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Help needed with the set up of my new Mac Pro

bigbadneil

bigbadneil

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jul 18, 2009
360
3
Guys,
I recently bought a new Mac Pro with this configuration
86fo.png

I use my new computer mainly for photo processing and when I upload my photos to Lightroom it is a very slow process.......I do this via a Sandisk USB card reader.
Is there a better way to do this and if so what is it. Also I am storing my pictures on external hard drives and they can also be slow. I only used one of the internal tray in the Mac Pro for storage so I think I still have one left.
Any tips and help would be much appreciated

----------

I just noticed that my MBP has 4 trays for hard drives, would it help if I put a SSD in one of them so that the computer uses that one of everything and the other ones for spill over.......or am I missing the plot here
 
bigbadneil said:
Guys,
I recently bought a new Mac Pro with this configuration Image
I use my new computer mainly for photo processing and when I upload my photos to Lightroom it is a very slow process.......I do this via a Sandisk USB card reader.
Is there a better way to do this and if so what is it. Also I am storing my pictures on external hard drives and they can also be slow. I only used one of the internal tray in the Mac Pro for storage so I think I still have one left.
Any tips and help would be much appreciated
Click to expand...

There are 4 internal trays and two more SATA connectors in optical area.

You can thus easily install 6 HDD or SSDs at no additional cost. Enjoy this freedom, to install these same drives in a 2013 nMP will set you back hundreds in TB enclosures and cables.
 
MacVidCards said:
There are 4 internal trays and two more SATA connectors in optical area.

You can thus easily install 6 HDD or SSDs at no additional cost. Enjoy this freedom, to install these same drives in a 2013 nMP will set you back hundreds in TB enclosures and cables.
Click to expand...

Or you could buy a single Thunderbolt enclosure for all of the drives and a single Thunderbolt cable. Now there is an idea. Why would someone buy 6 separate enclosures and six separate ThunderBolt cables when it could be handled better with much less.

The OP never even mentioned the yet to be released 2013 Mac Pro his question was specific to the 2012 Mac Pro that he already owns so your bias wasn't really needed.

bigbadneil said:
I just noticed that my MBP has 4 trays for hard drives, would it help if I put a SSD in one of them so that the computer uses that one of everything and the other ones for spill over
Click to expand...
Err, you wouldn't have spill over if one drive is used for everything. Unless you define everything differently than how the dictionary does.
 
Last edited:
brand said:
Or you could buy a single Thunderbolt enclosure for all of the drives and a single Thunderbolt cable. Now there is an idea. Why would someone buy 6 separate enclosures and six separate ThunderBolt cables when it could be handled better with much less.
Click to expand...

Since when does the current MP support Thunderbolt? :confused:
 
drewsof07 said:
Since when does the current MP support Thunderbolt? :confused:
Click to expand...

I never said the current Mac Pro has ThunderBolt. If you would have bothered to read the post I was replying to he was talking about adding 6 external drives to the 2013 Mac Pro and that it would several ThunderBolt enclosures and ThunderBolt cables.
 
drewsof07 said:
Since when does the current MP support Thunderbolt? :confused:
Click to expand...

Read the quoted bit about about internal hard drives and then makes sense! Helps if read the FULL entry.:D

He is isn't saying use Thunderbolt Chassis with the current Mac Pro.

Is merely passing comment as people can't seem to resist putting digs in about the Mac Pro 2013 model ( because there isn't enough threads about that already )
 
brand said:
I never said the current Mac Pro has ThunderBolt. If you would have bothered to read the post I was replying to he was talking about adding 6 external drives to the 2013 Mac Pro and that it would several ThunderBolt enclosures and ThunderBolt cables.
Click to expand...

Ah, so we're making suggestions based on an unreleased product that the OP doesn't have? That's probably helpful to him/her.

Got it now. :p
 
brand said:
Or you could buy a single Thunderbolt enclosure for all of the drives and a single Thunderbolt cable. Now there is an idea. Why would someone buy 6 separate enclosures and six separate ThunderBolt cables when it could be handled better with much less.
Click to expand...

Read it again, I wrote "enclosures" as in more than 1. Never said 6. Or do you know of a single enclosure that can hold 4@3.5 HDD and 2@optical drives? If not, I guess plural was correct as it would take at least 2 enclosureS

And an enclosure for 4-6 drives is how much?

I was trying to point out that he has luxury of having 6 drives of his choosing, a reason to be glad he has a 2009. He originally believed it only held 2 total drives.

People are getting a LITTLE too sensitive.
 
Last edited:
bigbadneil said:
when I upload my photos to Lightroom
Click to expand...

be careful about buying a bunch of stuff to try to fix your speed problems because you might end up wasting some money..

lightroom has to do some things to the files when they come in (such as generate thumbnails).. this is possibly (probably) where your slowdown is coming from.

maybe go ask around at an adobe forum as you might (probably) get better help there.
 
Hi Bigbadneil. Congrats on your Mac Pro. It's a fast and durable machine that can give you many years of service. I am using a 4.1 and 5.1 Mac Pro and both are similar and working fine. Putting SSDs on the optical bay area and HDDs on the 4 sled trays should work fine. HERE is an article about Lightroom that may help your setup.
 
bigbadneil said:
Guys,
I recently bought a new Mac Pro with this configuration Image
I use my new computer mainly for photo processing and when I upload my photos to Lightroom it is a very slow process.......I do this via a Sandisk USB card reader.
Is there a better way to do this and if so what is it. Also I am storing my pictures on external hard drives and they can also be slow. I only used one of the internal tray in the Mac Pro for storage so I think I still have one left.
Any tips and help would be much appreciated

----------

I just noticed that my MBP has 4 trays for hard drives, would it help if I put a SSD in one of them so that the computer uses that one of everything and the other ones for spill over.......or am I missing the plot here
Click to expand...

If I'm understanding the the issue correctly, he is having issues with uploading at a slow rate. The problem is the USB card reader. Couple ways to speed up the upload via cards are (1) get a firewire card reader, (2) get a USB 3.0 pci card and upload via a USB 3.0 card reader ( super fast transfers for us photographers using high MP camera files). I use the latter and it's a huge difference in speed from the usb 2.0. Again, this is what I'm taking from the OP's post. Using SSd's can dramatically increase the import time once the files are on the ssd. Using a pci card like the Sonnet Tempo ones can even further speed up file read/ writes. I plan on upgrading my 2010 with the Sonnet Tempo Pro soon and I'm currently using a Synology Diskstation to store/ backup my photo archive. I cant say enough how awesome the Synology system is! They have usb 3.0, sata, connections for fast transfers as well.
Hope this helped.
 
Last edited:
Macsonic said:
Hi Bigbadneil. Congrats on your Mac Pro. It's a fast and durable machine that can give you many years of service. I am using a 4.1 and 5.1 Mac Pro and both are similar and working fine. Putting SSDs on the optical bay area and HDDs on the 4 sled trays should work fine. HERE is an article about Lightroom that may help your setup.
Click to expand...
Thank you sir.
Sorry to everyone else for not replying earlier but I have been away on a photo shoot

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butch10x said:
If I'm understanding the the issue correctly, he is having issues with uploading at a slow rate. The problem is the USB card reader. Couple ways to speed up the upload via cards are (1) get a firewire card reader, (2) get a USB 3.0 pci card and upload via a USB 3.0 card reader ( super fast transfers for us photographers using high MP camera files). I use the latter and it's a huge difference in speed from the usb 2.0. Again, this is what I'm taking from the OP's post. Using SSd's can dramatically increase the import time once the files are on the ssd. Using a pci card like the Sonnet Tempo ones can even further speed up file read/ writes. I plan on upgrading my 2010 with the Sonnet Tempo Pro soon and I'm currently using a Synology Diskstation to store/ backup my photo archive. I cant say enough how awesome the Synology system is! They have usb 3.0, sata, connections for fast transfers as well.
Hope this helped.
Click to expand...
Thank you Sir

----------
bigbadneil said:
Thank you sir.
Sorry to everyone else for not replying earlier but I have been away on a photo shoot

----------

Thank you Sir
Click to expand...

crjackson2134 said:
Just curious, but how can you tell it's a 2009 machine he's using?
Click to expand...
Guy's,
I bought my MP at the beginning of this year so its 2013.
I went and talked with the apple shop in Malaysia today and he is getting me a price for one 512GB.. SSD hard drive and 2 more 2TB hard drives for backups. He also told me that my machine does not have thunderbolt so I might as well forget about that.
As far as the USB-3 goes how do I tell if my USB ports are 2 or 3???.
I love my MP so any help you guys can offer me is very much appreciated.
One last thing the guy in the apple shop also told me that I would be better reinstalling all my current applications onto the new SSD drive as that will help speed everything up.........is that about right???
 
All current MPs have USB 2.0
Some setup ideas:

1. when money isn't the limit:
– 256GB SSD for OS and apps to HDD bay
– Sonnet Tempo SSD Pro
– 2x 512GB SSDs in RAID 0 on above Sonnet card - for your LR library
– 3TB HDD for backup
– pcie card reader
~$1400 for 1TB working space with ~900MB/s R/W speed and near 0 access time

2. cheaper one:
– 128GB SSD for OS and apps to HDD bay
– SYBA SD-PEX40068 PCIe card
– 2x 256GB SSDs in RAID 0 on above SYBA card - for LR library
– 3TB HDD for backup
– pcie card reader
~$750 for 512GB working space with ~500/900MB/s R/W speed and near 0 access time

3. bugdet (compromise) one:
– 128GB SSD for OS and apps to optical bay
– 3x 3TB HDDs in RAID 0 - for LR library
– 3TB HDD for backup
– pcie card reader
~$650 for 9TB working space with ~450MB/s R/W with standard HDD access time

In all above options main limiting factor (when copying files from the card) will be card's speed.
 
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bigbadneil said:
Guy's,

As far as the USB-3 goes how do I tell if my USB ports are 2 or 3???.
I love my MP so any help you guys can offer me is very much appreciated.
One last thing the guy in the apple shop also told me that I would be better reinstalling all my current applications onto the new SSD drive as that will help speed everything up.........is that about right???
Click to expand...

Hi Bigbadneil For your 2012 Mac Pro you can install a USB 3.0 card on your PCIe slot. You can either use the Orico USB 3.0 or Caldigit USB 3. I am using the Caldigit USB 3.0. For your applicatioins yep you can put them in your SSD and use your other hard drives to store all your files.
 
Macsonic said:
Hi Bigbadneil For your 2012 Mac Pro you can install a USB 3.0 card on your PCIe slot. You can either use the Orico USB 3.0 or Caldigit USB 3. I am using the Caldigit USB 3.0. For your applicatioins yep you can put them in your SSD and use your other hard drives to store all your files.
Click to expand...
Perfect thank you that is what I will do
 
Macsonic said:
Hi Bigbadneil For your 2012 Mac Pro you can install a USB 3.0 card on your PCIe slot. You can either use the Orico USB 3.0 or Caldigit USB 3. I am using the Caldigit USB 3.0. For your applicatioins yep you can put them in your SSD and use your other hard drives to store all your files.
Click to expand...

Does the Caldigit require a power connector? and If so, is a cable supplied with it? and where does it plug into?
 
willgreene99 said:
Does the Caldigit require a power connector? and If so, is a cable supplied with it? and where does it plug into?
Click to expand...

Hi Willgreene Nope. The Caldigit did not require a power connector. It just came with the CD driver containing drivers for OS 10.6 and 10.8 and some Windows drivers. The model I bought had 2 ports USB 3.0 and 2 ports eSATA so you can also connect eSATA ext Hard drives or maybe SSD. After installing the card, I just installed the driver.

The card works fine as it's stable, as in no disconnection specially transferring large files. Tested this Card on 4.1 2009 Mac Pro, 5.1 Mac Pro and also on 2008 Mac Pro and all worked well.

The Orico is also a good card but you will need a power cable and the price is cheaper. Caldigit's price is higher so there's a trade off. Hope this helps :)
 
Something that would help is to get a USB 3.0 PCI-E card and a USB 3.0 Card reader this should be a huge help.
 
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