# What makes a Mac Pro "Pro" for you?



## Gerk (Dec 21, 2012)

I thought this would be worth breaking out of the WWDC thread and it's something that I'm truly interested in hearing now that we've had a snaek peak of the new Mac Pro.

I'll start by stating my requirements for a machine to be a Professional workstation:

1. PCIe slots. I have a considerable investment in audio and video equipment and this is a hard requirement for me because I need to use these cards in order to attach to my gear (which is worth many times more than the Mac Pro itself is and would be even more than that to replace with newer gear that could attach to thunderbolt for example)

2. RAM slots. There is always a need for more RAM without a doubt. Yes you _can_ buy large sticks of it these days but the more slots the merrier for me. I have two Mac Pros and the RAM slots are all full (and not of 1G DIMMS either). With the new Mac Pro 4 slots will feel a bit cramped at best for me.

3. Drive bays. I need both internal SATA bays and internal optical bays. Yes I could move this stuff external if I really had to, but it's more money, more cable clutter, more power connections, more power supplies to die out and more overall clutter. Call me crazy but I think a true pro workstation needs to be able to accomodate at least enough internal storage to get the user up and running with everything they need on internal storage. Sure external storage is where it's at once you cross the threshold of space requirements and you want proper redundancy (i.e. RAID5 or better), but at least having enough space to get most users rolling and have a bit of working space is a requirement in my eyes.

So to sum it up, while I think the new Mac Pro has some interesting potential, I think it's going to end up being out of reach budget wise for me (unless they pull a rabbit out of the hat when it comes time to price this new beast).

What does everyone else think? What do you all you pros see as hard requirements for your usage?


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## i-rui (Sep 13, 2006)

I agree with all of what you said.

By not including any additional internal storage Apple is pretty much guaranteeing that all users will have to have some type of external storage, which defeats the entire purpose of reducing it's size.


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## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

That seems to be the crazy part. Reducing the size is one thing, but at the expense of internal storage, on a pro machine makes no sense to me.

I stopped using and sold my last desktop a couple years ago, I kinda miss the pro though, but even so, the new retina I have, I ended up getting the top one (refurb to save $$) with a 768 ssd in it. The idea of a small ssd in a machine for pros doesn't make any sense at all.

They need to rethink this machine, make it a little bigger and allow -some- internal storage and/or some PCIe. Some pros I spoke to today are panning this because of that lack.

It's like giving a race car driver a new car, but telling him he can't change the tires, engine, or add on any high performance components in the car, except perhaps on the outside of it.

That may be ok for the guy going shopping.


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## Gerk (Dec 21, 2012)

This would have been the ideal machine for a fusion drive in my eyes. Sure SSD is awesome and fast (an expensive and small), but man ... 768G or 1TB is not gonna cut it for many people I know that use Mac Pros.


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## WCraig (Jul 28, 2004)

Local storage is (usually) wasted in the corporate world. Take newspaper or magazine publishing. All the page components belong on the server; not some local user machine. 

Same thing for compile farms or render farms. 

I'll bet somebody is already figuring out how many new Mac Pros will fit in a standard rack footprint and how many units high it has to be.

Craig


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## Oakbridge (Mar 8, 2005)

WCraig said:


> Local storage is (usually) wasted in the corporate world. Take newspaper or magazine publishing. All the page components belong on the server; not some local user machine.
> 
> Same thing for compile farms or render farms.
> 
> ...


I agree with your last comment. Macminicolo certainly figured it out very quickly when the Mini first came out.


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## Oakbridge (Mar 8, 2005)

Gerk said:


> I thought this would be worth breaking out of the WWDC thread and it's something that I'm truly interested in hearing now that we've had a snaek peak of the new Mac Pro.
> 
> I'll start by stating my requirements for a machine to be a Professional workstation:
> 
> ...


I'm not a current Mac Pro user but I have one area where I would consider purchasing one and I have a son that starts at Sheridan this fall in a Media program. 

So I'll throw something into your equation, particularly for item 1. How would it affect a new user, one that didn't already have the investment that you've made? I know, it's a pain to replace existing investments but I'm curious (and don't know enough about this stuff) to know the answer. 

Would someone who is just getting started in Audio/Video production need the PCIe slots or would it be a better investment for them to go the TB route?

I'd have to think that with the current switch to mobility, in many different forms, that the people making the gear that connects the devices are already leaning towards the TB route to attract the MacBook Pro users who want to work in the field (i.e. their hotel room after a remote shoot).


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## Oakbridge (Mar 8, 2005)

groovetube said:


> That seems to be the crazy part. Reducing the size is one thing, but at the expense of internal storage, on a pro machine makes no sense to me.
> 
> I stopped using and sold my last desktop a couple years ago, I kinda miss the pro though, but even so, the new retina I have, I ended up getting the top one (refurb to save $$) with a 768 ssd in it. The idea of a small ssd in a machine for pros doesn't make any sense at all.
> 
> ...


Weren't their many people who thought Apple was crazy for getting rid of:

- the floppy in the original iMac
- the optical drive in the Air, now in the MacBook Pros as well

Again I am just throwing this out there. Does Apple need to rethink this machine or... and I am not trying to start something here, just asking the question... do some of the more established users need to rethink the ways in which the machine can be used? Again I think about the new user, someone that doesn't have an existing way of doing things (and doesn't have the investment in technology that may or may not be the best way of doing things). 

I know as a hobbiest photographer, I resisted the switch to digital for a long time but now I look back and wonder why I didn't get started in digital much much earlier.


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## Gerk (Dec 21, 2012)

WCraig said:


> Local storage is (usually) wasted in the corporate world. Take newspaper or magazine publishing. All the page components belong on the server; not some local user machine.
> 
> Same thing for compile farms or render farms.
> 
> ...


Yep agreed. ldphoto pointed out several different pro user types in the WWDC thread and those are two of them -- but that doesn't cover the full spectrum. Some stuff you just need local (whether it be internal or external), and even with affordable external cases you still don't get the bang for the buck that you do with internal and you (at least) double your chances of failure. Multiply that times many workstations (and many externals) and you can see how it snowballs. I've also worked with setups that do data checkouts -- meaning you need NAS and local storage in abundance -- some things just don't work well over networks but the powers-that-be still need to keep control over versioning and the like. That's why I'm curious to see how many users this affects like it will affect me and the market niches I work with.


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## Gerk (Dec 21, 2012)

Oakbridge said:


> I'm not a current Mac Pro user but I have one area where I would consider purchasing one and I have a son that starts at Sheridan this fall in a Media program.
> 
> So I'll throw something into your equation, particularly for item 1. How would it affect a new user, one that didn't already have the investment that you've made? I know, it's a pain to replace existing investments but I'm curious (and don't know enough about this stuff) to know the answer.
> 
> ...


The Audio/Video market is probably the one I think is hurt most by these changes in terms of needing fast and cheap local storage. Some things are adding thunderbolt (fairly recently) but most of those are out of the budget of both myself and my clients, others are just crappy pro-sumerish type devices.

Yes it sucks to have to support "legacy" devices (PCIe) ... I'm just quite shocked that Apple is taking the leap to make PCIe legacy. There are soooo many pieces of gear in the audio/video world that need dedicated interfaces that are just not available via thunderbolt. I'm not sure what the Sheridan department is using in terms of external hardware -- but I do know that they have many laps full of Mac Pros and that I'm guessing it may affect them quite a bit in this reagard.

It would affect a new user in terms that he would also need to have some external storage solution for all the files (and prefereably redundant). So you would probably want/need to add something like 2TB (or larger) RAID1 to be safest. Also as you know some sort of backup solution, etc (so another couple of large externals that he could swap out for offsite if he's worried about that too).

It all comes down to added expense. It's unlikely that he would need things that would require dedicated PCIe cards as a requirement for school stuff, but if he's going to start doing his own stuff it's a possibility. Who knows, maybe this will be the kick that some manufacturers need to start incorporating and updating aging hardware designs to offer more interface options -- but honestly I don't know that it would be enough.


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## Gerk (Dec 21, 2012)

Oakbridge said:


> Weren't their many people who thought Apple was crazy for getting rid of:
> 
> - the floppy in the original iMac
> - the optical drive in the Air, now in the MacBook Pros as well
> ...


The problem is that they are forcing things too early with this IMHO. Yes maybe this is where things are going and sure Apple likes to lead the way, but in this forward looking approach they are leaving behind a fair portion of users and literally leaving them little to no options that don't require upping the expenses quite a bit. Basically they aren't delivering enough machine from their teaser ... maybe once we see the whole picture this will change, but at the moment it's pretty bleak for some of us. And lastly while it is important for Apple to think of the new user here that shouldn't be their only consideration. In the windows PC world PCIe is very very far from dead and we're not talking about simple things here like a floppy or a hundred dollar external optical drive, we're talking potentially into the thousands of dollars. In this case it's much more likely to mean that large mac based shops with these needs will end up bailing on the Mac platform and head to windows where they can get better bang for their buck with their IT budget.

But again that may change once we see the whole picture (and I do hope it does).


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## bluepanties (Sep 30, 2010)

That it's the only Apple Mac that's not really a laptop now and it's overpriced to and sadly, I'm worried that the Mac Pro is going in a direction that seems to be taking it into a more compact form which will eventually take it even further away from professionals.


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## jellotor (Feb 22, 2008)

I'll miss PCIe when it's gone, too, but all of my major PCIe needs were Blackmagic or AJA capture/playback cards and those are nearly all being handled by Thunderbolt devices made by the same companies.

Realistically, my need to capture analog material gets smaller by the day. At one point the AJA Kona cards were great for a ton of stuff I had on BetacamSP but I replaced that card with a BM Intensity Pro and haven't captured from analog tape since. The only thing these Thunderbolt capture devices seem to lack is RS-422 machine control. I thought I had that taken care of with a Keyspan USB-Serial adapter but, alas, Premiere Pro CS6, BM Media Express and DaVinci Resolve do not appear to recognize those serial ports.

I agree on the internal storage issue. I will really miss the 4 drive bays in the Mac Pro if/when I upgrade. I guess a Thunderbolt RAID (with its additional power supply and fan) will be the way to go. Perhaps if they had even left space for an additional flash storage device...


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## eMacMan (Nov 27, 2006)

I would think the current Pro with the entire computer in one unit would be far better for portability than a smaller computer with a bunch of external add ons. Yes it is heavy but the double handles do make it easy to relocate as needed. Plus I don't see Thunderbolt connections having any fewer connection issues than say FW 800. So the more Thunderbolt devices thrown into the mix the greater the chance of a bad port, connection or cable.


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## Gerk (Dec 21, 2012)

It's also a lot easier to accidentally unplug a cable (hit/kick/pull/push/whatever) with all that external stuff attached. Happened just yesterday at a clients, she was reaching behind her airport to grab a dangling ethernet cable and ended up unplugging her main storage from her mac mini server (and badly screwing up 3 other machines that all had open files from it).

After looking at both my Mac Pros I realized that I am still very dependant on PCIe (both machines have all the slots used up). Some of that can be replaced by thunderbolt adapters with luck but other ones ... pretty much no chance. If I ever upgrade I'll be needing at least one PCIe expansion chassis (that's if Apple actually makes one). 24 ports of SAS on hardware RAID cards on my server, not likely I'm gonna be able to jam _that_ into thunderbolt ay time soon.


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## Paddy (Jul 13, 2004)

This recent article about the folks from Pixar and the Foundry getting to try out a new Mac Pro (hidden in a metal box on wheels - before the WWDC) is pretty interesting:

Apple Allowed Developers to Test a Prerelease Mac Pro Hidden Inside a Metal Box - Mac Rumors

I agree with much of what has been said about the Mac Pros and what makes them "pro" - numbers 1-3 in Gerk's first post apply to me, although my PCIe slots inhabitants are easily replaced by TB/USB 3 hub etc. (actually, one of those nice Sonnet docks with internal storage looks pretty good to me, if it wasn't so infernally expensive.) I can live with external storage, though would much prefer that the internal storage be large enough to run my applications at the very least. It's a different way of working, and I'd rather everything in one box, but I can see where Apple may be going with this. 

RAM? I don't do video, so my RAM needs are probably not as great as some of yours. At the moment, I can't find any DDR3-1866 RAM larger than 16GB, and even that's hard to find. Corsair has one stick in that size, with a list price of $259. Yikes. Everyone else (and there aren't a lot of "everyone elses" for this RAM quite yet) is only showing 8GB modules. It will be interesting to see what the base model has when Apple gets around to providing us with more info.

I probably don't really need the horsepower that the new Mac Pro provides (I do web design and desktop publishing and photography) but my other big requirement is the ability to choose my own monitor. Among other things, I really detest glossy monitors. So out goes a high end iMac. The Mini has never appealed because of its lack of ports, memory and...expandability. My Mac Pro, a Quad Core from 2008, is getting long in the tooth and I'm reluctant to put any more money into it, since it's already pretty slow compared to my 2012 MBP, lacks USB 3.0, Thunderbolt, etc. Adding some of these things via PCIe cards appears to be chancy - lots of reports of issues with the cards and the older MPs. I've already got an eSATA card that was quickly orphaned by an OS update. 

I'd been holding out for a new Mac Pro this year or next, and would have been quite happy if they'd just improved the specs of everything, but left us with the internal storage and ability to add cards etc. IN the box. At the very least, if I bought a new Mac Pro, I'd be looking at somewhere to put the 4 internal drives I now have, which would entail buying yet more enclosures, and perhaps one of those TB docks. And I'd need an adapter for my older Dell monitor, whether or not I added a new monitor as well. Since I have an optical drive in my MBP, I can probably do without one of those, as I so rarely use the one I have now.

So...I guess I'll just wait and see how all this shakes out. Price will definitely play a big part in the decision making!


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## Gerk (Dec 21, 2012)

Another thing I'd like to point out ... is that if you use 30" monitors the new Mac Pros will not be a good choice for you ... I've tried 3 different Thunderbolt to dual-link DVI adapters and they all suck ... hard. Apple's is probably the worst in fact -- and they are not cheap (think around $80-100 for that adapter times 3). They are all so bad that they are unusable (unless you don't mind your monitor randomly dropping out and/or occasionally flickering to multicoloured snow patterns that require you to physically unplug and replug to get back in working order). And before the naysayers say that it's a problem with my setup, it's not. There are massive amounts of similar complaints all over the interwebs.


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## ldphoto (Jul 9, 2009)

Gerk said:


> Another thing I'd like to point out ... is that if you use 30" monitors the new Mac Pros will not be a good choice for you ... I've tried 3 different Thunderbolt to dual-link DVI adapters and they all suck ... hard. Apple's is probably the worst in fact -- and they are not cheap (think around $80-100 for that adapter times 3). They are all so bad that they are unusable (unless you don't mind your monitor randomly dropping out and/or occasionally flickering to multicoloured snow patterns that require you to physically unplug and replug to get back in working order). And before the naysayers say that it's a problem with my setup, it's not. There are massive amounts of similar complaints all over the interwebs.


I'd think that most newer monitors in the 27" and 30" range would support DisplayPort natively. My U2711 is connected with a DP to mDP cable, and works flawlessly.


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## ldphoto (Jul 9, 2009)

Getting back to the original topic, a Pro machine, to me, is a machine that makes me the bottleneck to getting my work done, not my computer. My rMBP is actually pretty close to meeting that on most fonts. I need an external wide-gamut matte monitor for pre-print editing, but the two TB ports have me covered there. Storage is plenty fast, and my WD Thunderbolt Duo drive is fast enough to keep up with Lightroom. The internal SSD, while small, is super fast for apps.

The new Pro may solve a few bottlenecks for me. The first one being processing time with importing RAW files, which can take hours for large batches to generate previews and smart previews. The MBP is no slouch, but the Pro should be at least 2x faster. The FirePro GPU should also, in theory, be able to support 10-bit colour depth throughout the data path, as long as the drivers and OS will support it. For wide-gamut work, that's significant, and would remove a current limitation I face.


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## Gerk (Dec 21, 2012)

ldphoto said:


> I'd think that most newer monitors in the 27" and 30" range would support DisplayPort natively. My U2711 is connected with a DP to mDP cable, and works flawlessly.


Yep but a newer version of my monitor will cost me as much as a base level Mac Pro all over again ... I'm running a NEC 3090WQXI and have the hardware calibration stuff that goes with it so it's not a simple (or cheap) replacement.

The speed is about the only thing we have to look forward to on this machine from the sounds of things ... but glad that it will get the job done for you. I think the CPU/GPU speed is probably the least of my list of things I need a pro machine to be/do sadly


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## MacDoc (Nov 3, 2001)

I would prefer if Apple does the same thing as with the Classic versus Retina and maintain both form factors.
Demand for $2k MacPros has jumped since the announcement.
Have a nice 2.66 8 core deal coming in well configured at $2500 that will do all but the heavy lifters.

I think Apple has chopped out about 70% of it's previous market tho many have moved to portables.


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## ldphoto (Jul 9, 2009)

Gerk said:


> Yep but a newer version of my monitor will cost me as much as a base level Mac Pro all over again ... I'm running a NEC 3090WQXI and have the hardware calibration stuff that goes with it so it's not a simple (or cheap) replacement.


That's a nice monitor. I used to edit on an 2690WUXi2. I moved to a Dell U2711 to get the extra pixels, but I don't think it's as accurate as the NEC. Perhaps I will measure both side by side some day soon and compare.


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## MacDoc (Nov 3, 2001)

12 bit on the Dell but no onboard LUT afaik. The NEC are 14 bit with onboard but you gotta be deep into the colour correction aspect to take advantage.
However when we get the NEC refurbs and you can get 14 bit for the price of 8 bit iSPS.....hey that's worth it


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## Gerk (Dec 21, 2012)

One of the things that I love with that monitor is the built-in color calibration stuff that works with my colorimeter. Fire it up, walk away and when you come back it's all good -- no software or juggling of ICS profiles required on the computer, it "just works".


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## screature (May 14, 2007)

Gerk said:


> One of the things that I love with that monitor is the built-in color calibration stuff that works with my colorimeter. Fire it up, walk away and when you come back it's all good -- no software or juggling of ICS profiles required on the computer, it "just works".


Which monitor is that and which colorimeter are you using?


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## Gerk (Dec 21, 2012)

It's a NEC 3090WQXI-BK and an i1D2 colorimeter -- which basically makes it almost identical to the 3090WQXI-SV (which was a "kit" where the monitor came with an unbranded i1D2)

Supposedly the colorimeter that comes with the SV model was a special wide-gamut version of the i1D2 (emphasis on supposedly because I have never seen confirmation on that directly from either company), but in the few years I've been using the setup I've had zero problems and haven't noticed any issues using the standard one. It works just fine with the calibration stuff that's built into the monitors menuing system and it gives better results than using the eye one software does.

LCD3090WQXI-BK, 30 Widescreen Color-Critical Desktop Monitor - Highlights & Specifications | NEC Display Solutions
LCD3090W-BK-SV, 30 Widescreen Color-Critical Desktop Monitor w SpectraView<sub>II<sub> - Highlights & Specifications | NEC Display Solutions


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## gochi123 (Jul 4, 2013)

i love the new black honeycomb style. really professional


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## broad (Jun 2, 2009)

its german, but the humour behind it transcends language


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## FeXL (Jan 2, 2004)

Nailed it...


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## screature (May 14, 2007)

broad said:


> its german, but the humour behind it transcends language





FeXL said:


> Nailed it...


Well I think it is a bit misleading portraying that you can have everything inside the box in the old "cheese grater" Mac Pro.

I have an old Mac Pro and I still have a ton of external peripherals with all the resulting power supplies and cables...

Many working "Pros" are not going to have just the "cheese grater box" and nothing else... At least in my experience and I don't even do video or audio work anymore.

I'm not a fan of the new form factor but this depiction really does not truthfully illustrate the reality of what a working Pro has in terms of peripherals associated with the old Mac Pro IMO.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

screature said:


> Well I think it is a bit misleading portraying that you can have everything inside the box in the old "cheese grater" Mac Pro.
> 
> I have an old Mac Pro and I still have a ton of external peripherals with all the resulting power supplies and cables...
> 
> ...


I was wondering about the audio controller in the foreground, but in my case, I would be externalizing an AJA Kona card, four hard drives and a dvd burner


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## Gerk (Dec 21, 2012)

What exactly is inaccurate about it screature? From what I see you can certainly have all of that inside the box with a cheese grater mac pro ... what exactly do you think can't be "in the box"?


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## screature (May 14, 2007)

Gerk said:


> What exactly is inaccurate about it screature? From what I see you can certainly have all of that inside the box with a cheese grater mac pro ... what exactly do you think can't be "in the box"?


Ok. Sorry, I see your point. 

I was simply thinking in terms of outside the box storage I neglected to think about that the enclosures illustrated were single drive only boxes.

But even at that I have an old Mac Pro and the four internal drive compartments simply don't cut it for me. I have and additional 12 drives in three 4 drive towers plus two external docks for rarely used but needed access to drives that are not in those bays.

So relative to the new and the "old" requirements for storage and backup a pro is still going to need peripherals outside the box even without the 4 drive bays inside the box.

That is the point I am making and so to portray the "cheese grater" box as not requiring any external peripherals for a Pro is simply untruthful IMO.

You have posted your setup in pics before and you certainly have many peripherals attached to your Mac Pro. 

I get the notion that if you only wanted 3 extra single drives attached to the new MP you would need 3 separate enclosures, but who works that way anymore? 

For every drive, in terms of back up, you need 2 drives so single enclosures, unless they are a dock, are not going to cut it for Pros with tons of data.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

I agree that some people already have a lot of peripherals, but I have none--everything is inside the box, except my scanner and printer--and even the printer doesn't need to be wired up.

The comparison would be apt for me.


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## Gerk (Dec 21, 2012)

screature said:


> Ok. Sorry, I see your point.
> 
> I was simply thinking in terms of outside the box storage I neglected to think about that the enclosures illustrated were single drive only boxes.
> 
> ...


Unless you consider NAS an external unit then I also have everything "inside the box" so I honestly think that portrayal is just fine -- and if you think that you felt cramped with "only" 4 drive bays, wait till there are none and only a single SSD. At least with 4 bays you could potentially have a couple of drives for boot/apps/data and a couple for backup, or better yet with 4 drives you can have a nice fast and redundant RAID10 (which is what I did for years). Also with 4 bays and drive sizes these days you _could_ have up to 16TB in the box which is a large amount of space to work with, even including one copy of local backups. As for offsite backups (which everyone has, right?) there's no choice but to have it on an external if you're doing it to hard drives so that takes the offsite backup drive(s) out of the argument.

The school where I work are replacing 350+ Mac Pros this summer with brand new cheese graters. They were trying to hold off to wait for the new models, but after seeing them decided that they needed to get the cheese graters, which can be both locked down and mounted under desks, before they are gone. It's unclear if either of those options are even going to be possible with the new vader trash can, but almost certainly under-desk mounting is out given that it's a top-cooled unit, and from all the images I've seen so far there doesn't seem to be a hint of a kensington (or other style) lock port on them.

Apple has taken a hugely versatile system and turned it into something that barely fits a small niche and left a HUGE hole in their lineup.

P.S. My "peripherals" that you mention that are outside the box are components of a full-blown recording studio -- I don't see anyone jamming a 32 channel digital console (well not a REAL one) or reference speakers inside a machine so that point is also moot.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Gerk said:


> The school where I work are replacing 350+ Mac Pros this summer with brand new cheese graters.


Big surplus sale coming?


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## Gerk (Dec 21, 2012)

Macfury said:


> Big surplus sale coming?


Nope


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## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

the problem is is just makes the small gaggle of externals you have into a total mess now that you have to add video, storage, etc as externals on top of what you already had.

It seems most of my mac pro friends are panning this.


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