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nMP - Mac Pro 2013 - is a nice machine but how do you manage storage with just 256 GB?

borgusio

borgusio

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jul 22, 2011
300
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Hello everyone,

I am an happy owner of a mac mini 2011 i7 with dedicated AMD graphics. The little beast edits even 4K video, so I am super happy with it. in my setup I have a 1 TB fusion drive with all my stuff, an external 2GB G-drive raid for videos and a 4TB WD for time machine.

Now I am going to wait a bit until the new apple machines come and then ideally buy the following at discounted prices:
- a macbook 12 basic (i owe no laptop - just iPad, but due to my new job I need one now)
- a mac pro 2013 with 6 cores, D700, 16 gig ram and... 256 GB? Seriously?

How do you manage it? I will need at least 1 TB internal memory. Also I have a lot of photos, so a fusion setup is ideal for me because I do not need the SSD speed for all my TB of data all the time.

How do you mac pro owners manage it?
to pay 1000 bucks for a PCIe SSD is not an option for me.

Thanks for your advice
 
Well, to be honest I have enough cables on my desk and I do not want the next thing sitting there - that is the main reason. I also move my computer from time to time, therefore I want to have everything in one place for convenience. So if I understand you guys well, you work just with external storage? What do you typically use?

EDIT: External SSD without trim? is that a good idea?
[doublepost=1453376300][/doublepost]Does anyone know if this:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/NEW-Mini-PC...126476?hash=item3f48ab508c:g:ZIkAAOSwpDdU~62e
(or something similar to adapt mSATA to PCIe)

plus this:
http://www.amazon.de/Samsung-MZ-M5E...UTF8&qid=1453376085&sr=8-14&keywords=1+tb+ssd

will work?
 
Last edited:
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If you want everything internal, cMP is a far more better option than the nMP.

Unless you have a huge discount, or you need that faster single core performance. May be you can consider the cMP with proper upgrade.
 
h9826790 said:
If you want everything internal, cMP is a far more better option than the nMP.

Unless you have a huge discount, or you need that faster single core performance. May be you can consider the cMP with proper upgrade.
Click to expand...

Sure, I had one and I loved it, unfortunately I have not enough space to host the cMP, which is also not possible to transport :/

That was the reason why I went to the mac mini
 
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borgusio said:
Does anyone know if this:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/NEW-Mini-PC...126476?hash=item3f48ab508c:g:ZIkAAOSwpDdU~62e
(or something similar to adapt mSATA to PCIe)

plus this:
http://www.amazon.de/Samsung-MZ-M5E...UTF8&qid=1453376085&sr=8-14&keywords=1+tb+ssd

will work?
Click to expand...

No, Apple's SSD connector is a custom connector, not mini PCIe.

If you won't pay for internal storage and you won't accept the clutter of external storage, your options are limited to network attached storage (which moves the clutter off your desktop to a different location in the office/house), or cloud storage. In fact I assume that these are photos are irreplaceable, so cloud storage might suit you the best.
 
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You can't just switch the SSD in Mac Pro for something like Samsung 951?
 
koyoot said:
You can't just switch the SSD in Mac Pro for something like Samsung 951?
Click to expand...

It actually IS a samsung 951, and you can buy 512 or 1Tb ones on ebay. OWC also sells a 2TB option, but its actually 2 SSD's attached together in a RAID or something. Not very reliable.
 
I have 3 rMBPs, my main one is the one with the smallest amount of internal storage - 128GB
I store everything on a NAS device, i don't want to have crappy external USB or TB drives connected/dragging behind, that the reason why i got a portable device in the first place.
 
A NAS and iSCSI has been a godsend for storing lots of stuff like videos and pictures. Have a 25TB volume showing up as a local drive. But 1GbE is a little slow if you actually need to work on the files so a USB3 or TB external drive in RAID0/1 is better if you need speed, RAID5/6 if you want a bit more reliability.
 
...redundancy not reliability!
1Gbe is good for 120MB/s and means you dont have the sucky cables attached to your "portable" device.
 
Maybe when new ones are announced 2013 refurbs will be even cheaper, every now and again 1TB SSD models show up. Or there probably is a few on eBay (though I found in my research it's cost effective to just buy the upgraded SSD from Apple). I even think there are 700GB models floating around as well.

It's kind of like you said, you say a fusion drive will be perfect for you b/c a lot of the stuff you don't need on an SSD - so I would manage it by putting my working projects on my internal storage and pushing everything else off to another external. Maybe a good compromise would be the 500GB drive.

I have a 2013 and try to stay mostly cloud based, my biggest libraries are photos & iTunes which both reside on a usb3 external. I have a time capsule doing backups. I have some old archived documents also on that external but I can lose it and not really care. The same thing with my working projects on my internal storage - everything is saved or backed up somewhere else.

Every now and again my s/o plugs in her thunderbolt drive and does some editing with Premier and After effects. She does not work with 4k so the modification to that workflow would be to copy the projects over to local storage, work on them and copy them back. (If it couldn't handle it, I'm not sure, maybe it can?).
 
thefredelement said:
Maybe when new ones are announced 2013 refurbs will be even cheaper, every now and again 1TB SSD models show up. Or there probably is a few on eBay (though I found in my research it's cost effective to just buy the upgraded SSD from Apple). I even think there are 700GB models floating around as well.

It's kind of like you said, you say a fusion drive will be perfect for you b/c a lot of the stuff you don't need on an SSD - so I would manage it by putting my working projects on my internal storage and pushing everything else off to another external. Maybe a good compromise would be the 500GB drive.

I have a 2013 and try to stay mostly cloud based, my biggest libraries are photos & iTunes which both reside on a usb3 external. I have a time capsule doing backups. I have some old archived documents also on that external but I can lose it and not really care. The same thing with my working projects on my internal storage - everything is saved or backed up somewhere else.

Every now and again my s/o plugs in her thunderbolt drive and does some editing with Premier and After effects. She does not work with 4k so the modification to that workflow would be to copy the projects over to local storage, work on them and copy them back. (If it couldn't handle it, I'm not sure, maybe it can?).
Click to expand...
Yeah, I am watching a 1 TB machine on eBay right now, but it is still puzzling for me that Apple did this choice. I saw also an usb 3 ssd 1TB from Samsung on Amazon at a decent price, but apparently the drivers are not reliable. Anyone tried it?
http://www.amazon.de/Samsung-Portab...45&sr=8-1-spell&keywords=Samsung+1+tb+sad+usb
 
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Does anybody host iTunes libraries or Photo Libraries on a Time Capsule? I've got one connected via Gigabit ethernet.
[doublepost=1453598732][/doublepost]
borgusio said:
Yeah, I am watching a 1 TB machine on eBay right now, but it is still puzzling for me that Apple did this choice. I saw also an usb 3 ssd 1TB from Samsung on Amazon at a decent price, but apparently the drivers are not reliable. Anyone tried it?
http://www.amazon.de/Samsung-Portab...45&sr=8-1-spell&keywords=Samsung+1+tb+sad+usb
Click to expand...

Why not get the Transcend one for cheaper since it also has thunderbolt?

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produ...end_ts1tsjm500_1tb_storejet_500_portable.html
 
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SuperMatt said:
Does anybody host iTunes libraries or Photo Libraries on a Time Capsule? I've got one connected via Gigabit ethernet.
[doublepost=1453598732][/doublepost]

Why not get the Transcend one for cheaper since it also has thunderbolt?

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produ...end_ts1tsjm500_1tb_storejet_500_portable.html
Click to expand...
Thanks for the hint! Here in Europe is 50 % more expensive than the Samsung one, however it looks like a good alternative! This will allow me to enable trim, right?
 
Are the MacBook Pro drives able to be swapped out in replacement of the Mac Pro ones? I currently have a rMBP 15" 1TB and a Mac Pro with 256GB. Could I swap the drives?
 
jamesjingyi said:
Are the MacBook Pro drives able to be swapped out in replacement of the Mac Pro ones? I currently have a rMBP 15" 1TB and a Mac Pro with 256GB. Could I swap the drives?
Click to expand...

Yeah, but I forget which model of the mac books had a compatible drive. If you google bit you'll find a thread on apple's site that discusses the topic in great detail.
 
thefredelement said:
Yeah, but I forget which model of the mac books had a compatible drive. If you google bit you'll find a thread on apple's site that discusses the topic in great detail.
Click to expand...
Ooh great, might be upgrading then :)
[doublepost=1453755452][/doublepost]Ugh, can't find it though...
 
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