2009 Mac Pro just died. Need advice.

[NealF]

Hello.

I’ve got a 2009 Mac Pro with 4 internal hard drives. The main drive is a solid state.
I’ve got 4 ext. FW drives. And I use the computer for music and video production. I also have a lot of USB ports I’m using for Wacom tablet and a couple of the drives and iLoks.

Here’s my question: It used to be that you would put your programs on the main drive, sessions on another and sampling libraries on yet another drive. It’s been a while since I looked into buying anything new. So, if I bought a new Mac is that still the concept?

And what would be a great set up for video and music? Need lots of storage. Speed would be good.
I’m assuming FW and USB 2 is no longer used.

Right now I’m reinstalling from my backup drive onto one of the working drives. It’ll take 7 hours to complete. But I’m assuming something went wrong with my main ssd. For a few weeks after waking up the computer I’d get a black screen and have to restart. Now it’s gone.

Should I just by another ssd? or upgrade the whole thing?

Thanks.

[HCMarkus]

What died? The SSD? or something else in your Mac?

If its just the SSD, get a new one. If something else, there are a ton of used 4,1s on the market to which you could transfer the working parts from your current MP.

I'm running a 2009 4,1 (EFI updated to 5,1) in studio and keep a second one on hand in case of emergency.

[NealF]

I’m assuming it’s the ssd. Still waiting for the reinstallment on the other drive to finish.
If it is the ssd, it’s surprising. I don’t think it’s more than 2 years old. I thought they were supposed to be more durable because of no moving parts.

My hard drives have been chugging away for the life of the computer.

[HCMarkus]

I’m assuming it’s the ssd. Still waiting for the reinstallment on the other drive to finish.
If it is the ssd, it’s surprising. I don’t think it’s more than 2 years old. I thought they were supposed to be more durable because of no moving parts.

My hard drives have been chugging away for the life of the computer.

Depends on the SSD; also, did you enable Trim?

[NealF]

I had a repair guy install it so I'm not up on how he did it. But it worked fine for a couple of years.
However, I've solved the problem.

After 7 hours of reinstalling from timemachine to another drive, I then saw that the ssd drive was still there. What seems to have happened was that somehow another drive got renamed the same name as my main (ssd) drive.

A few days ago when I saw two drives with the same name I (without too much though) dragged the "copy" into the trash. So when I restarted my computer, there was no main drive.

Anyway, I've now restarted with the ssd drive and all is well.
Thanks, all, for the advice.

[NealF]

Well, I thought I had it working, but still, when it sleeps for a while it'll wake up with a black screen.

I reset the PRAM and some other thing I can't remember. Thought it was fine, but still happening.
So if I can't get this working, and if I wanted to go for the money, what would be a good way to go.
Still have questions about the newer systems. I'll paste in my original question here.

Here’s my question: It used to be that you would put your programs on the main drive, sessions on another and sampling libraries on yet another drive. It’s been a while since I looked into buying anything new. So, if I bought a new Mac is that still the concept?

And what would be a great set up for video and music? Need lots of storage. Speed would be good.
I’m assuming FW and USB 2 is no longer used.

If all this ends up costing way too much I'll probably look for another Mac Pro 2009.

[MIDI Life Crisis]

As pointed out earlier, a new Mac pro is not recommended by some. The newer models will be better, They always are. I have an 8-core 2008 3,1 cheese grater I had to replace a video card on a few years ago. Unfortunately (or fortunately) it was New Years Eve and I have a tight deadline due Jan 3, so I bought a trash can (4 core) with a 1TB internal SSD and 32GB RAM. In the end, after all the plugs and adaptors, etc, it ran close to $5k. The cheese grater was repaired for about $400 but I kept the trash can and love it.

If I had to do it over again, I would get another today. I wouldn't;t wait to chase down the elusive and often vapor hardware (what's the term for that?) that's always just around the corner. I need to get work done to make a living and the nMP has been nothing short of amazing. Damn the benchmarks! It does what I need and it does it fast.

A used cheese grater is certainly a more conservative approach, especially if you don't want to drop that much coin on the problem. I was up to my neck in crocker-gators so I had to act fast. Again, I am VERY happy with the choice. I would, however, get a 2TB internal next time.

Bottom line for me is always 'get back to work ASAP and be sure to meet your deadlines regardless. If you don't have pressing work that cannot be done otherwise, I'd look at another machine. It does, however, suck a little not having internal drives. The room is also a lot cooler, as are my electric bills.

[mikehalloran]

Not enough information for me to help but...


How old is the NV RAM battery? If over 4 years or you don't know, replace it with a CR2032 battery—you can get these everywhere. The original is a hard to find BR2032—the CR is fine in these.

A missing battery won't save your settings. A bad battery will cause all sorts of problems including the black screen.

With a known good battery, it could be a drive issue but I'm not so sure.

[mikehalloran]

What SSD do you have — model and size? If too small, a larger newer one may be a good investment as you can always move it to a replacement Mac or a TB dock.

There are ways to screw up an SSD (writing to zeros, running certain disk utilities, optimize/fragger, failing to enable TRIM) and sometimes they just go bad. Certain ones have firmware issues that were never really resolved.

Normally, though, repaired in Disk Utility, SSDs tend stay that way. Once you get it booting, run the following in Terminal. Ignore all of the warnings and caveats.
sudo trimforce enable

Never run any kind of "optimization" or maintenance apps on an SSD. The good ones like TechTool Pro won't let you.

If directory structures or volume info has been compromised (a bad battery can do this as can crapware tools), Disk Utility run from the Repair Partition or another drive can usually fix it.

All sorts of things can go wrong and cost a lot to repair. A used replacement is inexpensive. If you don't need a PCIe slot, the little trashcan is very good, also.

If a battery doesn't do it or a verifiable dead SSD, I wouldn't invest another dime in the one you have.

[dix]

Well, I thought I had it working, but still, when it sleeps for a while it'll wake up with a black screen.

Why is it going to sleep? Last I checked enabling sleep can mess up a lot of things.

[MIDI Life Crisis]

Well, I thought I had it working, but still, when it sleeps for a while it'll wake up with a black screen.

Why is it going to sleep? Last I checked enabling sleep can mess up a lot of things.

I NEVER sleep my machine. NEV-ER!

[NealF]

Ok. Some of this is a bit over my head. Need some clarification.

First, if you don't sleep the computer, do you shut down every night? Of just leave it running and shut the screen down?
I've been having the machine sleep several times a day for years. Never heard of that being a problem.

This is the ssd I have: OWC Mercury Electra 3G MAX SSD. It's a 1 TB.

I've had the computer since around 2009 or 10. It was a refurbished. Don't think I ever changed the battery.

Which one is the cheese grater and which is the trash can?

I just did the thing with the Terminal. Rebooted okay but I hear the drive clicking away as I write this.

Still need to know if I bought a newer Mac would all those "rules" re the other drives still apply?

Thanks.

[dix]

Ok. Some of this is a bit over my head. Need some clarification.

First, if you don't sleep the computer, do you shut down every night? Of just leave it running and shut the screen down?
I've been having the machine sleep several times a day for years. Never heard of that being a problem.

Which one is the cheese grater and which is the trash can?

Just answering the questions I know about:

I shut down overnight or when I won't be working for several hours. All power settings, including displays, set to Never, never, never. Sleep has been an issue with DAWs forever. All the way back to System 9 and before. ...that may be why it hasn't been discussed. It's so ingrained. FAIK it's been fixed, but I can see no reason for sleep so I've kept the habit.

Cheese grater = Big and grey - Pre 2013. Trashcan = Small and black - 2013 and after

[NealF]

Ok. Some of this is a bit over my head. Need some clarification.

First, if you don't sleep the computer, do you shut down every night? Of just leave it running and shut the screen down?
I've been having the machine sleep several times a day for years. Never heard of that being a problem.

Which one is the cheese grater and which is the trash can?

Just answering the questions I know about:

I shut down overnight or when I won't be working for several hours. All power settings, including displays, set to Never, never, never. Sleep has been an issue with DAWs forever. All the way back to System 9 and before. ...that may be why it hasn't been discussed. It's so ingrained. FAIK it's been fixed, but I can see no reason for sleep so I've kept the habit.

Cheese grater = Big and grey - Pre 2013. Trashcan = Small and black - 2013 and after

Got it. Thanks.

[NealF]

Here’s something interesting.
On my last startup I got a message saying one of my drives could not be read by my computer. It gave me the option to ignor or eject.

I ejected it. Then I went to Disk Utility to see if I could mount it again but it wasn’t showing up there.

I’m wondering if the disk went bad and that was creating all this trouble. Now that it’s ejected, I’ll see if the problem is gone. Won’t know till tomorrow.

Luckily I don’t have anything vital on that drive.