Efficiently installing the new Mac Pro

[toto2007]

Hi,

A friend of mine has just received his brand new Mac Pro 64/1T flash. He's asked me to help him out with the installation of his new mac and set it up the best way possible. He's working mainly on PhotoShop, with very High resolution images, very much ram consuming.

My question is, if someone has some useful tips for configuring the new Mac Pro?
Also, i'm wandering about the flash. How do i define the system for the best flash use? Do i install the OSX on an external TB disk and leave the flash for disk swap, or maybe define a partition on the internal flash for OSX and leave the rest for disk swap,...?

What's the best way for making this great machine fly like a bird?

Thanks a lot.
Joel-H.

 

[Anim]

What kind of configurations are you expecting to make as it comes optimally configured already

The internal drive can shift 800MB a second so that should be fast enough for demanding photoshop work. If you need more space & speed then depending on your budget and demands you can get external TB2 drives that are 2 to 3 times faster (and much bigger) than the internal PCI-e SSD. Only thing I can think of is making sure you also have a backup system in place.

I guess with PCI-e SSD you don't have the problem of a volume getting bogged down like a platter drive would so not sure partitioning for swap space is going to offer anything other than organisation.

Anim

 

[JmanInSF]

I like the question... Was wondering the same myself.

More specifically, wondering if partitioning the drive into a system/apps + data would offer any benefit.

What about the way SSD'S reuse space and slow over time? Would having a system partition - with all it's various cache/preference writes focus the rewrites on that partition, leaving a less erased portion for file writing?

 

[Anim]

SSD'S reuse space and slow over time? Would having a system partition - with all it's various cache/preference writes focus the rewrites on that partition, leaving a less erased portion for file writing?

Like I mentioned already but if you need more info then VirtualRain posts some good info on it in this thread...
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/666247/

Edit: Also mentioned in that thread, the fuller an SSD volume gets the slower it operates so partitioning will make this happen quicker as your slicing up the drive into smaller chunks. I don't have any real world experience for this but I am sure somebody else who does could chime in.

 

[toto2007]

Thanks a lot guys

 

[VirtualRain]

Hi,

A friend of mine has just received his brand new Mac Pro 64/1T flash. He's asked me to help him out with the installation of his new mac and set it up the best way possible. He's working mainly on PhotoShop, with very High resolution images, very much ram consuming.

My question is, if someone has some useful tips for configuring the new Mac Pro?
Also, i'm wandering about the flash. How do i define the system for the best flash use? Do i install the OSX on an external TB disk and leave the flash for disk swap, or maybe define a partition on the internal flash for OSX and leave the rest for disk swap,...?

What's the best way for making this great machine fly like a bird?

Thanks a lot.
Joel-H.

My advice would be to just use the 1TB internal SSD as one large volume and store all his OS/Apps and as much of his project work as possible... 1TB is a LOT so should handle even the biggest projects with ease. When projects are no longer needed on the SSD, archive them to an external (USB3, TB, or NAS).

There's really no configuration required. Don't partition (no benefit).

As Anim said though, you don't want the SSD to get full. When it starts to get to 10-20% free space, archive some data to externals. That free space is important for a SSDs garbage collection to work effectively.

 

[toto2007]

Sounds logical.

Thanks a lot.