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My MP 3,1 feels brand new

sigmadog

sigmadog

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Feb 11, 2009
835
753
just west of Idaho
Last Friday I added a Sonnet Tempo Pro PCIe card with two (OWC) Mercury Pro 480GB SSD's to my venerable 2008 Mac Pro (2.8GHz, Dual Quad core). I set them up as a Striped RAID boot disc (running Snow Leopard) with my applications.

This morning, I set my startup preferences to automatically open my usual apps (Suitcase Fusion, Adobe Bridge, Illustrator, InDesign and Photoshop). I timed both my old spinning hard drive and the new RAID ssd's.

Old HD start-up time: 2:30
New RAID startup time: :30

Wow!

Everything not only seems much faster, it IS much faster. Of course, processor speed hasn't changed, but the applications open fast and behave very snappy, and OS functions just fly.

I do have some concerns about ssd reliability, so I've instituted an automatic backup schedule using SuperDuper that copies the RAID data to a backup hard drive every other evening. I might modify that schedule to back up to yet another drive on alternate nights, thereby giving me two recovery discs in case my ssd's go kerplunk.

Anyway, with all the talk of the new Mac Pros making me jealous, I felt I had to give some love to my trusty old friend, and brag about it a little.
 
I switched back to Suitcase last year because they were the first out with a Photoshop CS6 plug-in. I was using Font Explorer till then, but was frustrated with their lag in getting those plugins out.

I like Suitcase, actually. The folks at Extensis have been very responsive and helpful over the years.
 
Welcome to the world of SSDs - once you visit you'll never go back. Putting an SSD in a computer is the BEST upgrade you can do - I had the same experience 2 years ago when I put an SSD in my macbook.
 
jbg232 said:
Welcome to the world of SSDs - once you visit you'll never go back. Putting an SSD in a computer is the BEST upgrade you can do - I had the same experience 2 years ago when I put an SSD in my macbook.
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Indeed for all computers with a spinning disk as a boot drive. I would put a SSD even in a sled way out in front for a Mac Pro upgrade with hosting it in a PCIe SATA 3.0 card closely ahead over upgrading the GPU. Most apparent with my actions in PS CS6 where it cut down my batch times by nearly half!

There's plenty of life in our old dogs yet :)

Suitcase - memories are made of this!
 
sigmadog said:
It goes great with my 8-track tape deck.
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I have a Nakamichi CR-4 I refuse to sell as it still plays all my old tdk metal cassettes with aplomb. Despite going digital I still love analog!

My Indesign pals say I'm nuts to stick with Quark but I can rattle something up in minutes whereas I'm sitting with a blank document accessing the help files if I 'upgraded'. Stick with what you know if you're happy with it especially so if you can knock out the work quickly with it!
 
Gav Mack said:
My Indesign pals say I'm nuts to stick with Quark but I can rattle something up in minutes whereas I'm sitting with a blank document accessing the help files if I 'upgraded'. Stick with what you know if you're happy with it especially so if you can knock out the work quickly with it!
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With you there... Quark every time. When you're up against a deadline, and it has to be done right, no matter what, it's Quark. End of. Yes, tried InDesign in various formats, but after Quark it feels like trying to pick up grains of sand while wearing boxing gloves. Not for me. Your mileage may vary. SSD for my MP 3.1 is my next purchase BTW... can't wait!
 
quatermass said:
With you there... Quark every time. When you're up against a deadline, and it has to be done right, no matter what, it's Quark. End of. Yes, tried InDesign in various formats, but after Quark it feels like trying to pick up grains of sand while wearing boxing gloves. Not for me. Your mileage may vary. SSD for my MP 3.1 is my next purchase BTW... can't wait!
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You'll love the massive boost believe me - a game changer breathing new life into the old dog. Mine has had pretty much the works done and I'm very pleased, can also transplant those parts into a dual 5,1 at a later date.

With Quark it's like riding a bike, been using it on a Mac since 89 and then after much persistence I eventually persuaded the firm I was working for to switch from Ventura to the Windows QXP in 92 along with Photoshop 2.5. Learnt an awful lot there setting me up with a career split between sales, engineer and graphic designer producing a quarterly magazine! Could never get my head around Pagemaker and although InDesign's features have come closer to QXP I still can't produce stuff quickly with it. I have had it sat in my CS collections gathering dust for 10 years lol. Quark's keyboard shortcuts are tattooed in my brain no matter whether its on Mac or PC!
 
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i have the same machine and you just inspired me to order 2x4gb of crucial 800mhz ddr2 (seems likely they're going to stop making this soon as Kingston already have, in the uk at least), a sonnet tempo single and a 512gb samsung 840 pro!

hopefully this should quell my gearlust until i'm ready to get the nmp 3,1 (or so...)
 
Sonic said:
i have the same machine and you just inspired me to order 2x4gb of crucial 800mhz ddr2 (seems likely they're going to stop making this soon as Kingston already have, in the uk at least), a sonnet tempo single and a 512gb samsung 840 pro!
Click to expand...

or perhaps? http://www.apricorn.com/vel-solox2.html

hopefully this should quell my gearlust until i'm ready to get the nmp 3,1 (or so...)
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Best boost for the bucks!

GL & Cheers
 
is there much difference between the tempo and the apricorn? it was about £40 cheaper here which would have been nice. either way, it's on order, and still a lot less than a nmp!
 
Sonic said:
i have the same machine and you just inspired me to order 2x4gb of crucial 800mhz ddr2 (seems likely they're going to stop making this soon as Kingston already have, in the uk at least), a sonnet tempo single and a 512gb samsung 840 pro!

hopefully this should quell my gearlust until i'm ready to get the nmp 3,1 (or so...)
Click to expand...

Get RAM from Mr Memory (if your in the UK/EU): http://www.mrmemory.co.uk/memory-ram-upgrades/model/Apple~Mac+Pro~2008+-+2.8GHz+8-Core+Intel+Xeon

No idea if the prices are the best, but seems good value IMHO. Great service, lifetime warranty, speedy delivery, works as advertised... = happy customer. Pity they don't do SSD's!
 
just as an update: i got the vanilla Tempo SSD installed and it runs my 840 Pro at 475 MB/s in Slot 2, matching the late 2012 Retina 2.6 i have here, and even pipping it in write speed... and with the extra ram i threw in it's only 2gb off the 16 the retina has, amazing for a machine that's basically from another era!

my cheesegrater feels really loved!

edit: oh i didn't see that about the ram. wonder what brand it is, the price is certainly good. saying that, i do feel good with all crucial ram in there... maybe that's just my ocd though haha
 
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