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This is what I want, Custom MacMini/Mac Pro

rezwits

rezwits

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jul 10, 2007
876
453
Las Vegas
I am hoping in the next iteration of MacMinis, perhaps 2014, they will include 2 TB1 ports or 2 TB2 ports. The reason I want this is because I want to focus on parallel computing, for my needs. Like this:

vvd.png


Older Mac Pros are too big, and newer Mac Pros focus on Pro Apps. I found out that there is going to be Thunderbolt Bridging in Mavericks (10.9) much akin to FireWire bridging. This is exciting to me because Xsan 3 is included with Mountain Lion Server, (Lion too). Unfortunately Xgrid isn't :( bummer, but... I know of alternatives, thru research.

I figure with the daisy chaining of Thunderbolt and networking them, maybe we could Xsan over Thunderbolt? no?

This seems like the best setup for me, instead of a new Mac Pro. If the next MacMini 2014, is Haswell 2.0 GHz Quad with 4 GB ram, BTO 256 GB SSD, for about $899, would not be bad at all. This would leave me with a 4 machine cluster, with 4 chips and 8 virtual core for 32 cores. The current Quad MacMini comes in at about 10,000 on geekbench. Which over TB1 or TB2 would be 40,000 gridded!. With a Promise raid. would be about $5,000 for the whole thing. So 3/4TBs of RAID 5 over TBolt

Does anyone think this will be possible? or if Apple might go for it, since Thunderbolt Bridging is in Mavericks?

To me it's like this, you get the promise, then you get a MacMini, then every month there after you just keep stacking MacMinis!!, you could go a years worth, and have 8 MacMinis, for 80,000 geek bench. But I could just increase as needed which would be really great.

Let me know what you guys think might be possible. I am doubting Apple would do Xsan over TBolt. But I am only 65% NO/35% YES. Because why would they include Xsan in every Lion build? ML and L? Just seems like with TBolt there could be a transition.
 
Low End

Yeah I guess the next low end version could still be Dual Core. That would suck, would put each model at $1,099...
 
That Pricing Won't Happen

The Mac Mini is Apple's lowest priced machine so that they have a machine below $1,000. While $899 is still below that, I don't think that they will up the price. Also with that mockup, you're getting rid of the FireWire 800 port on the back which many people, (including myself) use on a daily basis. That would mean Apple would have to create and sell yet ANOTHER adapter. It just doesn't make sense. I think that they would kill the Ethernet port. They already make a USB-Ethernet and I believe that there is also a Thunderbolt-Ethernet adapter already. That way they could have the two Thunderbolts and not have to make a new adapter.
 
SuperPolli said:
The Mac Mini is Apple's lowest priced machine so that they have a machine below $1,000. While $899 is still below that, I don't think that they will up the price. Also with that mockup, you're getting rid of the FireWire 800 port on the back which many people, (including myself) use on a daily basis. That would mean Apple would have to create and sell yet ANOTHER adapter. It just doesn't make sense. I think that they would kill the Ethernet port. They already make a USB-Ethernet and I believe that there is also a Thunderbolt-Ethernet adapter already. That way they could have the two Thunderbolts and not have to make a new adapter.
Click to expand...

Ummm... They already have a Thunderbolt to Firewire Adapter. When they released the rMBP that is sans Firewire they released it. This is why the 2013 Mac Pros won't have a FW port either.

----------
rezwits said:
I am hoping in the next iteration of MacMinis, perhaps 2014, they will include 2 TB1 ports or 2 TB2 ports. The reason I want this is because I want to focus on parallel computing, for my needs. Like this:

Image

Older Mac Pros are too big, and newer Mac Pros focus on Pro Apps. I found out that there is going to be Thunderbolt Bridging in Mavericks (10.9) much akin to FireWire bridging. This is exciting to me because Xsan 3 is included with Mountain Lion Server, (Lion too). Unfortunately Xgrid isn't :( bummer, but... I know of alternatives, thru research.

I figure with the daisy chaining of Thunderbolt and networking them, maybe we could Xsan over Thunderbolt? no?

This seems like the best setup for me, instead of a new Mac Pro. If the next MacMini 2014, is Haswell 2.0 GHz Quad with 4 GB ram, BTO 256 GB SSD, for about $899, would not be bad at all. This would leave me with a 4 machine cluster, with 4 chips and 8 virtual core for 32 cores. The current Quad MacMini comes in at about 10,000 on geekbench. Which over TB1 or TB2 would be 40,000 gridded!. With a Promise raid. would be about $5,000 for the whole thing. So 3/4TBs of RAID 5 over TBolt

Does anyone think this will be possible? or if Apple might go for it, since Thunderbolt Bridging is in Mavericks?

.
Click to expand...

I looked into this back in 2011 when the quad core Mac Mini's were released. Unfortunately back then the only way to do parallel processing on a Mini would be to use the GB ports. Problem with that, is that gb ports became a bottleneck quickly. With Thunderbolt, you will have 20x the bandwidth (especially if TB2), so it could be very feasible. What I wanted in 2011, was 4 to do the heavy processing and 1 to act as the file server/process control server, but again it appeared that dolling out all that data over gb would probably bottleneck me so shelved the idea. Maybe with TB or TB2.... Here's to hoping so!
 
SuperPolli said:
with that mockup, you're getting rid of the FireWire 800 port on the back which many people, (including myself) use on a daily basis. That would mean Apple would have to create and sell yet ANOTHER adapter. It just doesn't make sense. I think that they would kill the Ethernet port. They already make a USB-Ethernet and I believe that there is also a Thunderbolt-Ethernet adapter already. That way they could have the two Thunderbolts and not have to make a new adapter.
Click to expand...

The 2012 iMac has two Thunderbolts, Ethernet, and no FireWire. This seems to be the trend.
 
For the Firewire 800 concerns, couldn't you just include one 2012 mini that has 1 thunderbolt and 1 firewire on it to be the caboose? It sounds like the equipment needed to link them is thunderbolt and software. If that is the case, just throw a 2012 on the end and you have firewire covered.

And to the guy that referenced the iMac, that'd be hilarious if someone connected about 10 of those together and just included the Titan supercomputer logo across the 10 monitors.

01titan-620x-620x.jpg
 
And do we really need the sd card slot? Why not drop that in favor of better airflow for cooling. Any USB to SDcard adapter would be just fine if one really needed it.
 
Actually my girlfriend uses the card slot all the time, she is a professional photographer. It's a lot easier to just swap the card out as opposed to connecting the whole camera.
 
Cape Dave said:
And do we really need the sd card slot? Why not drop that in favor of better airflow for cooling. Any USB to SDcard adapter would be just fine if one really needed it.
Click to expand...

Sure, I would rather use a general card reader since my camera uses both CF and SD cards. The real problem is Apple's pathetic lack of USB ports. Quality computers tend to have six to ten USB ports. The mini, iMac and MP need at least six. For the mini four USB 3 and two USB 2 would be acceptable.
 
Cloudsurfer said:
Actually my girlfriend uses the card slot all the time, she is a professional photographer. It's a lot easier to just swap the card out as opposed to connecting the whole camera.
Click to expand...

It would have been 100% more useful if they put the slot on the side or front - on the back it's pretty much useless - but I guess that would have killed the "clean lines". AS it is now I have a USB card reader/iPhone dock on my desk for when I have to read an SD card.
 
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