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From a hater to a believer

Cubemmal said:
[*]The Cheese Grater Mac Pro isn't really that upgradable anyhow. I've put cards in it (from a very limited set of choices) and mostly had grief. I know many people have had good luck here, but consider that two new graphics cards got introduced this year and people rejoiced, compared to the 20-30 choices you have on Windows. Was the Mac Pro ever really internally upgradable? Other than RAM, disk and drives ... not really. Now we still can upgrade those three, and everything except video cards can go out on TB.
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i believe there are three third party manufactures that make cards designed for the Mac Pro. As well as Nvidia driver support for a few dozen of their cards. Apple driver support for both Nvidia & AMD cards. Plug & play support for PC cards have been out for a few years now.

Instead of buying a cheap low end computer and spending more money overall over time, why not just get the high end one I want and not upgrade? So, pick the cards, disks and RAM I want at purchase time.
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People who use workstations tend to use them longer then the average consumer, so upgrading them should be the norm. These people who use these to make a living don't want the latest and greatest only to find it does not support their workflow yet.

You know when I go on vacation I always worry about my Pro next to my desk. The rest of my stuff gets locked up, but the pro is too big. So this tiny case, well, I can easily lock it up now. Or even take it with me.
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Desktops are not typically designed to be portable or moved around a lot. While this new Mac Pro would be ideal for this purpose, constantly hooking up all those wires, ( Since not much can be upgraded internally ) for all the external enclosures your going to need.

Desktops haven't changed in decades, time for that to change really
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I don't believe in change unless it solves particular problems and right now it will cause just as many problems then it solves.
 
dmax35 said:
It's better than the trolls with garbage can remarks.
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It's about credibility.
There are only a handful of people on this forum whose opinions I absolutely respect. I perk up when I see them posting.
A newbie has the right to speak but I don't take them too seriously.
 
goMac said:
Except for the CPU (and memory, which the new Mac Pro can do), all those things can be external upgrades as well.
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Well clearly any computer with a USB port can be externally upgradable, but that's not what was asked. OP said "Was the Mac Pro ever really internally upgradable?"

This makes it sound like the MP was never internally upgradable, which is why I provided the lengthy list of internal upgrades that I've personally done.
 
Here we go with the fanbois revising history. Now the Mac Pro tower was never really upgradable. This would be entertaining if Apple weren't saddling us with a juiced up Mac Mini for a pro machine.
 
Just because the demonstration models being shown off by Apple have an easy way to open the machine's case does not mean that the consumer models will have the same functionality. There is nothing in there that Apple made to be upgraded by the end-user. They will seal this unit up just like their other lines of computers.
 
linuxcooldude said:
Desktops are not typically designed to be portable or moved around a lot. While this new Mac Pro would be ideal for this purpose, constantly hooking up all those wires, ( Since not much can be upgraded internally ) for all the external enclosures your going to need.
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Add to that all the power cables you'll have snaking around now. My Mac Pro has one power cable. The person in the office using an iMac has a mess of power bars and cables all around his feet. Not fun when he accidentally kicks his power bar and all his external drives go offline.

Just pointing that out. More external = more mess all around.
 
reel2reel said:
Add to that all the power cables you'll have snaking around now. My Mac Pro has one power cable. The person in the office using an iMac has a mess of power bars and cables all around his feet. Not fun when he accidentally kicks his power bar and all his external drives go offline.

Just pointing that out. More external = more mess all around.
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You would need at most 1 or 2 external boxes to make up for the lack of expansion in the new Mac Pro.

As for a person who has a "mess of cables" there are ways to straighten them out. Also if an iMac use is using multiple power strips, the odds are a Mac Pro user would've had external devices as well.

When I have something that requires a power strip I tend to mount the power strip to something so it's off the floor. And I use cable ties to keep the wiring neat if it is needed. This solves the problems of cables everywhere and accidentally kicking the power strip.
 
Slow Programmer said:
Just because the demonstration models being shown off by Apple have an easy way to open the machine's case does not mean that the consumer models will have the same functionality. There is nothing in there that Apple made to be upgraded by the end-user. They will seal this unit up just like their other lines of computers.
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Wrong. They are NOT going to change the system at this point, it's way too close to release. I've got decades of experience in releasing hardware/software platforms, what you are saying is impossible unless they were going to release next year. All indications are for a Fall release.
 
Cubemmal said:
[*]The Cheese Grater Mac Pro isn't really that upgradable anyhow. I've put cards in it (from a very limited set of choices) and mostly had grief.
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You're kidding right? AJA, Matrox, Blackmagic capture cards. Audio DSP, SATA, eSATA, SAS, Serial, RAID cards, More USB, More FW, Cell wireless, GPU's. PCI based SSD caddy's. It keeps going...
 
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derbothaus said:
You're kidding right? AJA, Matrox, Blackmagic capture cards. Audio DSP, SATA, eSATA, SAS, Serial, RAID cards, More USB, More FW, Cell wireless, GPU's. PCI based SSD caddy's. It keep going...
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I'm comparing it to a Windows system, or even Linux. For a mac system it is quite upgradable.

My experience is I put a eSATA card into it in 2010, and suffered with Apple eSATA bugs for two years until they fixed them. Such as any hint of hot swapping would panic the kernel. No acknowledgement of the bug or the fix.

Then I got a USB 3 card, and ... same thing. Unexplained kernel panics that always end at the USB card in the stack trace.

This on top of Apple USB bugs FOR YEARS that finally ended with 10.8.3. Oh, and never mind the useless Bluetooth module that can't reach from the floor to the desk.

Maybe my experience is special, maybe not, but I've been burned and have no interest in upgrading my box.
 
Bear said:
You would need at most 1 or 2 external boxes to make up for the lack of expansion in the new Mac Pro.
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One is a RAID chassis. What is the other? A 4x PCI expansion daughter-card? What about the need for at least 1 USB hub to help out the anemic 4 ports. I don't see 1 or 2 external boxes handling the myriad things users need. A link could change my mind.
 
derbothaus said:
One is a RAID chassis. What is the other? A 4x PCI expansion daughter-card? What about the need for at least 1 USB hub to help out the anemic 4 ports. I don't see 1 or 2 external boxes handling the myriad things users need. A link could change my mind.
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Thunderbolt display has USB ports.
 
Cubemmal said:
I'm comparing it to a Windows system, or even Linux. For a mac system it is quite upgradable.
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I was quoting Mac Pro choices. Or I am not understanding your response entirely?
You definitely are in the minority if you could not get things to work properly. You did need to read a bit and buy the appropriate items.
Apple had little to do with squashing eSATA bugs as they never officially supported it. Just stick to 1 or 2 chipsets and you are all set. If you lurked around here for any amount of time you would know exactly what to buy and what not to buy. Spilled milk, I know. The new Mac Pro is not half as expandable as the cheese grater was. IT is exactly as expandable as a current iMac or Macbook Pro. Not really anything more. Just less.

----------
Bear said:
Thunderbolt display has USB ports.
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I use better quality display's than that. Not a fan of Apple's display's. No RGB control, annoying surface glass, only w-led backlights and they blow out surprisingly quick. 35% of the hundred or so I have deployed have needed service in the 1st 2 years. So it could work if you lived only in their ecosystem. I don't. I don't suggest it to others either. Just more arrogance from Apple really. "You could use our 1 display option". Thanks.
 
Cubemmal said:
I'm comparing it to a Windows system, or even Linux. For a mac system it is quite upgradable.

My experience is I put a eSATA card into it in 2010, and suffered with Apple eSATA bugs for two years until they fixed them. Such as any hint of hot swapping would panic the kernel. No acknowledgement of the bug or the fix.

Then I got a USB 3 card, and ... same thing. Unexplained kernel panics that always end at the USB card in the stack trace.

This on top of Apple USB bugs FOR YEARS that finally ended with 10.8.3. Oh, and never mind the useless Bluetooth module that can't reach from the floor to the desk.

Maybe my experience is special, maybe not, but I've been burned and have no interest in upgrading my box.
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Well, in defense of the software developers who screwed up your drivers, Apple should've had USB 3 included with the MP years ago.. :)
 
derbothaus said:
I was quoting Mac Pro choices. Or I am not understanding your response entirely?
You definitely are in the minority if you could not get things to work properly. You did need to read a bit and buy the appropriate items.
Apple had little to do with squashing eSATA bugs as they never officially supported it. Just stick to 1 or 2 chipsets and you are all set. If you lurked around here for any amount of time you would know exactly what to buy and what not to buy. Spilled milk, I know.
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They were all mainstream items, I don't know, I think it's probably a combination of I'm really sensitive to bugs (I buy Apple because I just want them to ALWAYS WORK) and perhaps my system has or had some other issues.

Certainly Apple does less testing on the Pro than the other boxes. I learned not to upgrade to Pro to a new OS release. When I did that I became Apple's #1 Mac Pro tester it seems. At least they were good about fixing those bugs fairly quickly. Example - creating many spaces (16) in Mountain Lion would hard crash the Window manager.
 
Cubemmal said:
They were all mainstream items, I don't know, I think it's probably a combination of I'm really sensitive to bugs (I buy Apple because I just want them to ALWAYS WORK) and perhaps my system has or had some other issues.

Certainly Apple does less testing on the Pro than the other boxes. I learned not to upgrade to Pro to a new OS release. When I did that I became Apple's #1 Mac Pro tester it seems. At least they were good about fixing those bugs fairly quickly. Example - creating many spaces (16) in Mountain Lion would hard crash the Window manager.
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Gag
 
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