Need a new old MacPro

[monkey man]

Really? So SSDs don't get hot? Amazing! ...i know i'm late to the future.

No moving parts.

Yeah, like me, Magilla.

No clue what that means MM

Hey dix!

Er... I've been celibate for 23 years (not always by choice), so... uh... no parts have moved, let alone "got hot". I also have chronic fatigue and auto-immune issues, so often nothin' moves... 'cause I don't, mate.

I obviously didn't mean to be heavy - just light, of course. I'm here partly to be and make light, both for myself as well as others. Oh, and to be the butt of jokes, the resident buffoon, he who's so pathetic everyone feels better about him / herself, and so on.

Reckon I'm succeeding. LOL

[dix]

Ah. I get it now MM. Well, you've got some competition in the resident-buffoon department

I haven't researched whether streaming rate or access speed is the limiting factor in VI use.

Yes, I need to do some more research. I'm just on SATA 2. It's hard to imagine having, say Ivory, BFD, CineSamples and Play streaming simultaneously in a project all from one disk, SSD or not, would be a good idea. But I could very well be wrong.

[MIDI Life Crisis]

[HCMarkus]

Ah. I get it now MM. Well, you've got some competition in the resident-buffoon department

I haven't researched whether streaming rate or access speed is the limiting factor in VI use.

Yes, I need to do some more research. I'm just on SATA 2. It's hard to imagine having, say Ivory, BFD, CineSamples and Play streaming simultaneously in a project all from one disk, SSD or not, would be a good idea. But I could very well be wrong.

Just FYI, you can get a SATA3 card for about $10 at Ebay…

http://www.ebay.com/itm/PCI-E-PCI-Expre ... 4d1d21b677

The referenced card will support two SSDs, but uses a 1x PCIe slot, so theoretical max is just about full speed for one drive at a time. I've got one; works fine. ASM1061 chip is reportedly Mac bootable, but I don't boot from mine.

[dix]

Hmm. My slots are full at the moment, but that might change. So, would I also need to buy an enclosure for the drive connected to the card? Seems like not maybe. ...sry. the internet can't seem to deliver this very basic info.

Thanks for all your advice HC. It's been a big help.

[HCMarkus]

Hmm. My slots are full at the moment, but that might change. So, would I also need to buy an enclosure for the drive connected to the card? Seems like not maybe. ...sry. The internet can't seem to deliver this very basic info.

Thanks for all you advice HC. It's been a big help.

You are welcome dix.

You don't need an external enclosure… just place the SSD(s) in the optical bay and source power there; use the extra optical bay SATA power... connect with a splitter that won't block the SATA data port. Run SATA cable back to the card set (jumpered) for internal operation. Like Mr. Steele, I use the optical drive (positioned in the lower optical bay) as an SSD shelf.

[dix]

Again, the internet will not cough up the answer to an extremely basic question. Believe me I looked and looked!: I understand about the power splitter, but I'm not clear on how I'd connect the drive to the card. The connectors on a SATA drive look nothing like anything on that card. Thanks again!

[HCMarkus]

Again, the internet will not cough up the answer to an extremely basic question. Believe me I looked and looked!: I understand about the power splitter, but I'm not clear on how I'd connect the drive to the card. The connectors on a SATA drive look nothing like anything on that card. Thanks again!

There are SATA (2 internal and 2 external eSATA of which a total of 2 can be used simultaneously) connectors on that card. One standard SATA3 cable per drive will do the job. I think I used 3' cables to allow me to snake to the optical bay.

[dix]

Okay. Got it. The connectors looked different, but on closer investigation I guess that will work.

Once I deal with a weird graphics card issue I'll have a slot open and I'll continue on my path to come as close as I can to replicating your rig HC

[monkey man]

OK, OK Magilla...

The buffoon role is a co-residency with the great, big-hairy-assed gorilla.

[MIDI Life Crisis]

You mean he meant ME! Just friggin say so. I can take it. But I do enjoy watching people take what they think is the high road and discount humor and sarcasm as both worthless and negative. What dull lives they must lead. LOL

[monkey man]

Ha! No, Magilla. I'm sure he was just being self-deprecating.

What I was doing was responding to your shocked face. I mistakenly, it seems, thought you might've been surprised by my explanation of the no-moving-parts thing. I should've known better as I'm certain I've mentioned the celibacy thing to you before. I was reluctant to have this tragic aspect of my "bean" expounded upon or analysed, so I took the next-safest route and made out like you must've been disappointed that I professed my buffoon status without mentioning you. I sincerely hoped that you were having some fun with it, but alas, I failed miserably as it didn't even occur to me that dix's comment could've been misconstrued as being aimed at you.

I've no doubt this wasn't the case. What we do have here 'though, is yet another example of the Monkster's supreme naivety and lack of peripheral vision. I'll include you this time: Seems the Simian Bros. are still out of sink with humanititty, but we'll surely poosist.

[dix]

http://www.ebay.com/itm/PCI-E-PCI-Expre ... 4d1d21b677

The referenced card will support two SSDs, but uses a 1x PCIe slot, so theoretical max is just about full speed for one drive at a time. I've got one; works fine. ASM1061 chip is reportedly Mac bootable, but I don't boot from mine.

Actually, this particular card isn't Mac compatible. I've ordered one that is, for just a little more $, and will be in the fast lane soon!

[HCMarkus]

http://www.ebay.com/itm/PCI-E-PCI-Expre ... 4d1d21b677

The referenced card will support two SSDs, but uses a 1x PCIe slot, so theoretical max is just about full speed for one drive at a time. I've got one; works fine. ASM1061 chip is reportedly Mac bootable, but I don't boot from mine.

Actually, this particular card isn't Mac compatible. I've ordered one that is, for just a little more $, and will be in the fast lane soon!

I could be wrong, but the key is the ASM1061... sellers do not mention Mac, but this chipset, which is the heart of the card, is compatible. No big deal, as long as you spent only a little more.

[jlaudon]

Not sure if this is helpful, but my recent experience:

I've been using a 2009 2.26 8 core Mac Pro for the last 6 years, but my apollo interface kept getting plugin disabling because of the slow Firewire connection. I'd been waiting for an upgrade/update to the 2013 Mac Pro, but was so frustrated that I found a refurbished 2012 Mac Mini (quad i7), and installed 2 SSD drives as well as upgraded the RAM to 16Gigs. Then I bought an OWC thunderbolt enclosure for my samples disks as well as audio hard disks (all normal 3.5" 7200rpm disks). I daisychained the apollo with the thunderbolt enclosure, and carbon copy cloned all my disks.

The result: The mac mini outperforms my Mac Pro (the geek bench benchmark is about the same), is more stable (no more apollo frustrations), and because of the Thunderbolt enclosure, even my hard disks seem to have 'snappier' responses loading samples and running projects with a lot of audio tracks.

Who woulda thought....?

I'm running the Mac Pro as a VE Pro slave with my string libraries and Omnisphere...all totally trouble free