Mac Pro 5,1 replaced by Mac Studio. Need Advice.

[covrc]

My current MP 5,1 has SSD Boot Drive and 4 bays filled with 4 and 6 TB drives.

How do I replicate the flexibility and volume of that storage?

OWC Mac Stack?

I also have a Time Machine with 2 6TB drives that backs up OS, my Lightroom Catalogues, Photos, Music and stuff.

Trying to decide best hardwire connection for Migrating Data from MP to Mac Studio.

Appreciate the help.

Thanks.

 

[lcubed]

for the migration, i used an OWC Drive Dock to mount the MP5,1 boot drive.

what are your speed requirements for all your other drives?

probably the easiest solution would be to install all your existing drives into an OWC Thunderbay and treat them as JBOD.

 

[haralds]

I migrated via an OWC Envoy packaged M2 drive. My Mac Studio Ultimate is a 64GB/4TB combo with that external OWC also at 4TB. It has plenty of space for my project. I have a 10TB WD USB3 drive for clones. Main external storage and Time Machine store is a Synology NAS.

 

[handheldgames]

My current MP 5,1 has SSD Boot Drive and 4 bays filled with 4 and 6 TB drives.

How do I replicate the flexibility and volume of that storage?

OWC Mac Stack?

I also have a Time Machine with 2 6TB drives that backs up OS, my Lightroom Catalogues, Photos, Music and stuff.

Trying to decide best hardwire connection for Migrating Data from MP to Mac Studio.

Appreciate the help.

Thanks.

Going down the same path recently, I decided to avoid the well documented problems associated with USB based Hard Disks on the Mac Studio and opted for a Thunderbolt 3 based solution with the OWC Thunderbay 4.

Be warned, any external hard disk solution is going to introduce fan noise into your environment. I opted to remove the 92MM fan in the Thunderbay 4, replacing with an externally attached 120MM fan that reduced noise > 90%. Noise from the HDD's was not reduced.

Coming from the Mac Pro, I also have 3 NVMe SSD's that I wanted to leverage in my Highpoint SSD7101A-1 carrier. To orchestrate that move, I picked up a decently priced, slightly used EGPU enclosure and after I modified the 7101a with an externally mounted fan, it's also completely silent.

 

[covrc]

Going down the same path recently, I decided to avoid the well documented problems associated with USB based Hard Disks on the Mac Studio and opted for a Thunderbolt 3 based solution with the OWC Thunderbay 4.

Be warned, any external hard disk solution is going to introduce fan noise into your environment. I opted to remove the 92MM fan in the Thunderbay 4, replacing with an externally attached 120MM fan that reduced noise > 90%. Noise from the HDD's was not reduced.

Coming from the Mac Pro, I also have 3 NVMe SSD's that I wanted to leverage in my Highpoint SSD7101A-1 carrier. To orchestrate that move, I picked up a decently priced, slightly used EGPU enclosure and after I modified the 7101a with an externally mounted fan, it's also completely silent.

View attachment 2024953

Thanks for the rep,y and the details. Maybe someday I’ll progress to a configuration like this. I am looking for something with fewer devices. In additional to my built in 2Tb drive I want 2-4 bay storage, SSD or platters to hold all my photos and Lightroom catalogues as well as music. All will be backed up with Time Machine as I currently do with my Boot Drive and 4 bays. Any suggestions.

 

[Killerbob]

I migrated to using a proper NAS long ago and do not regret it.

Back in the days of my trusty MP5,1 I too had a bunch of HHDs and SSDs in use, but once I got a fast NAS I never looked back. That said though, in my MP5,1 I had a 1TB Accelsior card and when I moved to my MP6,1 I got myself the Sonnet Echo Express III external PCIe box. I have since then upgraded the interface to TB3, and I still use that on my Mac Studio. In it I have the Accelsior card, a Sonnet SSD RAID card, and a Sonnet 10GbE Ethernet card.

 

[DPUser]

I recently moved from a 5,1 12 core to Mac Studio Ultra in my recording studio.

5,1 was set up like this:

Internal SATA 1TB SSD Boot

Internal NVMe PCIe SSD 1TB Working Audio Projects

2 x Internal 1TB SATA SSD Virtual Instrument Sample Data

Internal SATA 500GB Photos and Misc

Internal 4TB Project Archive Drive

2 x Internal 3TB Daily Manual Audio Project Backup Hard Drives

External Time Machine 8TB HD

BackBlaze Cloud Backup


New Mac Studio set up like this:

Internal 2TB NVMe SSD - Boot, Docs and Working Projects (2 APFS Volumes) EDIT - Volumes, not Containers

External 2TB OWC Enjoy Express NVMe Samsung 970 EVO Plus - VI Sample Data

External USB3.1 1TB SATA SSD - Working Project Backup

External USB3.1 500GB SATA SSD - Photos

External USB3.0 Drive Caddy - SATA HD and SSD Swap Port

External 8TB HD - Project Archive

External 8TB HD - Time Machine

BackBlaze Cloud Backup

I've always used USB-connected external hard drives for Time Machine backups. That strategy continues with 8TB Seagate drives, recently available at Costco for $120/each.

The Mac Studio had no issues with USB3.1 external SSD Cases or the Seagate. They simply work every time. They are connected via non-powered USB 3.0 hubs but are still plenty fast.

With two displays and a Thunderbolt Audio Interface, I've got almost every port of the Mac Studio Ultra utilized. It has been absolutely fantastic, running Digital Performer 11.11 Apple Silicon Native.

 

[jasoncarle]

TrueNAS - Welcome to the Open Storage Era

TrueNAS is the World's #1 Open Source Storage. Based on OpenZFS, it is trusted by millions and deployed worldwide.

www.truenas.com

 

[gsartori]

My current MP 5,1 has SSD Boot Drive and 4 bays filled with 4 and 6 TB drives.

How do I replicate the flexibility and volume of that storage?

OWC Mac Stack?

I also have a Time Machine with 2 6TB drives that backs up OS, my Lightroom Catalogues, Photos, Music and stuff.

Trying to decide best hardwire connection for Migrating Data from MP to Mac Studio.

Appreciate the help.

Thanks.

Same situation here I just bought a TB OWC 8 slot case and dropped in my existing HDD (I was able to squeeze six in my Mac Pro). Everything works flawlessly . My only issue is sleep mode, for some reason they wake up my Mac Studio . I'm investigating

 

[covrc]

Thanks for responding.

On my 2009 MP I currently have a 4 or 6 TB drive in each bay, all my photo, music and videos files are on these drives.

I use the empty optical bay for a 500GB SSD as my boot drive where I store my Lightroom Catalogues, OS and Apps.

All my important data is backed up with the two 6TB drives in an enclosure using Time Machine.

I want to use the Mac Studio native 2 TB SSD up as my Boot, Apps and Lightroom Catalogues and whatever I am working on. After working on I will save to one of the external Drives.

My question is, do I simply buy a Four Bay enclosure and just keep using my current 2009 MP drives, only now they will be ‘external’ or do I buy newer SSD drives for that purpose?

Please keep suggestions simple, as you can see I am not too tech savvy.

Anything I do will be faster than I have now.



Thanks covrc

 

[Killerbob]

That is what I would do:

1) Set up your new Mac Studio using the internal drive for your system, apps, and catalogues. This is EXACTLY how I do it myself. I would start from scratch, just to make sure you install Apple Silicon versions only.

2) Get an external Thunderbolt 3 enclosure with space for your current drives, and move the drives from your Mac Pro to that. You are right, they will effectively be external drives connected to your new Mac Studio. This will work as a DAS setup. You can even make space for the SSD if you don't need it in the Mac Pro anymore.

3) You will still have your external Time Machine setup for that usage.

The only alternative I would suggest is to invest in a NAS, and then use your existing drives in it, getting the advantages a proper NAS will give you.

Easy as 1-2-3.

 

[covrc]

That is what I would do:

1) Set up your new Mac Studio using the internal drive for your system, apps, and catalogues. This is EXACTLY how I do it myself. I would start from scratch, just to make sure you install Apple Silicon versions only.

2) Get an external Thunderbolt 3 enclosure with space for your current drives, and move the drives from your Mac Pro to that. You are right, they will effectively be external drives connected to your new Mac Studio. This will work as a DAS setup. You can even make space for the SSD if you don't need it in the Mac Pro anymore.

3) You will still have your external Time Machine setup for that usage.

The only alternative I would suggest is to invest in a NAS, and then use your existing drives in it, getting the advantages a proper NAS will give you.

Easy as 1-2-3.

KB. Big Thanks.
If I use my existing 4 drives in a TB3 enclosure, how do I incorporate the 5th drive, the 500 TB Boot?
Also if using a TB3 how do I also use an NAS?

Thanks.

 

[Killerbob]

If you buy a TB3 enclosure and put the drives in it, you could choose one that can hold 6 drives, and just add your SSD to it as well. You would effectively handle all drives individually and see them in the Finder.

On the other hand, if you bought a barebones NAS, you could add the hard drives, and if you got a unit that can hold 5 or 6 drives you could even add your SSD (at least if it is a SATA SSD).

Of course, setting it up as a NAS you should define a volume across the hard drives, perhaps RAID5 (one disk redundancy), and you would only get the space of the smallest drive x 3. So if you have 2 x 4TB and 2 x 6TB drives, you could create a 12TB RAID5 volume. I know that sounds like a significant decrease, but remember you would get the safety of RAID5, and if it was a 6-bay NAS, you could add additional drives. I have 8 x 10TB drives in my NAS and use RAID6 (two disk redundancy). Hence I "only" have a 60TB volume.

Note that all of these numbers are approximations, as there is an overhead for NAS "business".

 

[covrc]

If you buy a TB3 enclosure and put the drives in it, you could choose one that can hold 6 drives, and just add your SSD to it as well. You would effectively handle all drives individually and see them in the Finder.

On the other hand, if you bought a barebones NAS, you could add the hard drives, and if you got a unit that can hold 5 or 6 drives you could even add your SSD (at least if it is a SATA SSD).

Of course, setting it up as a NAS you should define a volume across the hard drives, perhaps RAID5 (one disk redundancy), and you would only get the space of the smallest drive x 3. So if you have 2 x 4TB and 2 x 6TB drives, you could create a 12TB RAID5 volume. I know that sounds like a significant decrease, but remember you would get the safety of RAID5, and if it was a 6-bay NAS, you could add additional drives. I have 8 x 10TB drives in my NAS and use RAID6 (two disk redundancy). Hence I "only" have a 60TB volume.

Note that all of these numbers are approximations, as there is an overhead for NAS "business".

Hey KB. Can an OWC Mercury Elite Pro Quad work in this situation?

 

[Killerbob]

That would hold the 4 hard drives, and they would each be in your Finder. However, this is USB 3.1 only…

A better OWC solution - it is proper Thunderbolt, about 50% faster interface (in case you ever want to use the RAID capabilities), and still holds 4 drivers - would be the OWC Thunderbay 4. And then there is the OWC Thunderbay 8, which obviously can hold 8 drives, and you can get it with or without the RAID software license. I believe you can buy these enclosures without the RAID license and add it later, but check with OWC.

 

[covrc]

That would hold the 4 hard drives, and they would each be in your Finder. However, this is USB 3.1 only…

A better OWC solution - it is proper Thunderbolt, about 50% faster interface (in case you ever want to use the RAID capabilities), and still holds 4 drivers - would be the OWC Thunderbay 4. And then there is the OWC Thunderbay 8, which obviously can hold 8 drives, and you can get it with or without the RAID software license. I believe you can buy these enclosures without the RAID license and add it later, but check with OWC.

Thanks.
would the bottle neck be the speed of the HDDs and would that be remedied by swapping them out with SSDs as budget allows?

At which point should I consider replacing the current HDD, they may be 4-6 years old?

Thanks for the guidance and time.

 

[covrc]

Any thoughts on the OWC Mini Stack STX as an option?

 

[Killerbob]

Thanks.
would the bottle neck be the speed of the HDDs and would that be remedied by swapping them out with SSDs as budget allows?

At which point should I consider replacing the current HDD, they may be 4-6 years old?

The bottle neck would be your drives as long as you use them as individual drvies, and even if you RAID them, the interface will still be able to handle any transfer rates they can deliver. Until you get to 6-8 spindles even a USB3 will not be saturated. However, if you start adding SSDs into the mix, in RAID or as cache, your USB3 starts being the bottle neck, and you should be looking at Thunderbolt 3 as the faster solution.

HDDs can run for a million hours, depending on the brand the model. I have only ever installed Enterprise HDDs (HGST Enterprise Gold) in my NASes and their MTBF is usually much higher than consumer models, but so is their price. Check your models... That said, the time for sub-5TB HDDs is probably past.

 

[covrc]

The bottle neck would be your drives as long as you use them as individual drvies, and even if you RAID them, the interface will still be able to handle any transfer rates they can deliver. Until you get to 6-8 spindles even a USB3 will not be saturated. However, if you start adding SSDs into the mix, in RAID or as cache, your USB3 starts being the bottle neck, and you should be looking at Thunderbolt 3 as the faster solution.

HDDs can run for a million hours, depending on the brand the model. I have only ever installed Enterprise HDDs (HGST Enterprise Gold) in my NASes and their MTBF is usually much higher than consumer models, but so is their price. Check your models... That said, the time for sub-5TB HDDs is probably past.

Would this work?

OWC Mercury Pro U.2 Dual​

Thunderbolt NVMe

8TB 2 x 4TB
NVMe U.2 SSD​

OWC Gemini Ultra

Thunderbolt 40Gb/s NVMe RAID storage and seven port docking solution for DITs, professional filmmakers, and post-production firms.

eshop.macsales.com

 

[Killerbob]

That would be for NVMe drives only, i.e. NOT your existing hard drives or your SSD - it is a very fast storage solution, but more meant as an alternative to your internal storage.