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How to add a lot of external memory to the new MacPro
- Thread starter bigbadneil
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OK, problem spotted. It's the RAM, Just $75 can give you huge performance improvement. 6G is way too less for Photoshop. That $75 will give you 32G of RAM, you can even pay more for 64G (you need to upgrade your CPU for 64G RAM, otherwise, you are limited to 56G at this moment), but anything above 24G usually is good enough.
Your mac is not the maxed out 2012 Mac Pro. It's the fastest single processor stock model with only 6G RAM. 3.33 Hex core is a very good CPU for Photoshop indeed, no need to upgrade that.
As my guessed, it's a 5870, which is OK for Photoshop, most of your job is not GPU demanding anyway. But if you want to, you can still upgrade to 7950 or above, but just don't expect any significant performance improvement in Photoshop.
You can still get a PCIe SSD, but do it after the RAM, obviously your machine is running out of RAM.
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Its okay I am getting all the help I need on here...............I just need you to tell me in roughneck terms rather than IT terms
OK , doing this as well as I can blind . Get a 250GB+ Samsung 850 EVO 2.5" SATA SSD and adapter for your OS X and applications drive . Install your favorite OS X . Place this drive in HDD Bay 1 of your classic Mac Pro . Buy a brand new WD Black 3.5" HDD (1 TB +) and install that in any HDD Bay . Install a Mac Edition AMD 7950 video card in PCIe slot 1 . Buy three 16GB DDR3 1333 MHz ECC memory modules and install them in memory slots 1 , 2 and 3 . Remove all your old memory modules - they'll interfere with performance . Get your local independent Mac technician to install one or two X5690 Xeon(s) for a processor upgrade , depending on whether your Mac has a single or dual processor Tray (they are mutually exclusive) . You might also want an USB 3.0 PCIe card with a Fresco logic controller chip . Drivers are built into Mac OS X 10.8.3 and later . And that's it . Install yourself what you can and get a tech for what you can't . OWC has the 7950 video card - it's a real Mac Edition so you don't need to worry about flashing a PC card or not having access to the full set of functions you expect from your Mac . If this does not run CC PS well , nothing will in the Mac community . Good luck !
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OK, then now I will assume it's your slow storage cause the problem, unless you always copy your whole project to the SSD and work on it. But 256G is a bit small for work.
PCIe SSD may be the solution.
I have to ask... did you enjoy your unique Soundbunny ???
. OWC really hoped so ! Or, should I say hopped so [doublepost=1458499099][/doublepost]
You seem to already have a nice System . Although I would still get the bootable SSD and the AMD 7950 . Are you having an issue running CC PS ?
Thank you all so much for helping me out with this;
I know one guy doesn't like OWC but they have been good to me up to now, my other choice would be B&H as I have bought a bunch of stuff from them before. so let me kook first at OWC and see if they have the SSD scratch and the 7950 video card...should I get more memory or is 32GB enough.
Here is a snippet of what OWC has..........I haven't ordered anything yet as I want to make sure this is what I need first.
[doublepost=1458500183][/doublepost]
I know one guy doesn't like OWC but they have been good to me up to now, my other choice would be B&H as I have bought a bunch of stuff from them before. so let me kook first at OWC and see if they have the SSD scratch and the 7950 video card...should I get more memory or is 32GB enough.
Here is a snippet of what OWC has..........I haven't ordered anything yet as I want to make sure this is what I need first.
[doublepost=1458500183][/doublepost]
My SSD is 512 not 256
You have a fast processor. NO NEED to upgrade. The difference in performance between 3,3 GHz and 3,47 GHz is nearly zero.
As already stated by lots of Users:
Your very thin bottlenecks are:
1) not enough RAM (go at max RAM)
2) the very limited dsata-transfer-speed of your spinning HDD: about 30-50 MB/sec
So upgrade the RAM on max.
buy a PCIe card and mount SSDs on it. This will multiply the data-transfer of storage enormously.
HDD: max. 50 MB/s
Simple PCIe sonnet-card (or others) with a simple Samsung 850 2TB EVO (costs not more than 750 USD): 500 MB/s write and read!!!!
Simple Sonnet Card pro with 2x2 TB (!!!!) Samsung 850 EVO (= 4TB SSD!) ---> about 800-1000 MB/s.
Armfelder PCI-card with 4x500GB Samsung 950 SSD ---> 4.000-6.000 MB/s !!!
3) The HDD-bays in your MacPro are SATA II ----> Limited at about 250 MB/s, but even this is 5x that of the max transfer rate of the HDDs. So - resting with the 3 8TB HDDs and just using the 4th HDD-bay to install a 2TB Samsung SSD will assure a 10-fold transfer rate from mass-storage from this bay to the processor.
As I stated already before:
Upgrading in a clever way means more performance than with a "new" MP for just a fraction of investment….
As already stated by lots of Users:
Your very thin bottlenecks are:
1) not enough RAM (go at max RAM)
2) the very limited dsata-transfer-speed of your spinning HDD: about 30-50 MB/sec
So upgrade the RAM on max.
buy a PCIe card and mount SSDs on it. This will multiply the data-transfer of storage enormously.
HDD: max. 50 MB/s
Simple PCIe sonnet-card (or others) with a simple Samsung 850 2TB EVO (costs not more than 750 USD): 500 MB/s write and read!!!!
Simple Sonnet Card pro with 2x2 TB (!!!!) Samsung 850 EVO (= 4TB SSD!) ---> about 800-1000 MB/s.
Armfelder PCI-card with 4x500GB Samsung 950 SSD ---> 4.000-6.000 MB/s !!!
3) The HDD-bays in your MacPro are SATA II ----> Limited at about 250 MB/s, but even this is 5x that of the max transfer rate of the HDDs. So - resting with the 3 8TB HDDs and just using the 4th HDD-bay to install a 2TB Samsung SSD will assure a 10-fold transfer rate from mass-storage from this bay to the processor.
As I stated already before:
Upgrading in a clever way means more performance than with a "new" MP for just a fraction of investment….
Sorry, I miss that updated info. Anyway, did you always work on the SSD and only use the HDD as storage? If not, then most likely that's the problem.
My setup is similar as yours (apart from my dual GPU, which is useless in photoshop, see my signature). However, I always work on my SSD, HDD is for storage / backup only. I rarely feel my Mac is slow in Photoshop.
Yes, 48G RAM is better than 32G RAM, but I doubt how much improvement you can "feel" in photoshop, 7950 is also good, but it does nothing in photoshop most of the time. Of course, there is nothing wrong to go with that. 48G is really the optimum you can get on your machine. And 7950 also should be the best official GPU for cMP on OpenCL stuff. However, if you go for 7950, I highly recommend you upgrade to El Capitan (if you haven't done it yet), the 7950 is not performing very well in 10.9, and quite a few annoying bugs in 10.10. IMO, 10.11 is the best OSX for 7950 at this moment.
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Normally I import my photos directly into one of my 6TB drives and then work on them from there. I guess what I should be doing is import them into my pictures folder which is on the SSDD drive, work on them in PS then save them to one of the 6TB drives
Normally I import my photos directly into one of my 6TB drives and then work on them from there. I guess what I should be doing is import them into my pictures folder which is on the SSDD drive, work on them in PS then save them to one of the 6TB drives
Totally correct, your work flow is seriously bottlenecked by the HDD.
You can try to work on the SSD first before you buy anything. That's should make a big difference. Your setup is pretty good for PS, but you have to use it correctly. Your SSD is not involved in your PS work, that means you never use this tool to speed up your process. Try to use your tool correctly before you buy more expensive tools.
Dont say that I want to buy at least something to add to my computer now after going through all this
Still waiting to hear what and where to buy it??
Normally I import my photos directly into one of my 6TB drives and then work on them from there. I guess what I should be doing is import them into my pictures folder which is on the SSDD drive, work on them in PS then save them to one of the 6TB drives
Yes, absolutely . Whenever possible , use a solid state drive (SSD) for your OS X , applications and temporary workflow scratch disk . Use HDD for archival purposes or if your projects are so large they wouldn't fit on a SSD anyways . And modern HDDs, by the way , are a lot faster than the factory installed drives from years ago . A modern HDD (like a brand new WD Black) can initially get around 100-120 MB/s . But the speed declines rapidly as the drive fills up .
Dont say that I want to buy at least something to add to my computer now after going through all this
Still waiting to hear what and where to buy it??
Haha, then buy yourself a Amfeltec adaptor and 4x 512G SM951
. As I said, it can be 24x faster than your current SSD. And may be thousand times faster than your HDD (on small files random read / write, which is very important on editing job).
Yes, do this. Forget OWC, it's garbage IMO.Haha, then buy yourself a Amfeltec adaptor and 4x 512G SM951
Everything else you have is actually pretty great.
Oh, and very important, buy the AHCI version of the SM951 SSDs and NOT the NVMe version.
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your CPU is fast, it's hard to know if your using more ram than you have installed without looking at activity monitor or the Photoshop efficiency tab, do you have Photoshop's options correctly set up?
ideally you have 1 drive for the OS (an SSD) one drive for working files (an SSD) one drive for scratch (an SSD)
the OS drive speed is less important
the working file drive & scratch drive speed matter more, if there installed on a pci card (which gives sata 3 speed) you will get a big speed boost
you need to set Photoshop to use the correct amount of ram in preferences, if your only running Photoshop you can increase it from the default setting (but dont max it out)
also you need to set the scratch SSD as the only scratch drive
this is all in the adobe link i gave earlier
'Optimize your operating system, hardware, and Photoshop setup to maximize performance.'
https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/kb/optimize-photoshop-cc-performance.html
Id relay recommend you have a look at this help file it clearly explains how to set Photoshop's options for speed
you want to copy your files on to your storage HD then copy the files you need to work on (or project folders) on to your dedicated working files SSD.
work on your files then once done with a project copy them back on to the storage HD
to clarify a scratch SSD is just a normal SSD that you use as a scratch drive (it's not a special SSD)
other tips
try not to have lots of applications open at once
dont run antivirus software (it can slow things down as it scans files)
make shore you have your image dimensions set correct (iv seen professionals make this mistake)
your biggest slowdown will be working on your 6TB HD's
there are some problems you cant get past like Photoshop just dose not use that meany cores, it's been that way for a long time and there's nothing you can do there. I do panoramas and the cpu use of Photoshop makes me sad.
dual cpu's have been shown to slow Photoshop down (most the time Photoshop will only use 1-2 cores & you have 6) & Photoshop will not use more than one GPU (& im not shore if you will see a speedup from a newer GPU in Photoshop)
ideally you have 1 drive for the OS (an SSD) one drive for working files (an SSD) one drive for scratch (an SSD)
the OS drive speed is less important
the working file drive & scratch drive speed matter more, if there installed on a pci card (which gives sata 3 speed) you will get a big speed boost
you need to set Photoshop to use the correct amount of ram in preferences, if your only running Photoshop you can increase it from the default setting (but dont max it out)
also you need to set the scratch SSD as the only scratch drive
this is all in the adobe link i gave earlier
'Optimize your operating system, hardware, and Photoshop setup to maximize performance.'
https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/kb/optimize-photoshop-cc-performance.html
Id relay recommend you have a look at this help file it clearly explains how to set Photoshop's options for speed
you want to copy your files on to your storage HD then copy the files you need to work on (or project folders) on to your dedicated working files SSD.
work on your files then once done with a project copy them back on to the storage HD
to clarify a scratch SSD is just a normal SSD that you use as a scratch drive (it's not a special SSD)
other tips
try not to have lots of applications open at once
dont run antivirus software (it can slow things down as it scans files)
make shore you have your image dimensions set correct (iv seen professionals make this mistake)
your biggest slowdown will be working on your 6TB HD's
there are some problems you cant get past like Photoshop just dose not use that meany cores, it's been that way for a long time and there's nothing you can do there. I do panoramas and the cpu use of Photoshop makes me sad.
dual cpu's have been shown to slow Photoshop down (most the time Photoshop will only use 1-2 cores & you have 6) & Photoshop will not use more than one GPU (& im not shore if you will see a speedup from a newer GPU in Photoshop)
I tried B&H and OWC for the samsung sm951 ahci and they dont have them
Thanks again for everyones advice but its just way way to much information for me to take in. Ive posted the checkout list from OWC 3 times and no one comments on that list they just bombard me with more information that just goes right over the top of my head...........Im a roughneck not an IT geek
I guess what I am really looking for is a link to a shopping cart that has everything in it that I need and all I need to do is add my shipping address and credit card details
I plan to talk with OWC today and I will order from them the items below; not sure if I will go with the 480 or 960 E2 SSD I will wait and see what they recommend.
Thanks again for everyones advice but its just way way to much information for me to take in. Ive posted the checkout list from OWC 3 times and no one comments on that list they just bombard me with more information that just goes right over the top of my head...........Im a roughneck not an IT geek
I guess what I am really looking for is a link to a shopping cart that has everything in it that I need and all I need to do is add my shipping address and credit card details
I plan to talk with OWC today and I will order from them the items below; not sure if I will go with the 480 or 960 E2 SSD I will wait and see what they recommend.
I tried B&H and OWC for the samsung sm951 ahci and they dont have them
Thanks again for everyones advice but its just way way to much information for me to take in. Ive posted the checkout list from OWC 3 times and no one comments on that list they just bombard me with more information that just goes right over the top of my head...........Im a roughneck not an IT geek
I guess what I am really looking for is a link to a shopping cart that has everything in it that I need and all I need to do is add my shipping address and credit card details
I plan to talk with OWC today and I will order from them the items below; not sure if I will go with the 480 or 960 E2 SSD I will wait and see what they recommend.
View attachment 622091
I think I did comment on the 48G RAM and 7950 already.
Anyway, for SSD, IMO, don't go for OWC because they use the SandForce controller. And they are just half the speed (at most) that a SM951 can do. For incompressible data, the OWC SSD may do much worse. Also, it's way too expensive (compare to it's performance).
It's your choice to ignore our SM951 recommendation, you can easily get that from eBay, no need to go for OWC.
For 7950, go to MVC's website, you can get one with identical performance for only half price. But nothing wrong to buy the OWC one if you only prefer official stuff.
RAM, check your activity monitor first, if memory pressure is in green, upgrade to 48G should only gives you minimal performance increment.
Where can I buy the SM951 and a 7950 from the same store?? I want to buy everything from the same store that can ship to Malaysia as I don't want to get double whammed for shipping and import duty.
Thats the main reason why I am looking at OWC and B&H but i cant find these items on B&H website..........is there an online store in Hong Kong that has this stuff all in one place??
[doublepost=1458541349][/doublepost]B&H say they are no longer available
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00VELDBJ6/ref=ox_sc_act_image_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A39P17CNFUPOJB
AND
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00MYCQP38/ref=pd_aw_fbt_147_img_2?ie=UTF8&refRID=03XE4XQR0P3HX0PE6WAC
OR
a Amfeltec adaptor
You need to buy direct from vendor, click the request a quote button.
As per other posters, AVOID that OWC SSD. They run a Sandforce controller which is horrible.
AND
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00MYCQP38/ref=pd_aw_fbt_147_img_2?ie=UTF8&refRID=03XE4XQR0P3HX0PE6WAC
OR
a Amfeltec adaptor
You need to buy direct from vendor, click the request a quote button.
As per other posters, AVOID that OWC SSD. They run a Sandforce controller which is horrible.
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Thank you Sir
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