SSD: new paradigms in resources distribution?

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otalgia-2000
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SSD: new paradigms in resources distribution?

Post by otalgia-2000 »

hey everyone

sure i come from an old school. heck, when i was a sprout our tools were the command line, 5.25", floppy discs, CMOS batteries and suchlike.

and from age immemorial i was taught "distribute thou thy resources":

OS and applications on one drive, projects on another, additional assets on still another if you can manage it, and back 'em all up to yet a fourth -- let no one disk bear all of any burden.

which is why i make full use of all four drive bays in my early '08 mac pro.

but now i sense that things are changing? ...or are they?

the current iteration of the pro (presumably as production-oriented a beast as ever) doesn't offer the same storage configuration options at all. does this indicate that one may begin to relax the death-grip on old notions of crop management?

does the SSD's quiescent power imply that (functionally, at least) all your stuff really can be crammed in there cheek-by-jowl no matter what it does?

...or are our friends on the Loop simply anxious to stimulate cloud coverage and the purchase of peripheral storage?

if it really has come to all on one and one fits all, then other than the increased urgency of systematic backups, has the rule of dispersing the goodies become a paradigm of the past?

o-2k

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mikehalloran
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Re: SSD: new paradigms in resources distribution?

Post by mikehalloran »

I think that the question is off the mark. If it were about the huge storage capacities of 6T hard drives, then there are philosophical discussions to be had.

The issue with today's SSDs is that price/performance maxes out at 1T. Yes, larger drives up to 2T have been announced or are here but the prices are huge for not that much more storage or they're not available due to tech reasons (PCIe drives are not available to me, neither is eSATA MultiPort).

So, while I could install a 1T SSD and a 6T HD into my iMac, I prefer two 1T SSDs. This means that if I want more storage, I am adding more, more, more!
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otalgia-2000
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Re: SSD: new paradigms in resources distribution?

Post by otalgia-2000 »

mikehalloran wrote:I think that the question is off the mark. If it were about the huge storage capacities of 6T hard drives, then there are philosophical discussions to be had.

The issue with today's SSDs is that price/performance maxes out at 1T. Yes, larger drives up to 2T have been announced or are here but the prices are huge for not that much more storage or they're not available due to tech reasons (PCIe drives are not available to me, neither is eSATA MultiPort).
thank you, mike!

yes, i understand about the SSD space crimp, which is part of why i'm trying to reconcile how a high-performance, production-o-centric device like the modern mac pro could fence users in like that. it gives you... wait, LESS options, for FEWER drives with the more-economical form-factor, which in any event hold... LESS?

anyway, that's what started me wondering if maybe it's getting to be ok to cram more onto, well,

...less.

so the allocation aspects seemed to present a whole thought-shift for me (tho really, i should probably ought to be thinking about other stuff...)

sure, trends towards SAS and other forms of cloud-sourcing will push users into devoting less storage to hosting applications, mail, etc... but still. (and do ref: "old school", in original post. man, those whale-oil lamps sure were stinky!) :)

best,
o-2k

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Re: SSD: new paradigms in resources distribution?

Post by mikehalloran »

The day is not yet here when high speed cloud storage makes local storage obsolete – at least at the level that we lowly Mac and PC users need.

I know of a company not one mile from my house where they are working on SCSI over ethernet and shooting for sub-light speeds, then adapting that to the cloud. The object is to move monstrous amounts of data in microseconds. Unfortunately, one needs the defense budget of a second world country to consider it and a high level security clearance to learn any more than I just mentioned – so you know what I know except the name of the company.

One nice perk about living where I do is that I get to know interesting people. The down side is that those who blab get fired. To put it in perspective, Google and MicroSoft's Apple division are 2 miles away and Apple's new HQ is 3 mi from me.

When such technologies become available to the Rest of Us, there will be a paradigm change, no doubt but, till then...
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otalgia-2000
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Re: SSD: new paradigms in resources distribution?

Post by otalgia-2000 »

thanks again, mike

it certainly does give solace to know that at least a handful of the tattered concepts to which i cling and hold dear have not (yet, at least) perished from the earth.

and don't worry about the neighbors, i mean hey, look at the bright side -- if you lived next door to FB you'd have to worry about foxes eating the cat.

as ever,

o-2k

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Re: SSD: new paradigms in resources distribution?

Post by MIDI Life Crisis »

I moved from my 2008 8-core 3,1 MP in January to a nMP (4 core/1TB/32GB RAM) and had the same concerns. I did not give in!

I moved two internal spinners to FW enclosures I already had (connected vis TB to FW adapters to the trash can). I move two more drives to a TB SATA dock, and another to a USB3 dock. All are 1 or 2TB drives. Something like 10TB of drives attached to the nMP now (including the dual Time Machine backup.

I cloned the boot drive and project drive to SATAs and they are in the old MP in storage "just in case" or if I need to farm some VIs for a project (I'm available Mr. Spielberg...)

The system is working out nicely - much better than I expected. Safari still sucks! :banghead:
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Re: SSD: new paradigms in resources distribution?

Post by mikehalloran »

Thanks for the reminder. I had forgotten about my three Time Capsules, all connected via Ethernet -- wireless for the portables and iOS devices.

I've looked at offline cloud storage but I want it to work with Time Machine.
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otalgia-2000
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Re: SSD: new paradigms in resources distribution?

Post by otalgia-2000 »

MIDI Life Crisis wrote:I moved from my 2008 8-core 3,1 MP in January to a nMP (4 core/1TB/32GB RAM) and had the same concerns. I did not give in!

I moved two internal spinners to FW enclosures I already had (connected vis TB to FW adapters to the trash can). I move two more drives to a TB SATA dock, and another to a USB3 dock. All are 1 or 2TB drives. Something like 10TB of drives attached to the nMP now (including the dual Time Machine backup.

I cloned the boot drive and project drive to SATAs and they are in the old MP in storage "just in case" or if I need to farm some VIs for a project (I'm available Mr. Spielberg...)

The system is working out nicely - much better than I expected. Safari still sucks! :banghead:
thanks, Mister Life.

sounds as if Proliferation is still the best medicine.

i see that the nMP does offer a plethora of external connectivity, if not the old range of internal options. from what you're describing, an assessment of the peripherals landscape should be part of any nMP migration plan.

...not that i'm headed that far out of town myself -- i was only considering doing the SSD bump with my existing machine. tho of course, any 7-year-old asset is, well, ...seven years old...

best,
o-2K

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Re: SSD: new paradigms in resources distribution?

Post by MIDI Life Crisis »

In my case my 3,1 graphics card went out New Year's Eve and I had a tech Jan 3. I had to have the score and sound design or else. I had no option. I could have bought a nice laptop with the $5k but opted for the Darth Vader machine as I really don't need portability and I did need the added power so that's the direction I chose. It's s lot of coin, for sure, but the difference is comparable to moving from a G5 to the 3,1. Exponentially more powerful. My electric bill also decreased by at least $50 a month!
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Re: SSD: new paradigms in resources distribution?

Post by HCMarkus »

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Re: SSD: new paradigms in resources distribution?

Post by MIDI Life Crisis »

Still a little high $$$ wise. In fact, very high and the old SSD will not be usable without another adapter for the unique connector. Are those out yet? I doubt it. That's precisely why a got a 1TB SSD (the largest available) on my Mac.
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Re: SSD: new paradigms in resources distribution?

Post by mikehalloran »

$800 for the EVO is double the current price for the 1T; $1,000 is less than double the current price of the 1T PRO.

I was planning to install a 1T in my iMac last night -- I've been running it via eSATA. I may hold off a couple of months and install a 2T instead. ...
Last edited by mikehalloran on Wed Jul 22, 2015 11:26 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: SSD: new paradigms in resources distribution?

Post by MIDI Life Crisis »

Good to know. I'll use the money for an MS Surface instead. Lol.
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Re: SSD: new paradigms in resources distribution?

Post by mikehalloran »

mikehalloran wrote:
$800 for the EVO is double the current price for the 1T; $1,000 is less than double the current price of the 1T PRO.

I was planning to install a 1T in my iMac last night -- I've been running it via eSATA. I may hold off a couple of months and install a 2T instead. ...
It looks like the 2T is shipping.

http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-2-5-Inch- ... ds=850+evo

Now, where's that $800 I had laying around? I saw it just the other day...
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