MP 14,8 Researching 2023 MacPro purchase - questions

[tonkem]

I am currently running a 2010 Mac Pro 5,1. I just use as a personal machine, currently using 4 hard drives in the trays provided. 1 drive is Time Machine, the other 3 are data/iTunes/photos/dropbox. I have been looking at upgrading to the 2023 MacPro but have some questions about storage. I was looking at the Sonnet J3i to put 2 of the spinning drives in it, my Time Machine backup and iTunes/photos drive, but I am looking for some input on NVMe drives in PCIe. I have also looked at the Sonnet M2 4x4 as a potential option, but I have read there are issues with that card ejecting? What are 2023 MacPro users using for the NVMe cards that will support multiple drives? Thanks for your input. I know that it would be cheaper to get a MacStudio, but I don't want to use external drives. My wife uses an M1 Max MacStudio and I have a single NVMe USB-c drive that is being used for Time Machine backup of her Studio, but it occasionally disconnects, so I don't love external storage.

Also, any monitor recommendations? I was looking at 30" Dell U3023E 16:10 monitor. I currently have Dell 3007 and Dell 24" monitor in portrait mode. I was looking at the Apple Studio display as well. My wife has one and it is very crisp and bright, but it is smaller than my 30". I was looking at the Pro Display XDR but at $6000 ea, is pretty steep.

Tony

 

[MarkC426]

I don't know what your usage is, but....

1.Silicon Mac Pro is very expensive for a Studio with PCIe slots.
2.You could pick up a 2019 intel Mac Pro from eBay for around 3k.
3.AS Mac Pro/2019 Mac Pro will not run iTunes.

 

[StuAff]

And also, M3 Ultra Mac Pro is likely to be launched at WWDC....
There's no problem playing an iTunes library in Music, btw.

 

[smirking]

Are you sure you need to replace that Mac Pro with a Mac Pro? Without knowing anything more than what you told us, it sounds like you might be perfectly fine with an Apple Studio or quite possibly even a Mini (though the displays you want to support might require a Studio at minimum). Yeah, you'll need to find a way to mount your drives, but there are options for that.

 

[goMac]

Unless you need just oodles of storage, NVMes are going to be the better option. They last longer and are getting much more cost effective. I think the Time Machine drive is still effective as a spinner - but I've just started doing network based backups to a Synology instead of keeping a drive in my Mac. A single drive is vulnerable because if it dies - then all your backups are gone.

I know you said no-Mac-Pro-is-expensive talk - but I think it would make very little sense to buy a very expensive Mac Pro and then hobble it with spinning hard drives. You'll starve the system if you have it waiting on slow spinning media.

 

[avro707]

I am currently running a 2010 Mac Pro 5,1. I just use as a personal machine, currently using 4 hard drives in the trays provided. 1 drive is Time Machine, the other 3 are data/iTunes/photos/dropbox. I have been looking at upgrading to the 2023 MacPro but have some questions about storage. I was looking at the Sonnet J3i to put 2 of the spinning drives in it, my Time Machine backup and iTunes/photos drive, but I am looking for some input on NVMe drives in PCIe. I have also looked at the Sonnet M2 4x4 as a potential option, but I have read there are issues with that card ejecting? What are 2023 MacPro users using for the NVMe cards that will support multiple drives? Thanks for your input. I know that it would be cheaper to get a MacStudio, but I don't want to use external drives. My wife uses an M1 Max MacStudio and I have a single NVMe USB-c drive that is being used for Time Machine backup of her Studio, but it occasionally disconnects, so I don't love external storage.

Also, any monitor recommendations? I was looking at 30" Dell U3023E 16:10 monitor. I currently have Dell 3007 and Dell 24" monitor in portrait mode. I was looking at the Apple Studio display as well. My wife has one and it is very crisp and bright, but it is smaller than my 30". I was looking at the Pro Display XDR but at $6000 ea, is pretty steep.

Tony

A 2019 MP can be very highly upgraded and you might still find some from Apple refurbished. Those are still potent machines.

Otherwise hold until seeing what Apple might release next?

 

[Mac3Duser]

I have the sonnet Fusion Flex J3i in my mac Pro 7.1 and you can put 3 HDD 3,5 or SSD 2,5 (two in sata and one in usb 3).

 

[jwestpro]

I have the sonnet Fusion Flex J3i in my mac Pro 7.1 and you can put 3 HDD 3,5 or SSD 2,5 (two in sata and one in usb 3).

keeping in mind that only the usb 3 connection allows being bootable according to sonnet.

 

[jwestpro]

I am currently running a 2010 Mac Pro 5,1. I just use as a personal machine, currently using 4 hard drives in the trays provided. 1 drive is Time Machine, the other 3 are data/iTunes/photos/dropbox. I have been looking at upgrading to the 2023 MacPro but have some questions about storage. I was looking at the Sonnet J3i to put 2 of the spinning drives in it, my Time Machine backup and iTunes/photos drive, but I am looking for some input on NVMe drives in PCIe. I have also looked at the Sonnet M2 4x4 as a potential option, but I have read there are issues with that card ejecting? What are 2023 MacPro users using for the NVMe cards that will support multiple drives? Thanks for your input. I know that it would be cheaper to get a MacStudio, but I don't want to use external drives. My wife uses an M1 Max MacStudio and I have a single NVMe USB-c drive that is being used for Time Machine backup of her Studio, but it occasionally disconnects, so I don't love external storage.

Also, any monitor recommendations? I was looking at 30" Dell U3023E 16:10 monitor. I currently have Dell 3007 and Dell 24" monitor in portrait mode. I was looking at the Apple Studio display as well. My wife has one and it is very crisp and bright, but it is smaller than my 30". I was looking at the Pro Display XDR but at $6000 ea, is pretty steep.

Tony

I'm starting to set up mine this weekend.

My plan for the Sonnet J3 is a pair of WD 570 22T HDD sata3 for my 1st archive backup and one 2.5" SSD as a clone/boot option of the OS/apps main apple disk space. My archive will be for now on 2 8T ssd sata III on a dual sata III pcie card. I have a sonnet and an OWC I think. I use Carbon Copy Cloner to manage my backups.

The ssd in the J3i will also be where the older OS will reside in case of bugs whenever upgrading. Like now it will be Monterey while the main will be Ventura or Sonoma. I have found it useful to be able to reboot from a different OS sometimes.

For now my archive fits on a pair of 8T using a total of 9T in an A & B organization splitting all raw photo files from all the work produced from them. These 2 ssd are for now going to be the Samsung 8T ssd. This space doesn't need to be as fast as NVMe blades or raid.

Another pcie slot will have an OWC 1M2 card with the single but fast for scratch disk nvme or it could be an alternate OS/Apps bootdisk/backup.

An owc 4M2 will be a primary working space in raid 0.

For monitors I'm using the brilliant but older NEC photo editing rated 32" and 30". Coming from many years with a pair of Apple 30" cinema displays on a 2010 Mac Pro !

 

[MrScratchHook]

I am currently running a 2010 Mac Pro 5,1. I just use as a personal machine, currently using 4 hard drives in the trays provided. 1 drive is Time Machine, the other 3 are data/iTunes/photos/dropbox. I have been looking at upgrading to the 2023 MacPro but have some questions about storage. I was looking at the Sonnet J3i to put 2 of the spinning drives in it, my Time Machine backup and iTunes/photos drive, but I am looking for some input on NVMe drives in PCIe. I have also looked at the Sonnet M2 4x4 as a potential option, but I have read there are issues with that card ejecting? What are 2023 MacPro users using for the NVMe cards that will support multiple drives? Thanks for your input. I know that it would be cheaper to get a MacStudio, but I don't want to use external drives. My wife uses an M1 Max MacStudio and I have a single NVMe USB-c drive that is being used for Time Machine backup of her Studio, but it occasionally disconnects, so I don't love external storage.

Also, any monitor recommendations? I was looking at 30" Dell U3023E 16:10 monitor. I currently have Dell 3007 and Dell 24" monitor in portrait mode. I was looking at the Apple Studio display as well. My wife has one and it is very crisp and bright, but it is smaller than my 30". I was looking at the Pro Display XDR but at $6000 ea, is pretty steep.

Tony

You say its just for personal use? No heavy video editing or thunderbolt devices? Then i'm going to tell you the ol adage: if it isn't broke, then don't fix it!!!! Now if you just want to burn some money, then i wont stop you, but at least get a used 2019 mac pro off of e-bay for under $2500. I have two mac pro(its in my signature at the bottom) and they are great workhorses, i only use it for audio, along with my uad2 pcie and two nvme plus 1 hdd spinner drive.

 

[avro707]

I was looking at the Apple Studio display as well.

The studio display might be only 27" but it is extremely clear and sharp, same as the LG 5K Ultrafine. The Studio Display has better built quality and far superior audio.

I used to have A1083 30" Cinema displays and a 27" LED Cinema Display (still have it, just stored) and the Studio display is much better. Yes I'd love two have two XDR displays but not at the cost they are.

 

[andrewmarich]

Hey Tony

1. SATA - I have the Sonnet J3i in my Mac Pro 14,8 it fits 3 x 2.5" 8TB SSDs. They have been flawless and never any trouble ejecting etc. They are RAIDed together and are quite fast. I looked at the Promise Pegasus J2i also but it comes with a drive which I didn't want and can only fit two drives instead of three. I would avoid spinning drives if possible, SSDs competitively priced and have pretty decent capacities.

2. PCIe - I have 2 x OWC Accelsior 8M2 - NVMe M.2 SSD to PCIe 4.0 Expansion Card, which have been insanely fast and never had any trouble ejecting. I have heard about the issues with the Sonnet PCIe cards, but haven't seen it first hand. That is why I went with OWC, their customer service is epic. This card is almost 10x the speed of the fastest external Thunderbolt drives, that speed difference really adds up when you're moving around terabytes at a time. Below are some graphics to show the difference. (Thunderbolt drive on left, PCIe drive on the right)

3. Pro Display XDR - They are wonderful, not cheap though. If you go down that route make sure you opt in for AppleCare. I had to replace one already but Apple was great dealing with it. Financing it through Apple Business or with the Apple Card could be an option. Some used ones pop from time to time on Craigslist & Facebook Marketplace as pretty heavily discounted prices.

4. Everyone here seems to hate on the 2023 Mac Pro as the specs are only slightly better than the Mac Studio or the price difference or the comparable performance to the 7,1. I get it, I was expecting more too but it is still a great machine that it is super fast, reliable & saves me time. You can put a lot of storage inside it to avoid bulky external storage. I currently have 64TB of extremely fast internal storage, which if you were to go down the path of a Mac Studio with external drives would end up probably with a larger footprint than the Mac Pro and 10x slower.

5. Timeline-wise if you can hold out for another few months until WWDC in June, odds are they will probably have the refresh of the Mac Pro announced by then with the upcoming M3 Ultra and perhaps even the mythical M3 Extreme.

By the way, there are some M2 Ultra Mac Pros in the refurb section of the Apple US website (not sure where you are located), so there are some good deals to be had.

 

[tonkem]

I decided to hang on to the 5,1 Mac Pro, running fine Thanks for all the information.

 

[Geddon_jt]

Hey Tony

1. SATA - I have the Sonnet J3i in my Mac Pro 14,8 it fits 3 x 2.5" 8TB SSDs. They have been flawless and never any trouble ejecting etc. They are RAIDed together and are quite fast. I looked at the Promise Pegasus J2i also but it comes with a drive which I didn't want and can only fit two drives instead of three. I would avoid spinning drives if possible, SSDs competitively priced and have pretty decent capacities.

2. PCIe - I have 2 x OWC Accelsior 8M2 - NVMe M.2 SSD to PCIe 4.0 Expansion Card, which have been insanely fast and never had any trouble ejecting. I have heard about the issues with the Sonnet PCIe cards, but haven't seen it first hand. That is why I went with OWC, their customer service is epic. This card is almost 10x the speed of the fastest external Thunderbolt drives, that speed difference really adds up when you're moving around terabytes at a time. Below are some graphics to show the difference. (Thunderbolt drive on left, PCIe drive on the right)

View attachment 2346653 View attachment 2346654
3. Pro Display XDR - They are wonderful, not cheap though. If you go down that route make sure you opt in for AppleCare. I had to replace one already but Apple was great dealing with it. Financing it through Apple Business or with the Apple Card could be an option. Some used ones pop from time to time on Craigslist & Facebook Marketplace as pretty heavily discounted prices.

4. Everyone here seems to hate on the 2023 Mac Pro as the specs are only slightly better than the Mac Studio or the price difference or the comparable performance to the 7,1. I get it, I was expecting more too but it is still a great machine that it is super fast, reliable & saves me time. You can put a lot of storage inside it to avoid bulky external storage. I currently have 64TB of extremely fast internal storage, which if you were to go down the path of a Mac Studio with external drives would end up probably with a larger footprint than the Mac Pro and 10x slower.

5. Timeline-wise if you can hold out for another few months until WWDC in June, odds are they will probably have the refresh of the Mac Pro announced by then with the upcoming M3 Ultra and perhaps even the mythical M3 Extreme.

By the way, there are some M2 Ultra Mac Pros in the refurb section of the Apple US website (not sure where you are located), so there are some good deals to be had.

I have a very similar setup and wanted to weigh in for the benefit of others of a similar use case.

Overall, I have been extremely happy with the M2 Ultra Mac Pro, which I have owned since around September.
I fitted it with a OWC Accelsior 8M2 card as well. Unfortunately, maybe 2 months ago some of the drives started throwing read errors. Then another, then another. I was getting prompts frequently and eventually I wasn't even able to copy large files off the drive. I have a RMA setup through OWC at the moment. Even though it's under warranty and I don't trust this product at all anymore, they were not willing to get me into any other storage solution. So I guess they are either going to fix this one and send it back, or send me a new or refurbished replacement. Either way, I'm going to sell it.

Got a Sonnet J3i with 2 Samsung EVO 870 4TBs this week. Very happy and felt like I should have done that from the start.

 

[Jethro!]

The 2023 Mac "Pro" is an insult. Virtually NOTHING upgradable. Major memory cap. Disposable. Far overpriced. Basically Apple thumbing its nose at us.
My course: Get a 2019 Mac Pro, use it to buy time to transition to PC.

 

[avro707]

The 2023 Mac "Pro" is an insult. Virtually NOTHING upgradable. Major memory cap. Disposable. Far overpriced. Basically Apple thumbing its nose at us.
My course: Get a 2019 Mac Pro, use it to buy time to transition to PC.

Especially with the recent sales of those 16 core models with 96Gb ram and 2TB SSD.

Those will run windows perfectly.

You can also upgrade them with a lot more ram (up to 768GB on the 16 core, 1.5TB on the 24 and 28 core) if needed and easily put a lot more storage in them.

You can also run a 4090 GPU in windows if you want.