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blindpcguy

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Mar 4, 2016
422
93
Bald Knob Arkansas
its sad to think but in the next year or so we should probably start considering moving away from our trusty 1,1 and 2,1 mac pros. with the low prospects of seirra support and let alone next years version i think its end of the line. so 2 years max left for thease mechines but at least they can run 10.4 all the way up to 10.11. thats a good run 8 OS X releases. thats un heard of for a mechine. so anyways what are you guys planing to move on to. me personally in the near future il be getting a 2009 mac pro 4,1 and thunking the 5,1 firmware on it to run seirra and above. it would have me a little more future proofed but man the 1,1 has been a fun ride still crazy to think what was done and engineered to get 10.9 all the way through 10.11 on that thing.
 
Until such a time when I can't do something like run a modern web browser or get on the internet securely because of unpatched security flaws, I'll plan to keep using mine.
 
It was replaced 3 years ago in my home office by a 27" iMac (I had about a $3500 credit with Apple, and after looking at what the new Mac Pro offered, I decided instead to deck out an iMac with every possible upgrade and feature — still a screamer).

As for the Mac Pro, it moved into my office at work. Every other year, my work plops a new iMac on my desk. They buy bottom-of-the-barrel, so it's always a 21" with the bare minimum of RAM, processor, and probably most importantly, a 5200 rpm spinning platter. Even on the first day, those iMacs are dog slow (probably doesn't help that they come with all sorts of IT-installed nannyware, which I immediately wipe clean). Don't get me wrong, I love iMacs (after all, I turned down a nMP 3 years ago to get an iMac instead). But someone at Apple needs to be terminated (in a swamp) for what they sell at the bottom end of the iMac line.

But my Mac Pro, 10 frickin years old, will run circles around those institution-provided machines. Over the years, it's been upgraded with a new video cards, more RAM, 8-core X5365 processors, and an SSD boot drive. It's a joy to use! Because it has so much internal storage, I use it to store all the many recordings I make in my classes (which it chomps through in FCX just great). In day-to-day use for the tasks that I do, my impression of it is comparable with my i7 iMac — and soooo much better than the junk iMacs the workplace buys. And frankly, it's fun to have a Mac you can still tinker with (what little tinkering is required on my part up until this point to get the latest OS X running, thanks to the geniuses on this board).

Every time a new iMac appears on my desk, I generally find a junior faculty member who would prefer to have a Mac in his/her office and I "re-home" it.

Here's a recent photo, the iMac pictured is now living life on the desk of one of our new hires who got saddled with a junky PC laptop when he first arrived.

IMG_1888_zpsbnir4lxf.jpg
 
OP, If you upgraded to El Cap that will still be good for a few more years in terms of updates etc. So really I think your post is a bit pre-mature, no need to worry!

apple_iBoy, another great story of a 10 year Pro in regular use.
 
No need to move on for me. My 1/2,1 will stay at El Capitan. Earlier this year I upgraded my CPUs (it was a dual core originally) and this machine is still a great performer. When comes the time to upgrade, I'll most likely buy a new Mac, not a used one, so the OS question will be irrelevant.
 
I'm using my 1,1 as a NAS with a boot SSD and 3 x 4TB WD Red drives. When it dies, I can simply swap all the drives to another tower Mac Pro and be up and running within minutes.
 
I recently moved on to a 2010 5,1 Mac Pro for Sierra support and better handling with more demanding usage, but I still have my 2006 2,1 and consider it a capable Mac. El Capitan runs on it quite well, and with SSD, GPU, CPU upgrades it feels faster than brand new base model 21.5" iMacs and Mac minis with 5400 RPM HDDs.

It really is a shame the 1,1/2,1 finally got its last OS X; even though to Apple that happened way back with Lion, these things just kept refusing to get left behind. I don't doubt the 5,1 will see 4 more years on a current MacOS as well, with unofficial methods to get it booting after Apple decides to end support.
 
Maybe a little early for this post. I think El Capitan will continue to receive updates for a few years, and web browsers like Firefox or Chrome will support it for much longer. Firefox is still supporting 10.6 (although that won't last much longer)! But I do agree that it's probably time for an upgrade (not for me, though- still using my G5!).
 
The Mac Pro 1,1 and 2,1 will continue to be useful machines, even if they cannot run the latest version of macOS (got to get used to calling it that) but there are several options for these older Macs:

1.) Keep Running OS X 10.11.x "El Capitan" and use it as a Network Attached Storage/File Server/Print Server/Backup Server.

2.) Install Linux - Most of the programs that I use were originally written for Linux anyway, LibreOffice5, MuseScore2, FireFox, etc... Ubuntu and Debian are the two that I have most recently used and can say that they work nicely. Unity Desktop is a lot like OS-X/macOS.

3.) Install Windows 10 and use it as a gaming machine. With a powerful graphics card, you probably won't be able to run the absolute latest top-end games, but chances are that with Xeons powering things, you will be able to manage many games. (I have been thinking about dual-booting Windows 10 anyway to get games off Steam).

There are always options. I have a 2003 PowerMac G5 under the desk. It shares a monitor with my Mac Pro via a DVI switch-box and I use it primarily to play games that were never ported from PowerPC Mac to Intel Macs.
 
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