nMP pricing compared to 2012

[wallysb01]

What on earth are you doing?!

Genomics.

So what is your storage solution like?

Cheap externals for backups, 4TB RAID1 for archival, 12TB RAID5 internal for working space. The RAID5 has recently been expanded from 9TB and as data growth increased a lot in the last 2 months. I'd like to drop those disks to 9TB RAID0 + 3TB RAID1. Given big RAID5s (or any parity RAID) are a bad idea. And move more stuff to a new dedicated storage unit.

Based on what you're saying, you'd fill up all the drives in your Mac Pro after a month. I'm imagining a closet full of drives in static bags or in a large moving box or something.

Well, more than a month, but maybe 6 months at this pace. Given I probably need at most 3TB/month, maybe 2. But the idea is I need enough space to work on 2-3 projects at once, which is really ~10TB range. Everything else can be somewhere other than a Mac Pro (new or old).

Actually, I think I saw a photo of your storage solution... (and it's primarily external)

Image

Working with big data is sure fun, isn't it.

 

[slughead]

Actually, I think I saw a photo of your storage solution... (and it's primarily external)
[image]

Top. Men.

 

[slughead]

I agree with this, but there is one slight advantage of external devices; you can put them somewhere else.

Why not put your whole computer somewhere else? Why have the computer on your desk at all? Access to ports? Showing off?

Clearly you should use whatever setup fits your needs, my point was that external storage takes up more space, costs more, and introduces more risk than having the drives in the case. Cheaper solutions, while great for VirtualRain's argument that externalizing is cheap, are completely moot as they're noisy and/or have unreliable PSUs.

 

[-hh]

Most of the world is using laptops with very limited internal storage...

True, but this observation is ignoring that because of the trend towards mobile, those consumers who still buy Mac Pros are a self-selected niche case.

Seriously though, I'm not assuming that everyone has the same workflow, but I do think 95% (or some vast majority) of the world has the same storage requirements:
1. High performance (>250MB/s), low volume (<1TB)
2. Low performance (<250MB/s), high volume (>1TB)

There are many who believe that there is a need for a third type of storage...
3. High performance (>250MB/s), high volume (>1TB)

And I'm saying this is a nice-to-have, but not required... and adding this as a must-have requirement on your storage is unnecessarily inflating the cost of your storage solution, particularly now that you're looking at a solution outside the box. But if you truly believe you need #3, then you need to be prepared to pay for it.

Okay, let's look at the cost of #3 on the legacy MP.

First, let's take a legacy Mac Pro and assume the baseline for #2 is a single 2TB drive...for reference, that's $100 retail, and since that's the minimum of what's required for #2, this cost does not count. Similarly, since it goes in an empty bay in a legacy MP, its enclosure cost is zero (free). So now let's contemplate move up to #3: its threshold I/O criteria can be (barely) met with a two disk RAID0, so all that's needed is a second 2TB HDD ($100), plus another available empty bay on the legacy Mac Pro ... total cost: $100 for 2TB.

For reference, 2TB of SSDs would be $1200, before any enclosures, so a RAID0 is a 92% cost savings on the legacy MP with open bays for both. Even if we back down to just 1TB, these drives are only $60 these days, so it is still a 90% cost savings.

Second, let's now do the same in a nMP: the capability for #2 is arguably going to be a single spindle USB3 external, which will cost $100 + $30 and again since this is for #2, even though it costs 30% more, it doesn't count. Of course, if we're adverse to cheap USB3 enclosures (PSU/reliability/noise), we might go up to say a G-Technology G-Drive USB3 enclosure based product, which is $200 including a 2TB drive...still a "doesn't count yet". To then move up to #3 requires the same $100 for the 2TB drive and a also new external enclosure ... $120 for the USB3 one of questionable reliability (and noise) that VirtualRain suggested two pages back, or we might notionally discard/repurpose/avoid the initial setup to have gone with a thunderbolt G-Tech RAID with a preinstalled pair of 2TBs for $600...the financials now are at least a ($100+$120= $220 add) for USB3 to a ($600-$130= $470 add) for TB.

Similarly, the reference of 2TB of SSDs is still $1200 before any enclosures, but now one is unavoidable. Might be able to get away with individualized cheap USB3s if JBOD spanning isn't needed for $60 ... or one might want to go all the way up to a Promise J4 for $370 ... so the costs here are $1260 to $1570 -- so a RAID0 approach is ($220 - $470) vs ($1260 to $1570) for SSD... the neighborhood of 82% to 70% cost savings.

Plus the same-vs-same for RAID0 on old vs new MPs, ratios of $100/$220 to $100/$470 which are 55%-79% increases for the "Tax" on the nMP, which in absolute dollars is $120 to $370.

The "Tax" isn't as bad when using SSDs: the $370 difference on internal/TB would be $1200/$1570, for +24% and on USB3 would be a finally negligible $1200/$1260 (+5%).

As you know, I believe anyone who thinks they need #3, can get by with a combination of #1 and #2 without noticing or even suffering.

It still all depends on one's use case and just how frequently one one's secondary storage ("archives") is accessed. Considering that one can take #2 to #3 for as little as $100 and get a doubling in bandwidth from 120 MB/s to 240MB/sec, it is a cheap 'luxury'.

I'm not saying Apple's markups aren't going to be huge; but then they've always been. I doubt anyone is disputing that you could go out and get a workstation for $3,000 that out-specs the new Mac Pro in practically every way, but can you do it for a computer sitting a 6.6" foot-print that's not even 10" high, and can cool the whole thing with a single fan?

It costs a pretty big premium to pack so much horsepower into such a tiny computer, and pricing individual components can't reflect the research and development, custom manufacturing etc. etc. that goes into it.

True enough, but the trade space also includes ... "How Cheap/Expensive" is one extra square foot of office space?

For example, if we assume round numbers (1ft^2 and $500), then the basic question is if it is worth paying $500 to gain one square foot in your office.

Absolutely, I did kind of suspect something like this would happen for the Mac Pro eventually, but didn't expect it so soon given the huge price of Thunderbolt peripherals...

I wasn't necessarily as concerned with TB's price inasmuch as the lack of a 'transitional' machine that allowed us to spread out those purchases. Looking back at USB for example, while Apple did take the leap with the iMac, it was easy to add a USB card to a Mac desktop in anticipation of transitioning, and Apple gave us products like the Blue and White Power Mac G3 which added USB while retaining an ADB port...ditto for SCSI-Firewire transitions.

I agree with this, but there is one slight advantage of external devices; you can put them somewhere else. Okay, so there's a limit to how long a USB or Thunderbolt cable you really want to use...

Well, if you thought Thunderbolt was expensive with short cables ... !

most people will have been keeping their Mac Pros under a desk due to the size, but a new Mac Pro can happily live on top of a desk while only storage is relegated to live underneath, or even in a suitable cupboard (i.e - one where the door isn't full height so there's still airflow).

Reasonable principle, but in reality, most people never check back to see just how much the average temperature was increased...constraints on air circulation is deadly and kills off those externals...I've even had a 'remoted' NAS get hit despite being located on an open shelf (no doors whatsoever).

...my Mac Pro currently lives on my desk but I have it sideways behind a big HDTV, so not your typical set up I don't think.

In your typical office cubicle "L" desktop, the corner frequently can be a huge dead space. I have one of my Mac Pro systems set up in this fashion, behind a pair of 24" Apple Cinema Displays...zero functional loss to the desktop real estate.

-hh

 

[iBug2]

The old mac pro has great ventilation using large, high quality fans. It also has a decent PSU. To replicate that in an aftermarket storage solution requires big bucks. nMP apologists are considering external storage as an afterthought--like it's separate from your computer. Your external storage is part of your computer, and you should think of it that way. The cost, portability, noise, and reliability of the nMP needs to factor in the storage solution you're using. Otherwise it's just dishonest.

That $100 USB box seems enticing, but it's going to be noisy and the PSU is suspect. I would NOT trust my data to a box like that. I've done it before and regretted it, bigtime.

My Mac Pro 3.1 is living on its 3rd replaced PSU after 4.5 years. That's one dead PSU every 1.5 years. I wouldn't call that "decent".

About noise, the Mac Pro is very noisy due to the GPU inside, I measure 48 dB's on idle even though the thing sits under the desk. Compared to 12 dB's on idle of the new Mac Pro, the old one basically is a jet engine. Now the only thing I need to check is the TB enclosure noise levels since I'll get one for the nMP. But I don't think it can be any worse than what I have now.

 

[wallysb01]

My Mac Pro 3.1 is living on its 3rd replaced PSU after 4.5 years. That's one dead PSU every 1.5 years. I wouldn't call that "decent".

About noise, the Mac Pro is very noisy due to the GPU inside, I measure 48 dB's on idle even though the thing sits under the desk. Compared to 12 dB's on idle of the new Mac Pro, the old one basically is a jet engine. Now the only thing I need to check is the TB enclosure noise levels since I'll get one for the nMP. But I don't think it can be any worse than what I have now.

There is something wrong with your Mac Pro. I've been around a lot of Mac Pros and A) never seen a PSU fail in 1.5 years and B) noticed them be loud while idle. Maybe that's a 3.1 thing? Because the ones I've been around are mostly 1.1s, 4.1s and 5.1s.

 

[iBug2]

There is something wrong with your Mac Pro. I've been around a lot of Mac Pros and A) never seen a PSU fail in 1.5 years and B) noticed them be loud while idle. Maybe that's a 3.1 thing? Because the ones I've been around are mostly 1.1s, 4.1s and 5.1s.

I only used 2.1 and 3.1. But with 3.1 I have no luck with PSU's.

 

[haravikk]

Why not put your whole computer somewhere else? Why have the computer on your desk at all? Access to ports? Showing off?

A bit of both; the premium you're paying for the new Mac Pro is very much part of the new design, so almost have to show it off. Also connections for monitors; I know you can get long video cables too, but I've usually experienced ghosting and other issues, whereas I've had no problems with long USB cables (other than tripping over one and nearly pulling a printer onto myself in the process).

Clearly you should use whatever setup fits your needs, my point was that external storage takes up more space, costs more, and introduces more risk than having the drives in the case. Cheaper solutions, while great for VirtualRain's argument that externalizing is cheap, are completely moot as they're noisy and/or have unreliable PSUs.

I'm going for a fully custom case actually; not going to be cheap, but it's still far cheaper than big Thunderbolt cases. The case I'm getting made is around 17cm x 46cm x 23cm, so slim and tall, but room enough for 6x 5.25" drive bays (useful for common 5.25" back-plane adaptors), an 80+ platinum fanless ATX-size PSU, some RAID controller (USB for now till Thunderbolt parts become available) plus a 140mm fan and two 120mm fans.

Ought be pretty neat, allowing up to 10 3.5" drives or 24 2.5" drives (I'll be starting with a mixture of the two since I already have a heap of drives including those in my current Mac Pro), with a view to going all 2.5" in future, plus it should be nice and quiet once I disconnect the small fans the back-planes usually come with and connect the much bigger fans instead.
Speed-wise it shouldn't be too bad either, as I'll set up two RAID controllers each with a RAID-5 over USB3, then use AppleRAID to stripe them, then Fusion Drive to keep it speedy. I'll backup to my NAS, and cloud backup from that for full peace of mind. Since I'm designing it myself (and having a company make it for me) the space where the RAID controllers go can actually accommodate a Mini ITX motherboard if I want to make a server/NAS later on!
Plus in terms of volume and footprint it still comes in less than the current Mac Pro to get this case + a new Mac Pro
Okay, so it's a completely overkill solution to the problem, but it should still put be squarely between the expensive Thunderbolt and USB options, and I'm almost doing it just to prove that it can actually be done, as loads of 6+ bay enclosures aren't actually all that compact, and as you say the quality of PSU is dubious, and they always seem to have weirdly small/noisy fans even though it's easy to design space for some big quiet ones instead.

The only difficulty is whether I can find a way to finance a Mac Pro on top of this, as currently it's looking around the £600 mark for the case and components, maybe say £700 for good measure, at which point I could probably do this custom RAID plus a quad-core Mac Mini and still end up about £700 less than the new Mac Pro even with education discount! It's a quandary, but since I'll need a storage solution regardless of whether I get a Mac Mini or a Mac Pro then that extra cost isn't necessarily a factor me, though it's definitely a mark against the new Mac Pro straight way.


I'm a bit disappointed that the Mac Pro didn't at the very least include eSATA and/or Mini-SAS connections though; these are the most common external RAID connections I think, and it surely wouldn't have taken much to support them as the chipset may even still have SATA support in there somewhere, or they could at least offer a Thunderbolt to Mini-SAS adapter or something.

 

[DPUser]

My MP sits in a machine room. The only things you see on my desk are keyboard, mouse, Shuttle Express, monitors and a firewire-connected CD/DVD burner. They don't make a sound (unless reading or burning a disc).

I simply don't care what my Mac looks like. And as long as it isn't REALLY a jet engine, the big aluminum box with all its connectivity and capacity is more than fine with me. The nMP currently hold little appeal.

 

[elvisizer]

RAID5. I didn't know about the problems with rebuilding big arrays I have to admit.
I do have at least one copy of everything on the RAIDs, hence all the smaller drives.

I have a RED EPIC camera, and on a busy day, I have come back with 4 * 128GB cards almost filled up. Other cameras as well have filled up hard drives over the years. I should be getting a LTO5 setup, but I never get around to it.

NAS is just too slow for my needs ( I have a Readynas Pro), so it will be thunderbolt from here on

How is the NAS too slow? the readynas pro should be able to just about saturate gigabit ethernet, i.e. 90-100 MB/second. Seems like the perfect place to archive footage from the RED that you're not actively working on.
I have a synology 1512+ and I use it in just about that same scenario. 15 TB of space on the NAS, holds my user data (itunes library, documents, media files) and I can get away with only needing a 256 GB SSD for booting osx, pci-e 256 GB SSD for booting windows, and a single 2 TB drive for my steam libraries for both os x and windows. And I can access any data on the NAS for anywhere in the world I have an internet connection! That's a nice bonus.

(OT musings about new MP in general follow)
Storage is not the issue for me with the new MP. The NAS relieves a lot of the pressure I used to feel for needing relatively fast and large local storage. if I bought the new MP and needed more, I'd get a usb3 enclosure or a tb enclosure. The pegasus R4 and R6 are very nice, I have 2 R4's at work.
Still, I probably will not be buying a new MP--I just don't like ati gpu's (especially (probably) non-upgradeable ati gpus) I spend too much time playing games and not enough using opencl, i guess!
I'll just have to struggle along with my old 2008 MP and the brand new fully upgraded 15" retina I just got from work . . . .damn that thing is FAST!!!!!

----------

I'm a bit disappointed that the Mac Pro didn't at the very least include eSATA and/or Mini-SAS connections though; these are the most common external RAID connections I think, and it surely wouldn't have taken much to support them as the chipset may even still have SATA support in there somewhere, or they could at least offer a Thunderbolt to Mini-SAS adapter or something.

yeah, me too- either would have been nice. You can get thunderbolt to esata or fiber channel adapters, though. I work for an enterprise storage company, and we have a lot of mac users running around with those atto adapters and they love 'em.

 

[slughead]

I'm going for a fully custom case actually; not going to be cheap, but it's still far cheaper than big Thunderbolt cases. The case I'm getting made is around 17cm x 46cm x 23cm, so slim and tall, but room enough for 6x 5.25" drive bays (useful for common 5.25" back-plane adaptors), an 80+ platinum fanless ATX-size PSU, some RAID controller (USB for now till Thunderbolt parts become available) plus a 140mm fan and two 120mm fans.

It's totally the best way to do it if you want a lot of drives: buy an ATX case and install your own backplanes (I did this for my RAID). The PSUs you can buy for the PC are SOOO much better than the ones you get in other enclosures. Plus, you know what you're getting. Good luck getting that info from even the top TB enclosure manufacturers.

I think it's going to be very comparable to pre-built USB solutions (except much higher quality). This will blow away anything thunderbolt though. $1000 for an 8 drive bay as a total joke.

 

[VirtualRain]

Okay, let's look at the cost of #3 on the legacy MP.

You went about confirming we agree in a very long winded way. So yes, we both agree, #3 can be costly (although it can also be reasonable).

Where I don't think we agree, is that 95% of the people here don't need #3.

You say…

Considering that one can take #2 to #3 for as little as $100 and get a doubling in bandwidth from 120 MB/s to 240MB/sec, it is a cheap 'luxury'.

So I think we even agree on this. I agree, it is a cheap 'luxury'' on the old Mac Pro, what I'm saying is that no one will admit, is that it will not be missed on the nMP.

 

[slughead]

My Mac Pro 3.1 is living on its 3rd replaced PSU after 4.5 years. That's one dead PSU every 1.5 years. I wouldn't call that "decent".

Some lines of Mac Pro ran a batch of bad PSUs (I'm not sure if the 3,1 was one). Most models have excellent PSUs--certainly better than most cheap external drive enclosures.

About noise, the Mac Pro is very noisy due to the GPU inside, I measure 48 dB's on idle even though the thing sits under the desk. Compared to 12 dB's on idle of the new Mac Pro, the old one basically is a jet engine. Now the only thing I need to check is the TB enclosure noise levels since I'll get one for the nMP. But I don't think it can be any worse than what I have now.

The stock cooler on the 5870 stinks. That is not reflective of the other options available.

In general, PCs with good quality fans like the Mac Pro are quieter and more reliable than cheap external enclosures.

 

[-hh]

...About noise, the Mac Pro is very noisy due to the GPU inside, I measure 48 dB's on idle even though the thing sits under the desk. Compared to 12 dB's on idle of the new Mac Pro, the old one basically is a jet engine.

A comparison which is only applicable if the context never has any external peripherals.

Now the only thing I need to check is the TB enclosure noise levels since I'll get one for the nMP. But I don't think it can be any worse than what I have now.

When viewed as a system, these externals can't not be ignored. Please do let us know what dB's you get from which brand of TB enclosures....the higher end FW800 external RAIDs that I have come in at around 53dB.

You went about confirming we agree in a very long winded way.

Sorry, but no.

Where I don't think we agree, is that 95% of the people here don't need #3.

The question is just which "People"? Those who use Macs ... or those who have self-selected to the Mac Pro?

Similarly, you're trying to suggest that #3 is invariably a "want" and not a "need", but as wallysb01 illustrated, a 'cheap' solution which is fine for your still picture use case, fails on bandwidth for his HD video use case, so it is no longer a luxury.

The question of if this is a capability which "95%" of Mac Pro users do/don't need is a question of where people are currently at and where they're going. For example, if you want to do any HD video, a single spindle HDD can do 720p50...but only in 10bit YUV 4:2:2 encoding...and it can't do 1080p at all.

Given how pretty much anyone who's doing digital imaging for the past decade has been expanding still to also include video - - and how HD video started five years ago and is now to the point where 1080 is essentially the default (vice 720), the minimum bandwidth demands are in the ~250MB/s ballpark.

As such, when it comes to "archives" questions, it again comes down to the use case question of how frequent is access going to be, for if it is worthwhile to save money by having such slow archives such that one's workflow then requires copying the data onto "scratch" media before doing anything with it (potentially even as little as just watching it to verify if it is indeed the specific clip you're searching for).

So I think we even agree on this. I agree, it is a cheap 'luxury'' on the old Mac Pro, what I'm saying is that no one will admit, is that it will not be missed on the nMP.

Which is where we disagree, because the computer is a camera peripheral, so for each extra $1K which has to go into the nMP is money that's unavailable to spend on the camera equipment.


-hh

 

[iBug2]

Please do let us know what dB's you get from which brand of TB enclosures....the higher end FW800 external RAIDs that I have come in at around 53dB.


-hh

The CallDigit T3 Case is rated at 16 dB's on their website, it's not released yet but that's what I have my eyes on. I'll post here when I actually have the unit.

 

[slughead]

The CallDigit T3 Case is rated at 16 dB's on their website, it's not released yet but that's what I have my eyes on. I'll post here when I actually have the unit.

I'm reading their site. Where does it say the decibels?

16dBA may be possible as it appears to use a 120mm fan. A decent quality 120mm at low RPM will do around that dBA (for comparison).

3 things:
1. It clearly uses a power brick. How does that compare to the high-quality power supply used in most Mac Pros (other than yours, I guess)? Bricks are fine to charge a cell phone, I just hope your data isn't valuable to you. If you're trying to compare this to the internal storage of a Mac Pro, this isn't even in the running as its PSU is questionable.

2. That is a "high-end" case with no price tag yet (I'm guessing at least $450). Nobody is saying a decent quality case wont be fairly quiet. My beef was with VirtualRain's cheapo examples with tiny low-quality fans and questionable power supplies, which he says are adequate alternatives to the Mac Pro.

3. 850MBPS max with a 3 drive SSD RAID 0?? For my money it better be able to do 1,500MBps at least. That's probably TB1, not TB2.

 

[iBug2]

I'm reading their site. Where does it say the decibels?

16dBA may be possible as it appears to use a 120mm fan. A decent quality 120mm at low RPM will do around that dBA (for comparison).

3 things:
1. It clearly uses a power brick. How does that compare to the high-quality power supply used in most Mac Pros (other than yours, I guess)? Bricks are fine to charge a cell phone, I just hope your data isn't valuable to you. If you're trying to compare this to the internal storage of a Mac Pro, this isn't even in the running as its PSU is questionable.

2. That is a "high-end" case with no price tag yet (I'm guessing at least $450). Nobody is saying a decent quality case wont be fairly quiet. My beef was with VirtualRain's cheapo examples with tiny low-quality fans and questionable power supplies.

3. 850MBPS max with a 3 drive SSD RAID 0?? For my money it better be able to do 1,500MBps at least. That's probably TB1, not TB2.

Yes you need TB2 for 1500MB/sec, since TB is capped around 1GB/sec. I'm not gonna RAID0 that so I'm not gonna wait for the TB2 version. I'm gonna run JBOD HDD's in it and one SSD probably. If you don't want a RAID enclosure you can always get fanless USB docks with absolutely no extra noise. I have been using the 25$ for 5 years and never lost any data. But among TB1 enclosures, this is basically as fast as it gets with 3 drives. You can get the 8 drive ARECA case and get close to 1000MB/sec but it's much more expensive.

 

[slughead]

Yes you need TB2 for 1500MB/sec, since TB is capped around 1GB/sec. I'm not gonna RAID0 that so I'm not gonna wait for the TB2 version. I'm gonna run JBOD HDD's in it and one SSD probably. If you don't want a RAID enclosure you can always get fanless USB docks with absolutely no extra noise. I have been using the 25$ for 5 years and never lost any data. But among TB1 enclosures, this is basically as fast as it gets with 3 drives. You can get the 8 drive ARECA case and get close to 1000MB/sec but it's much more expensive.

So are we not comparing this to the cheesegrater Mac Pro anymore, with 6 drive bays, 2.5x the bandwidth (SATA II x 6 ports), great quiet ventilation, and a high quality PSU? All at no additional cost, by the way. Or are we giving that up?

 

[iBug2]

So are we not comparing this to the cheesegrater Mac Pro anymore, with 6 drive bays, 2.5x the bandwidth (SATA II x 6 ports), great quiet ventilation, and a high quality PSU? All at no additional cost, by the way. Or are we giving that up?

We can't compare this to the old Mac Pro since this is a huge upgrade in terms of drive bandwidth over the old Mac Pro. Mac Pro's internal bus is SATA II capped at 3Gb/sec, where with this you get a 8Gb/sec throughput. You can compare this to buying a 600$ RAID card for your old Mac Pro though, in which case you can spend another 1000$ or so for enclosure and get speeds close to 3GB/sec, which you currently can't with new Mac Pro unless channel bonding works.

 

[wallysb01]

We can't compare this to the old Mac Pro since this is a huge upgrade in terms of drive bandwidth over the old Mac Pro. Mac Pro's internal bus is SATA II capped at 3Gb/sec, where with this you get a 8Gb/sec throughput.

You should be comparing it to what a similar machine would do today. Not to the 2009-10 technology that was in the old Mac Pro. So, that means SATA III. The nMP isn't competing for purchases with the 2010 machine. Its competing with modern Dells, HPs, etc.

You can compare this to buying a 600$ RAID card for your old Mac Pro though, in which case you can spend another 1000$ or so for enclosure and get speeds close to 3GB/sec, which you currently can't with new Mac Pro unless channel bonding works.

Oh please, that $600 RAID card has been a joke for a while. Software RAID is perfectly fine for most people and if you must have hardware raid, you can get good cards for much cheaper than that Apple RAID card.

 

[iBug2]

Oh please, that $600 RAID card has been a joke for a while. Software RAID is perfectly fine for most people and if you must have hardware raid, you can get good cards for much cheaper than that Apple RAID card.

It's not about software vs hardware. It's about getting SATAIII to old Mac Pro. You need a decent RAID card to get to 3000 MB / sec with old Mac Pro. Check the barefeats tests, they are using a 550$ RAID card, not Apple's own card, that one sucks.

 

[slughead]

We can't compare this to the old Mac Pro since this is a huge upgrade in terms of drive bandwidth over the old Mac Pro. Mac Pro's internal bus is SATA II capped at 3Gb/sec, where with this you get a 8Gb/sec throughput.

SATA III is actually 6Gb/sec, but this having TB1 means a RAID 0 will be capable of running all the drives at once at at less than half of that - 2.25Gbps for each drive (280MBps). This is technically a SATAIII RAID0, crippled at less than SATA II speeds.

True, the old Mac Pro, with its crippled 2009 chipset, is limited to SATAII -- and it looks like only 660MBps for the whole controller. However, for ~$75 (plus the drives), you can build a 4-drive SSD SATA III RAID in your optical bays with reliable power and over twice the speed. All you need is a Rocketraid 640L for $50, a couple cheap power splitters, and a mounting bracket.

Again, this solution will be faster, cheaper, and more reliable, just $75 upgrade to the old Mac Pro.

You can compare this to buying a 600$ RAID card for your old Mac Pro though, in which case you can spend another 1000$ or so for enclosure and get speeds close to 3GB/sec, which you currently can't with new Mac Pro unless channel bonding works.

Are you talking about Apple's ridiculous RAID card or or some mythical solution? Apple's RAID card works with the internal plugs, as do many aftermarket solutions.

If you want to talk external solutions, I can build a high quality array (with 80 PLUS GOLD power supply) with 15 hard drives for <$450 plus ~$450 for the 4-port miniSAS card that has 4 times the bandwidth of a thunderbolt 2 port (30% more bandwidth than all the nMP ports combined). I can pop that card into my old Mac Pro and be humming away in under an hour. If you'd like to attempt to find a similar TB solution, go for it.

The old Mac Pro, while unquestionably superior for internal storage, is far better for external storage options as well -- just add a PCIe card and you can have whatever you want.

 

[iBug2]

SATA III is actually 6Gb/sec, but this having TB1 means a RAID 0 will be capable of running all the drives at once at at less than half of that - 2.25Gbps for each drive (280MBps). This is technically a SATAIII RAID0, crippled at less than SATA II speeds.

SATA III is 6Gb/sec, TB is 10 Gb/sec, so the TB enclosure is way above SATA III speeds and they don't run capped. But in the end ofc it's a SATA III RAID0, whatever RAID you get is eventually a SATAIII RAID since the drives you are using have SATAIII connectors unless you are using PCI-e SSD. But it's not crippled to SATA II speeds since even with a single drive in the enclosure you get 400MB/sec, which is way above SATA II. You are capped at SATAIII for a single drive and TB1 for the entire enclosure, which is what's expected of such a device.

Are you talking about Apple's ridiculous RAID card or or some mythical solution? Apple's RAID card works with the internal plugs, as do many aftermarket solutions.

I'm posting everything twice, I just said above that it's not the Apple RAID card that I'm talking about. Barefeats used RocketRAID 2744 to get 3000MB/sec out of 8 SSD's and that's the fastest bandwidth test I've seen on old Mac Pro. You can get that speed by using channel bonding on the new Mac Pro and using 2 different TB2 enclosures. (If channel bonding works).

 

[slughead]

SATA III is 6Gb/sec, TB is 10 Gb/sec, so the TB enclosure is way above SATA III speeds and they don't run capped.

Yes, uncapped... Unless you're running a RAID0 or are otherwise using more than 1 drive at once. Each drive doesn't get its own TB channel, all three share 1 channel. That channel tops out at 850MBps, so therefore your RAID is crippled at 850MBps instead of a theoretical maximum of 2,250MBps (3 x SATAIII 6Gbps).

I'm posting everything twice, I just said above that it's not the Apple RAID card that I'm talking about. Barefeats used RocketRAID 2744 to get 3000MB/sec out of 8 SSD's and that's the fastest bandwidth test I've seen on old Mac Pro.

Want faster? More drives? Cheaper? Try the HighPoint RocketRAID 2744 - Four miniSAS with 4 channels each for $450. This card supports 16 SATA III drives over PCIe 2.0 16x - 8GBps.

That's more bandwidth than all 6 nMP thunderbolt 2 ports combined (which is really only 6.0 to 6.3GBps). I can build an enclosure to work with that which will hold 15 drives and have a excellent PSU for ~$450. Nothing thunderbolt has comes close.

 

[haravikk]

Some lines of Mac Pro ran a batch of bad PSUs (I'm not sure if the 3,1 was one). Most models have excellent PSUs--certainly better than most cheap external drive enclosures.

Definitely the 3,1; I seem to have gotten lucky in that mine is only failing after 5 years of continual light to medium use (only a single GPU though) and it's just about hanging on for now. But the cost of repairing it, plus other issues I'm having means I'm looking to replace/upgrade with something new.

It's why I'm working on my custom RAID, as I'll be going with either a Mac Mini (if they get updated) or a new Mac Pro, either way losing my internal storage.

If you don't want a RAID enclosure you can always get fanless USB docks with absolutely no extra noise. I have been using the 25$ for 5 years and never lost any data.

I've owned three such docks and only one is still functioning; one dock's power brick died after warranty and I have no suitable spare, while the other's power brick went *fzzt* one day (also out of warranty) and took the dock and drive with it. Both of those were docks I use with a drive in them permanently, the third one still works great but I only use it for temporarily docking a drive for clone/backup/restore, but it has a built in card reader and USB hub that give it value when I'm not doing that.

Although your experience clearly differs, these docks really aren't for constant use. They're also not actually all that quiet; all three that I've used have required a bit of foam to counteract vibration, and many HDDs are pretty noisy outside of a case or enclosure.

For those that have been talking about archival backup though they're actually a pretty interesting option; one of these docks plus a storage box designed for taking HDDs will be a lot cheaper than a full on RAID or whatever. Just pop a fresh drive in the dock, copy one or more finished projects onto it, pop it in the box with a label of what it is, and put the box somewhere safe. It's a bit more hassle, but when I worked with big movie files that's exactly what I did, felt very much like the tech in Dollhouse for anyone that saw that

SATA III is actually 6Gb/sec, but this having TB1 means a RAID 0 will be capable of running all the drives at once at at less than half of that - 2.25Gbps for each drive (280MBps). This is technically a SATAIII RAID0, crippled at less than SATA II speeds.

Are you sure about that 6Gb/sec figure for SATA III? I'm pretty sure it's 6Gbps with about 600Mb/sec tops (per port). I think Mini-SAS can do up to 750Mb/sec though?
SATA Express is meant to be capable of 16Gbps, or about 2Gb/sec, which means Thunderbolt 2 is still potentially a little faster, for a single connection.

Even so, in my Mac Pro I currently have 4 drives in a RAID-0, and they manage about 150Mb/sec individually, and get pretty close to 600Mb/sec for large files, presumably because my Mac has 6 SATA II ports with no port multiplication going on, which is nearly 1.8Gb/sec of bandwidth, not bad for an old standard.

Correct me if any of that is wrong though; I've never exactly needed the fastest storage possible (it's why I think USB 3 is fine for my custom RAID for now, with an upgrade in future) as it's always been just capacity that I needed.

Anyway, where Thunderbolt falls down is that it's still just a single connection, so while it is faster than SATA connections, it doesn't offer as much bandwidth as an update of the previous Mac Pro would have had internally with 6x SATA III ports 3.6Gb/sec in total). Again, not that it's relevant to me, and I think Thunderbolt 2 is definitely the closest we've ever been to true internal speeds in a plug-and-play style, but it still has its limits before you factor in absurd costs.