KB : 654.270 MB/s
Random Read 4KB (QD=1) : 23.792 MB/s [ 5808.5 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=1) : 65.863 MB/s [ 16079.7 IOPS]
Random Read 4KB (QD=32) : 25.493 MB/s [ 6223.8 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=32) : 102.398 MB/s [ 24999.5 IOPS]

USB-C is more than fast enough.  And the meme that HDDs is so 1990s is simply dumb.

Seriously?  I would never, EVER consider trusting my data to some cheap, Chinese knockoff junk like this.  That's the problem with people that base their decisions solely on price.  What's the support and warranty on these?  I know, close to nothing.

My Promise 12TB, 6-bay Thunderbolt2 RAID system costed a mint, but was worth every penny.

Seriously, are you going to now recommend the $2 iPhone chargers too because certainly they must be as good as the real thing!

Promise had issues early on with some of their units and I've seen issues with every brand up to the high end EMC and NetApp stuff.  The Oyen has a ASMedia ASM1352R.

If you want to spend more you can but for a RAID 0 high speed work disk it's a non-issue and for RAID 1 also a non-issue.  There are enclosures for more money using the same chipset.

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1066188-REG/cru_dataport_36020_3010_0100_toughtech_duo_enclosure_3sr.html?c3api=0980,144904813854&gclid=CLqL14DP1NQCFcaFswodfSEN9Q 

As well as drives:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01127E6RM?tag=anandtech01-20&ascsubtag=[site|anand[cat|NA[art|10245[pid|B01127E6RM|NA[bbc|manual

What SanDisk doesn't tell you is that it's two SanDisk Ultra II SSDs in RAID-0.  But you probably wouldn't know or care because of the brand name.  Enjoy your now obsolescent RAID array.  And if you're going to be a brand snob paint me unimpressed with Promise over Areca.

Keep a spare if it bothers you.  OP claimed these don't exist at a reasonable price.  He's wrong.

And his Drobo certainly isn't safer and Oyen is about the same quality level as OWC which I've had issues in the past.  

You seem to know a thing or two about this stuff, maybe you can help me understand an issue I'm having.

I've got a LaCie RAID connected to the Mac mini in my living room via USB3. Transfer speed between those two devices is about 235 Mb/s.

The Mac mini is connected to a current model Airport Extreme with CAT6 (WiFi on the mini is turned off).

Each day I offload stuff from my MacBook Pro to the RAID. I disable WiFi on the laptop and hard-wire it with a Belkin USBC-Ethernet adapter over CAT6 connected to the same Airport Extreme as the mini. This configuration manages only about 70-ish Mb/s. Just for giggles I tested the speed to the internal SSD in the mini and got similar results, which suggests the network connection is the limiting factor.

Is that all the speed one should expect from a Gigabit ethernet connection, or does this sound like a configuration problem? Or is the Airport Extreme just not a good choice in this application?

davidmalcolm

Even if they start adding secure enclave to new Macs, I think it'll be a long time before Apple disables macOS on machines that don't have ARM chips. What I'd love to see would be them starting to include higher end ARM chips, like the A10X as co-processors. The iPad Pro can already work faster in Affinity Photo than a quad core i7. I'm not sure how difficult it would be to have two processors functioning with the OS at the same time (granted there's already GPUs and CPUs) but if Apple could start putting ARM co-processors that can actually handle large tasks, into the high end, that would mean that they could also start making the MacBook line using ARM chips instead of Intel's. At which point Apple can both save a ton of money, plus be far more in control over when they get new chips, especially given how Intel has been slowing down lately. They already have ARM processors in the touch bar MacBook Pros, though if I understand correctly those ones are about as strong as the ones in an Apple Watch.

soli

MacPro said:

So ... no rumors yet on CPUs for next Mac Pro?  O did I miss that?

The yet unannounced Mac Pro or the iMac Pro? The later will have options for at least 8-core, 10-core, and 18-core. I assume those model numbers are available but I haven't seen anyone list them.

outdoorappdeveloper

I still don't know why Apple is putting server class CPUs in a pro desktop computer. Why not an 8 core i7 or up to 18 core i9? That 8 core i7 costs $600. Apple should be able to fit that into a $3000 iMac. The Xeon's main advantage over i7 and i9 CPUs is that it works in multi-CPU configurations (two, four or more CPUs on one computer) yet Apple has no plan for iMacs with more than one CPU. This looks to me like an excuse to charge more for the computer but offers no advantages to the buyer.

edited June 2017

shapetables

grangerfx said:

I still don't know why Apple is putting server class CPUs in a pro desktop computer. Why not an 8 core i7 or up to 18 core i9? That 8 core i7 costs $600. Apple should be able to fit that into a $3000 iMac. The Xeon's main advantage over i7 and i9 CPUs is that it works in multi-CPU configurations (two, four or more CPUs on one computer) yet Apple has no plan for iMacs with more than one CPU. This looks to me like an excuse to charge more for the computer but offers no advantages to the buyer.

..it's because SMBs (small/medium sized businesses) need ECC memory, thermal durability, rapid external storage connectivity and scalability that the Xeon processors and chipsets are built for.

I can see that it might make sense to lock Xeon-compatible macOS to a secure enclave in the ARM/ASIC if it means the entry-level model is only $5K and they're making their real profit on the models with many more cores, but again, I would hope they ship a "maker kit" (maybe A10X based) or a low-cost NUC-sized MacMini and maybe bring Xserve back or offer a iCloud instance or AMI (to use GCD, CoreML, etc. in server apps, etc) if they kill Hackintosh like that.

edited June 2017

adhir

What does Apple owe the Hackintosh crowd? Free copies of macOS?

In my experience, hackintosh is a pretty effective gateway to entice people to move from their winboxes to macs. The OS is good enough that, once you get used to it, Windows just isn't good enough, despite the broader application/game base. I have to believe Apple is consciously letting that community exist, and even thrive.

tipoo

Purley was assumable from before - they had a slide up at WWDC that said 2x wide AVX instructions, that means AVX-512, that means Skylake-EP, and the codename for that platform was Purley. 

tipoo

jdw said:

Mikey Campbell, what are the caveats to the new XENONS versus the base model chips?

You will recall that H.264 encoding is slower on the existing Mac Pro (Xenons) that current iMacs due to the lack of a hardware encoder in the XENON chip. Will we have similarly silly problems with the new XENONS that are to be used in the iMac Pro?

Xeon, Xenon is the Xbox 360s processor :P 

nht

lorin schultz said:

You seem to know a thing or two about this stuff, maybe you can help me understand an issue I'm having.

I've got a LaCie RAID connected to the Mac mini in my living room via USB3. Transfer speed between those two devices is about 235 Mb/s.

The Mac mini is connected to a current model Airport Extreme with CAT6 (WiFi on the mini is turned off).

Each day I offload stuff from my MacBook Pro to the RAID. I disable WiFi on the laptop and hard-wire it with a Belkin USBC-Ethernet adapter over CAT6 connected to the same Airport Extreme as the mini. This configuration manages only about 70-ish Mb/s. Just for giggles I tested the speed to the internal SSD in the mini and got similar results, which suggests the network connection is the limiting factor.

Is that all the speed one should expect from a Gigabit ethernet connection, or does this sound like a configuration problem? Or is the Airport Extreme just not a good choice in this application?

I looked into this for you.  I don't own the latest AEBS but evidently the wired router portion isn't the best, however you should still be seeing far better than 70Mb/s.  That you get the same speeds between both the external and internal drives indicates that you are correct:  you are most likely network bound.

There are some obvious possibilities:  

• You have a bad cable (most likely).
• You have an exceptionally bad AEBS.
• You have a bad ethernet port/dongle on either the mini or MBP.

To do speed testing between two macs there are multiple options but iPerf (free but requires brew) and MacGems (mac app store $1.99) seem to be recommended.

You can take a peek at network utility to see what the ethernet speed thinks it is but it probably says 1Gbit/s.

edited June 2017

jdw

tipoo said:

jdw said:

Mikey Campbell, what are the caveats to the new XENONS versus the base model chips?

You will recall that H.264 encoding is slower on the existing Mac Pro (Xenons) that current iMacs due to the lack of a hardware encoder in the XENON chip. Will we have similarly silly problems with the new XENONS that are to be used in the iMac Pro?

Xeon, Xenon is the Xbox 360s processor :P 

That could explain why Mickey Campbell never replied to that question from me.

Then again, Mikey Campbell could have assumed what CPU I was referring to and given us the courtesy of a reply anyway.  But that didn't happen.  Mr. Campbell, here's another chance.  Thanks.

lorin schultz

nht said:

lorin schultz said:

You seem to know a thing or two about this stuff, maybe you can help me understand an issue I'm having.

I've got a LaCie RAID connected to the Mac mini in my living room via USB3. Transfer speed between those two devices is about 235 Mb/s.

The Mac mini is connected to a current model Airport Extreme with CAT6 (WiFi on the mini is turned off).

Each day I offload stuff from my MacBook Pro to the RAID. I disable WiFi on the laptop and hard-wire it with a Belkin USBC-Ethernet adapter over CAT6 connected to the same Airport Extreme as the mini. This configuration manages only about 70-ish Mb/s. Just for giggles I tested the speed to the internal SSD in the mini and got similar results, which suggests the network connection is the limiting factor.

Is that all the speed one should expect from a Gigabit ethernet connection, or does this sound like a configuration problem? Or is the Airport Extreme just not a good choice in this application?

I looked into this for you.  I don't own the latest AEBS but evidently the wired router portion isn't the best, however you should still be seeing far better than 70Mb/s.  That you get the same speeds between both the external and internal drives indicates that you are correct:  you are most likely network bound.

There are some obvious possibilities:  

• You have a bad cable (most likely).
• You have an exceptionally bad AEBS.
• You have a bad ethernet port/dongle on either the mini or MBP.

To do speed testing between two macs there are multiple options but iPerf (free but requires brew) and MacGems (mac app store $1.99) seem to be recommended.

You can take a peek at network utility to see what the ethernet speed thinks it is but it probably says 1Gbit/s.

Thanks 1,000,000 for taking the time to help me with that! I really appreciate it.

It doesn't seem to be the cable (results are the same with another cable) so I'll look into the app you recommended.

As for a bad port or adaptor, is "slower than seems right" a symptom? Isn't a network connection the kind of thing that either works as advertised or fails completely? How would you go about checking the ethernet connection at each machine to make sure it's up to snuff?

Finally, what's "Network Utility?" Do you mean AirPort Utility or is there something else I'm overlooking?

Thanks again. I'm now actually looking forward to seeing if I can improve this setup.

sedicivalvole

Wow guys. There is a lot of hate for the Hackintosh community. Why! Also.. you want thinner, really! I would definitely swap thinness on a desktop for more poweeeer especially in the graphics arena or simply just in the thermal headroom so when you push the machine it doesn't have to slow down.

I'm thankful to these guys for some of the reverse engineering and work they do, it seems a lot of the community have Mac's but need something else. Some of the methods of increasing the 5,1 Mac Pro's abilities for internal power and GPU's have come from people in the Hackintosh community who also own a Mac. They just haven't been able to continue their work on hardware from 2010.

Don't see the need for the hate at any rate.

Good news Apple you are turning this around in the Computer arena!

edited July 2017

soli

lorin schultz said:

Finally, what's "Network Utility?" Do you mean AirPort Utility or is there something else I'm overlooking?

Use Spotlight to search for "Network Utility."

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_Utility

I seem to recall seeing pretty much the same app in *nix GUIs, so I wonder if it's mostly a port with Apple's Aqua UI applied. Regardless, it's been around for a long time.

lorin schultz

Soli said:

Use Spotlight to search for "Network Utility."

Nifty, thanks! It didn't occur to me to use Spotlight to search for it. I mistakenly thought if it wasn't in either Applications or Utilities it was absent.

Looks like it provides some useful information, though I have no idea what any of it means! Maybe that's why it's not in plain view -- Apple might not want unqualified people drawing flawed conclusions based on seeing things they don't understand.

Like, for example, doing a port scan and seeing three open, one of which is associated with "microsoft-ds." I'm not aware of having any Microsoft product installed on my machine. Should I be worried?

edited July 2017

soli

lorin schultz said:

Soli said:

Use Spotlight to search for "Network Utility."

Nifty, thanks! It didn't occur to me to use Spotlight to search for it. I mistakenly thought if it wasn't in either Applications or Utilities it was absent.

Looks like it provides some useful information, though I have no idea what any of it means! Maybe that's why it's not in plain view -- Apple might not want unqualified people drawing flawed conclusions based on seeing things they don't understand.

Like, for example, doing a port scan and seeing three open, one of which is associated with "microsoft-ds." I'm not aware of having any Microsoft product installed on my machine. Should I be worried?

It's useful info, and stuff that most of here have used innumerable times over the years. For instance, ever gone to GoDaddy to do a Who Is search on a domain name, or pinged an address to see if it's up?

I believe the link I provided shows that Apple moved it out of /Applications as of Mavericks.

marvin

lorin schultz said:

Like, for example, doing a port scan and seeing three open, one of which is associated with "microsoft-ds." I'm not aware of having any Microsoft product installed on my machine. Should I be worried?

Yup, Microsoft has been watching you for years, hope you haven't been up to anything.

It's just the SMB port for filesharing:

http://appleinsider.com/articles/13/06/11/apple-shifts-from-afp-file-sharing-to-smb2-in-os-x-109-mavericks

If you disable file sharing in the system prefs, it'll close the port.

soli

lorin schultz said:

Soli said:

Use Spotlight to search for "Network Utility."

Nifty, thanks! It didn't occur to me to use Spotlight to search for it. I mistakenly thought if it wasn't in either Applications or Utilities it was absent.

Looks like it provides some useful information, though I have no idea what any of it means! Maybe that's why it's not in plain view -- Apple might not want unqualified people drawing flawed conclusions based on seeing things they don't understand.

Like, for example, doing a port scan and seeing three open, one of which is associated with "microsoft-ds." I'm not aware of having any Microsoft product installed on my machine. Should I be worried?

• https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7894118?start=0&tstart=0

lorin schultz

Marvin said:

lorin schultz said:

Like, for example, doing a port scan and seeing three open, one of which is associated with "microsoft-ds." I'm not aware of having any Microsoft product installed on my machine. Should I be worried?

Yup, Microsoft has been watching you for years, hope you haven't been up to anything.

It's just the SMB port for filesharing:

http://appleinsider.com/articles/13/06/11/apple-shifts-from-afp-file-sharing-to-smb2-in-os-x-109-mavericks

If you disable file sharing in the system prefs, it'll close the port.

Thanks Marvin!

lorin schultz

Soli said:

lorin schultz said:

Soli said:

Use Spotlight to search for "Network Utility."

Nifty, thanks! It didn't occur to me to use Spotlight to search for it. I mistakenly thought if it wasn't in either Applications or Utilities it was absent.

Looks like it provides some useful information, though I have no idea what any of it means! Maybe that's why it's not in plain view -- Apple might not want unqualified people drawing flawed conclusions based on seeing things they don't understand.

Like, for example, doing a port scan and seeing three open, one of which is associated with "microsoft-ds." I'm not aware of having any Microsoft product installed on my machine. Should I be worried?

• https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7894118?start=0&tstart=0

Thanks again @Soli! I appreciate your efforts to help me understand. Sadly, I lack even the most rudimentary knowledge of networking, so it all went over my head. The extent of my understanding is "the stiff wire with the giant telephone plug is faster than the magic invisible connection." My intrinsic interest is in what a device does, not how it does it, so I only seem to pursue the latter when it affects the former.  That's part of why I use Apple products. It reduces the chances of my ignorance manifesting as butt hurt.

soli

lorin schultz said:

Soli said:

lorin schultz said:

Soli said:

Use Spotlight to search for "Network Utility."

Nifty, thanks! It didn't occur to me to use Spotlight to search for it. I mistakenly thought if it wasn't in either Applications or Utilities it was absent.

Looks like it provides some useful information, though I have no idea what any of it means! Maybe that's why it's not in plain view -- Apple might not want unqualified people drawing flawed conclusions based on seeing things they don't understand.

Like, for example, doing a port scan and seeing three open, one of which is associated with "microsoft-ds." I'm not aware of having any Microsoft product installed on my machine. Should I be worried?

• https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7894118?start=0&tstart=0

Thanks again @Soli! I appreciate your efforts to help me understand. Sadly, I lack even the most rudimentary knowledge of networking, so it all went over my head. The extent of my understanding is "the stiff wire with the giant telephone plug is faster than the magic invisible connection." My intrinsic interest is in what a device does, not how it does it, so I only seem to pursue the latter when it affects the former.  That's part of why I use Apple products. It reduces the chances of my ignorance manifesting as butt hurt.

I recently felt like a novice and a fish-out-of-water when I set up a NAS by QNAP.

It’s both impressive and scary just how feature heavy it is. It includes being used as Time Machine server and iTunes Server, as well as pretty much anything else you can imagine in the typical server realm (although I didn’t see VPN server in there, although I could’ve missed it). The main UI is in your web browser but it looks and feels like a typical Linux GUI with windows and menu bar/dock items within a single browser. There are just so many damn options and I’m not certain how well I’ve locked it down at this point. It makes me wonder just how secure it can be when there are this many user-facing features and complex settings.

I really wish Apple had created a home server—something many here have wanted for a very long time.

edited July 2017