And... how much does a decent 5 bay thunderbolt enclosure cost? 599$ used? I am looking at the Drobo 5D myself... looks pretty sweet, but for a pro machine one must ask why we need to purchase Hard drive enclosures at all, computers used to be all the hard drive enclosures you need.
My only point was that Apple decided to consumerize a Pro machine by making it 'smaller' and 'sleeker'. Don't get me wrong, it's hot! But someone who needs that much power, and can afford the price tag, will typically expect to not have to buy another 1000$ device just for storage, Hard drives NOT included. Am I completely wrong?
Your whole argument is based on an assumption that is completely false. I have worked on dozens of workstation networks and seen hundreds of Mac Pros in the wild. I can not think of a single one that was not connected to some kind of external storage solution.
You can be critical, but the picture is silly and I suspect you know that.
Wonderful, and hey, this is not to depict reality, it is to bring home a point in humorous manner.
And regarding this picture I totally agree that despite all the many good things about the new Mac Pro its design is a a prime example for narcissistic minimalism gone wrong. Clutter is one thing and will be there to a certain extent, but if you ever had to work with audio, you'd appreciate quietude. And that is exactly what is in danger if you have to put everything into external enclosures. No matter how much Apple is proud of their quiet "one-fan" design. Chances are, the additional fans are sitting right next to it and most manufacturers do not care about noise pollution. And on that note, and not that I would ever want a PC, but there is a company called Deltatronic that builds 12-core systems with internal hard drives and space for more with NO fan whatsoever. Yes, they weigh a bit more, are a bit larger, but it's a desktop machine after all and not a lapcan.
I'm first in line to buy one of these, but you have a very valid point. I've already purchased a 4-bay OWC external RAID enclosure (QX2) in anticipation of the Mac Pro, and it's as noisy as hell. Totally negates the low-noise benefits of the new machine. Not to mention, when it is (mercifully) sleeping, random right-clicks will wake it up, and the computer locks up for 20 seconds while each drive spins up in succession. So much for a responsive computer.
I've decided to use it only for nightly back-ups, leave it off for the rest of the time and stick with a 3TB external USB drive for my media.
Wonderful, and hey, this is not to depict reality, it is to bring home a point in humorous manner.
And regarding this picture I totally agree that despite all the many good things about the new Mac Pro its design is a a prime example for narcissistic minimalism gone wrong. Clutter is one thing and will be there to a certain extent, but if you ever had to work with audio, you'd appreciate quietude. And that is exactly what is in danger if you have to put everything into external enclosures. No matter how much Apple is proud of their quiet "one-fan" design. Chances are, the additional fans are sitting right next to it and most manufacturers do not care about noise pollution. And on that note, and not that I would ever want a PC, but there is a company called Deltatronic that builds 12-core systems with internal hard drives and space for more with NO fan whatsoever. Yes, they weigh a bit more, are a bit larger, but it's a desktop machine after all and not a lapcan.
I think that the Apple Mac Pro is going where the Pro A/V market will be in 5 years. With Thunderbolt your external devices can be in another room -- separate from where you are processing audio. Alternatively, you can pack up (configure) the Mac Pro and whatever external devices you need on a small cart to address whatever ad hoc situations arise.
Wonderful, and hey, this is not to depict reality, it is to bring home a point in humorous manner.
And regarding this picture I totally agree that despite all the many good things about the new Mac Pro its design is a a prime example for narcissistic minimalism gone wrong. Clutter is one thing and will be there to a certain extent, but if you ever had to work with audio, you'd appreciate quietude. And that is exactly what is in danger if you have to put everything into external enclosures. No matter how much Apple is proud of their quiet "one-fan" design. Chances are, the additional fans are sitting right next to it and most manufacturers do not care about noise pollution. And on that note, and not that I would ever want a PC, but there is a company called Deltatronic that builds 12-core systems with internal hard drives and space for more with NO fan whatsoever. Yes, they weigh a bit more, are a bit larger, but it's a desktop machine after all and not a lapcan.
I'm first in line to buy one of these, but you have a very valid point. I've already purchased a 4-bay OWC external RAID enclosure (QX2) in anticipation of the Mac Pro, and it's as noisy as hell. Totally negates the low-noise benefits of the new machine. Not to mention, when it is (mercifully) sleeping, random right-clicks will wake it up, and the computer locks up for 20 seconds while each drive spins up in succession. So much for a responsive computer.
I've decided to use it only for nightly back-ups, leave it off for the rest of the time and stick with a 3TB external USB drive for my media.
Why is your RAID array going to sleep? That is either or poorly designed array or you have power saver turned on.. You can buy arrays with quieter fans (the disks would have made the same amount of noise inside the old Mac Pro) or buy a longer thunderbolt cable and put the array in the closet.
I think that the Apple Mac Pro is going where the Pro A/V market will be in 5 years. With Thunderbolt your external devices can be in another room -- separate from where you are processing audio. Alternatively, you can pack up (configure) the Mac Pro and whatever external devices you need on a small cart to address whatever ad hoc situations arise.
In many ways the Pro Video market is already there (or moving there). The move to modular camera systems has been happening for the past few years and has really exploded in the past 12 months. You can see many of these same arguments on Pro Video forums (with similar silly pictures). Modular is the future. It is clear Apple had a lot of input from the Pro Video/Film sector on the new design.
His video is a pretty good view of how things are today.
1) Calling us girls for disagreeing with you doesn't help your argument.
2) Why haven't they been a success? It's a long running product that has used pretty much the same case design since the PowerPC days. It's now it's been reimagined for today's market and technology. Not outselling iDevices does not a failure make.
3) Why would you think Apple expects you to "deal with HD video" on that internal SSD? Would any true video professional working in HD and wanting redundancy really have enough with 4 internal disks?
4) So editing HD video is the only way a professional is serious? Don't limit your scope to such a myopic video of the Mac Pro market.
5) Are you really saying "serious professionals" never had to "buy more stuff" with the old style Mac Pro? You're the one that showed an image that had a Forte A/V interface!
6) I only wanted 128GB of storage on my 15" MBP but I wanted the dGPU so I had to get the 512GB SSD. C'est la vie. I don't need it but I had the option to not buy it. I do have lots of video stored, but I keep that on a separate RAID. It's FW400 and connected to a 10 year old iMac. The first iMac flatscreen; you know. the round base wi the swivel heads. Just yesterday I was finally able to get OS X Leopard Server on it so now I can use that FW attached RAID for Time Machine backups in my house. I could have bought a used Mac mini and it would have been so much easier but I wanted to find a use for this older HW and so I did. Perhaps you should consider what you have with your Mac Pro instead of complaining Apple didn't continue going down a dead-end path to suit your specific needs.
7) There are plenty of reasons why smaller, lighter, and lower-power non-mobile devices can save money for buyers and earn money for vendors.
8) Again, you have your opinion but please state it as such. I clearly said the MBP I bought was exactly what was ideal for my specific needs but I found the solution available and moved on. Remember, it's Apple's choice to make what they think will benefit their bottom line best, not yours or mine.
Here we go!
1) I'm sorry if I hurt your feelings.
2) If it was a success, they wouldn't have waited 2 years between refreshes. Common now, you can't pretend the Mac Pro was a great success. I never called it a failure though, don't put words in my... text.
3) They certainly expect rMBP users to 'deal with HD video' on a internal SSD. No one is lugging around tons of external hard drives with their macbook pro, and if they are, well I'd consider that a fail. Apple aims for the all-in-one package, not "here's one piece of what you'll NEED" to make this useful. I extend that concept to the Mac Pro, which does NOT have the excuse of needing to be small and light.
4) What? Why else would anyone need dual high end video cards and three 4K displays: two of the primary marketing tag lines. Of course people can use it for other things, I never said they couldn't. Don't read between my lines, I write only what I mean, and for the last time, I'm not a hater, just pointing out some flaws.
5) NO! That is not what I wrote; in fact I wrote exactly the opposite. What the heck is wrong with you?!
6) I have never owned a Mac Pro, please stop inferring things.
7) Please enlighten us as to how this new Mac Pro design saves anyone any money, other than Apple on shipping. It's not a low-power machine either; I am not sure why you included that.
8) I am the one writing it, how could it possibly not be my opinion? I hate people who need to hear "in my opinion" before any statement, of course it's my opinion! Of course you are right that Apple's going to make the decisions they think are best, and I am not knocking them on anything but ridiculously low amounts of storage on a 3000$+ piece of supposedly Pro hardware.
1TB is not enough for anything "Pro", and even getting that much is bloody expensive.*
Wonderful, and hey, this is not to depict reality, it is to bring home a point in humorous manner.
And regarding this picture I totally agree that despite all the many good things about the new Mac Pro its design is a a prime example for narcissistic minimalism gone wrong. Clutter is one thing and will be there to a certain extent, but if you ever had to work with audio, you'd appreciate quietude. And that is exactly what is in danger if you have to put everything into external enclosures. No matter how much Apple is proud of their quiet "one-fan" design. Chances are, the additional fans are sitting right next to it and most manufacturers do not care about noise pollution. And on that note, and not that I would ever want a PC, but there is a company called Deltatronic that builds 12-core systems with internal hard drives and space for more with NO fan whatsoever. Yes, they weigh a bit more, are a bit larger, but it's a desktop machine after all and not a lapcan.
I'm first in line to buy one of these, but you have a very valid point. I've already purchased a 4-bay OWC external RAID enclosure (QX2) in anticipation of the Mac Pro, and it's as noisy as hell. Totally negates the low-noise benefits of the new machine. Not to mention, when it is (mercifully) sleeping, random right-clicks will wake it up, and the computer locks up for 20 seconds while each drive spins up in succession. So much for a responsive computer.
I've decided to use it only for nightly back-ups, leave it off for the rest of the time and stick with a 3TB external USB drive for my media.
I have 2 Promise Pegasus 12 TeraByte RAIDs (Thunderbolt 1). We seldom run the AC and the fans rarely come on. Even when the fan runs, noise is not an issue.
Why is your RAID array going to sleep? That is either or poorly designed array or you have power saver turned on.. You can buy arrays with quieter fans (the disks would have made the same amount of noise inside the old Mac Pro) or buy a longer thunderbolt cable and put the array in the closet.
Because I care about energy consumption, from both cost and environmental perspectives (energy is VERY expensive in Australia, and quickly getting worse). I guess I didn't realise that RAIDS were designed to never sleep. Is that really the case? Putting it in a closet isn't an option. I guess the bottom line is, I don't recommend the OWC Mercury Elite Pro Qx2 as a Mac Pro companion.
I guess my issue is the constant fan more than anything else.
I have 2 Promise Pegasus 12 TeraByte RAIDs (Thunderbolt 1). We seldom run the AC and the fans rarely come on. Even when the fan runs, noise is not an issue.
Sounds like a better choice than the OWC Mercury Elite Pro Qx2. Live and learn...
Same here. I have to end my Windows imprisonment soon.
OMG, I'm not that bad I just went from a series of macs to an i7 MBP thinking I'd be fine. I wanted to change back after a week but decided to wait for a new one as I had just sold my 8 Core Mac Pro ... but it seemed to never arrive ... That 100% tax write off the same year of purchase makes this an easy decision for sure.
Why is your RAID array going to sleep? That is either or poorly designed array or you have power saver turned on.. You can buy arrays with quieter fans (the disks would have made the same amount of noise inside the old Mac Pro) or buy a longer thunderbolt cable and put the array in the closet.
Because I care about energy consumption, from both cost and environmental perspectives (energy is VERY expensive in Australia, and quickly getting worse). I guess I didn't realise that RAIDS were designed to never sleep. Is that really the case? Putting it in a closet isn't an option. I guess the bottom line is, I don't recommend the OWC Mercury Elite Pro Qx2 as a Mac Pro companion.
I guess my issue is the constant fan more than anything else.
Fair enough. I would not say it should never sleep, but it sounds like it is randomly sleeping while you are using the computer. I am not sure why it would be freezing your computer when it was starting up unless you were trying to access something stored on the drive. I just shutdown and restarted a Drobo array and a Promise array and never had any interruptions in usage. Maybe it is the OWC.
As a side note, don't go with Drobo if you want peace . There are several quiet solutions out there. Someone mentioned one earlier in the thread.
Comments
Ooh, SOUNDS like fun.
Your image just says you are too unprofessional to own a professional workstation. Nearly everyone used external arrays with their old Mac Pros......
Your whole argument is based on an assumption that is completely false. I have worked on dozens of workstation networks and seen hundreds of Mac Pros in the wild. I can not think of a single one that was not connected to some kind of external storage solution.
You can be critical, but the picture is silly and I suspect you know that.
Wonderful, and hey, this is not to depict reality, it is to bring home a point in humorous manner.
And regarding this picture I totally agree that despite all the many good things about the new Mac Pro its design is a a prime example for narcissistic minimalism gone wrong. Clutter is one thing and will be there to a certain extent, but if you ever had to work with audio, you'd appreciate quietude. And that is exactly what is in danger if you have to put everything into external enclosures. No matter how much Apple is proud of their quiet "one-fan" design. Chances are, the additional fans are sitting right next to it and most manufacturers do not care about noise pollution. And on that note, and not that I would ever want a PC, but there is a company called Deltatronic that builds 12-core systems with internal hard drives and space for more with NO fan whatsoever. Yes, they weigh a bit more, are a bit larger, but it's a desktop machine after all and not a lapcan.
I'm first in line to buy one of these, but you have a very valid point. I've already purchased a 4-bay OWC external RAID enclosure (QX2) in anticipation of the Mac Pro, and it's as noisy as hell. Totally negates the low-noise benefits of the new machine. Not to mention, when it is (mercifully) sleeping, random right-clicks will wake it up, and the computer locks up for 20 seconds while each drive spins up in succession. So much for a responsive computer.
I've decided to use it only for nightly back-ups, leave it off for the rest of the time and stick with a 3TB external USB drive for my media.
Except that the Pegasus Thunderbolt 1 RAIDS are faster than both the internal SSD and HDD on the .2011 iMac 27".
I think that the Apple Mac Pro is going where the Pro A/V market will be in 5 years. With Thunderbolt your external devices can be in another room -- separate from where you are processing audio. Alternatively, you can pack up (configure) the Mac Pro and whatever external devices you need on a small cart to address whatever ad hoc situations arise.
For example, watch this:
[VIDEO]
Why is your RAID array going to sleep? That is either or poorly designed array or you have power saver turned on.. You can buy arrays with quieter fans (the disks would have made the same amount of noise inside the old Mac Pro) or buy a longer thunderbolt cable and put the array in the closet.
In many ways the Pro Video market is already there (or moving there). The move to modular camera systems has been happening for the past few years and has really exploded in the past 12 months. You can see many of these same arguments on Pro Video forums (with similar silly pictures). Modular is the future. It is clear Apple had a lot of input from the Pro Video/Film sector on the new design.
His video is a pretty good view of how things are today.
1) Calling us girls for disagreeing with you doesn't help your argument.
2) Why haven't they been a success? It's a long running product that has used pretty much the same case design since the PowerPC days. It's now it's been reimagined for today's market and technology. Not outselling iDevices does not a failure make.
3) Why would you think Apple expects you to "deal with HD video" on that internal SSD? Would any true video professional working in HD and wanting redundancy really have enough with 4 internal disks?
4) So editing HD video is the only way a professional is serious? Don't limit your scope to such a myopic video of the Mac Pro market.
5) Are you really saying "serious professionals" never had to "buy more stuff" with the old style Mac Pro? You're the one that showed an image that had a Forte A/V interface!
6) I only wanted 128GB of storage on my 15" MBP but I wanted the dGPU so I had to get the 512GB SSD. C'est la vie. I don't need it but I had the option to not buy it. I do have lots of video stored, but I keep that on a separate RAID. It's FW400 and connected to a 10 year old iMac. The first iMac flatscreen; you know. the round base wi the swivel heads. Just yesterday I was finally able to get OS X Leopard Server on it so now I can use that FW attached RAID for Time Machine backups in my house. I could have bought a used Mac mini and it would have been so much easier but I wanted to find a use for this older HW and so I did. Perhaps you should consider what you have with your Mac Pro instead of complaining Apple didn't continue going down a dead-end path to suit your specific needs.
7) There are plenty of reasons why smaller, lighter, and lower-power non-mobile devices can save money for buyers and earn money for vendors.
8) Again, you have your opinion but please state it as such. I clearly said the MBP I bought was exactly what was ideal for my specific needs but I found the solution available and moved on. Remember, it's Apple's choice to make what they think will benefit their bottom line best, not yours or mine.
Here we go!
1) I'm sorry if I hurt your feelings.
2) If it was a success, they wouldn't have waited 2 years between refreshes. Common now, you can't pretend the Mac Pro was a great success. I never called it a failure though, don't put words in my... text.
3) They certainly expect rMBP users to 'deal with HD video' on a internal SSD. No one is lugging around tons of external hard drives with their macbook pro, and if they are, well I'd consider that a fail. Apple aims for the all-in-one package, not "here's one piece of what you'll NEED" to make this useful. I extend that concept to the Mac Pro, which does NOT have the excuse of needing to be small and light.
4) What? Why else would anyone need dual high end video cards and three 4K displays: two of the primary marketing tag lines. Of course people can use it for other things, I never said they couldn't. Don't read between my lines, I write only what I mean, and for the last time, I'm not a hater, just pointing out some flaws.
5) NO! That is not what I wrote; in fact I wrote exactly the opposite. What the heck is wrong with you?!
6) I have never owned a Mac Pro, please stop inferring things.
7) Please enlighten us as to how this new Mac Pro design saves anyone any money, other than Apple on shipping. It's not a low-power machine either; I am not sure why you included that.
8) I am the one writing it, how could it possibly not be my opinion? I hate people who need to hear "in my opinion" before any statement, of course it's my opinion! Of course you are right that Apple's going to make the decisions they think are best, and I am not knocking them on anything but ridiculously low amounts of storage on a 3000$+ piece of supposedly Pro hardware.
1TB is not enough for anything "Pro", and even getting that much is bloody expensive.*
* in my opinion.
I have 2 Promise Pegasus 12 TeraByte RAIDs (Thunderbolt 1). We seldom run the AC and the fans rarely come on. Even when the fan runs, noise is not an issue.
Same here. I have to end my Windows imprisonment soon.
Apple's new cylindrical Mac Pro desktop arrives Thursday
YAWN
Why is your RAID array going to sleep? That is either or poorly designed array or you have power saver turned on.. You can buy arrays with quieter fans (the disks would have made the same amount of noise inside the old Mac Pro) or buy a longer thunderbolt cable and put the array in the closet.
Because I care about energy consumption, from both cost and environmental perspectives (energy is VERY expensive in Australia, and quickly getting worse). I guess I didn't realise that RAIDS were designed to never sleep. Is that really the case? Putting it in a closet isn't an option. I guess the bottom line is, I don't recommend the OWC Mercury Elite Pro Qx2 as a Mac Pro companion.
I guess my issue is the constant fan more than anything else.
I have 2 Promise Pegasus 12 TeraByte RAIDs (Thunderbolt 1). We seldom run the AC and the fans rarely come on. Even when the fan runs, noise is not an issue.
Sounds like a better choice than the OWC Mercury Elite Pro Qx2. Live and learn...
LOL.
OMG, I'm not that bad I just went from a series of macs to an i7 MBP thinking I'd be fine. I wanted to change back after a week but decided to wait for a new one as I had just sold my 8 Core Mac Pro ... but it seemed to never arrive ... That 100% tax write off the same year of purchase makes this an easy decision for sure.
Some people do.
Here is Chase Jarvis' mobile setup:
They've got a laptop and 2 external hard drives to backup media immediately in the field. That's 2 copies of their data on-site.
Back at the hotel... they've got a G-Safe RAID 1 enclosure. So that's a 3rd copy of their data... with RAID redundancy... before they head home.
And when they arrive home... all of the media gets copied onto 2 massive RAID arrays for long-term storage.
That's just one example. No one trusts their data to a single drive... anywhere. External drives are necessary.
Apple's new cylindrical Mac Pro desktop arrives Thursday
YAWN
So it's not for you. Big deal.
Lots of pros want and need this baby and will put it to great use.
Fair enough. I would not say it should never sleep, but it sounds like it is randomly sleeping while you are using the computer. I am not sure why it would be freezing your computer when it was starting up unless you were trying to access something stored on the drive. I just shutdown and restarted a Drobo array and a Promise array and never had any interruptions in usage. Maybe it is the OWC.
As a side note, don't go with Drobo if you want peace