Advice on New Macs

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NealF
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Advice on New Macs

Post by NealF »

Hello,

I haven't gotten a new Mac for almost a decade.
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.

Thanks.
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HCMarkus
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Re: Advice on New Macs

Post by HCMarkus »

NealF wrote:Hello,

I haven't gotten a new Mac for almost a decade.
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.

Thanks.
As I noted in your other thread: viewtopic.php?f=4&t=58848

If you want a horsepower bump (significant) for little $$

These days, with SSDs spitting out data much more quickly than spinning hard drives, splitting load across drives is not as important as it once was. That said, I am running an all-SSD Mac Pro with drives set up as you describe. Plus internal spinners for session backups and external spinners for Time Machine.
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Re: Advice on New Macs

Post by mikehalloran »

I boot from an internal 2T drive for apps including DP. My VIs now sit on an external 2T SSD via eSATA. The only reason is space. With Komplete and Superior Drummer 3, my boot drive was getting crowded. A 4T still costs over $1,400 and a 2T can be found well under $600 so it made sense for me.

There is no advantage to splitting them up if running a large enough SSD over SATA or faster.

My only spinners are Time Capsules that I have loaded with 6T and 8T WD Red NAS HHDs. Reds cost only a little more but have heavier bearings and are rated to go years 24/7 as NAS drives must. Time Machine is a light duty app but I have had drives go bad over the years... Since they spin only up to 5400, they are recommended as backup drives if not used in a RAID/NAS setup.

I didn't used to back up my VIs since I can download them again if the drive went down but recent installs of Komplete and SD3 each took over 24 hours so, with 8T drives being cheap...
Last edited by mikehalloran on Sat Oct 07, 2017 5:28 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Advice on New Macs

Post by NealF »

OK. I've got to do a little homework to totally understand this. Some things are new to me. But from what I can tell, it'll be cheap to make my 2009 Mac Pro run like a new machine.

So for budget's sake, maybe the best thing to do first is get the Xeon. And as long as my external drives are working, replace them with one large SSD to handle the libraries in the near future.

Is it okay to have the session files on the main ssd with the applications?

I'll check out that link re the Xeon. Got some questions but I'll see if I can find out on my own first.

All in all, it looks like upgrading to a newer Mac doesn't matter that much. I was thinking with Thunderbolt things would be a whole new ball game. But maybe not so much.
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Re: Advice on New Macs

Post by mikehalloran »

Yes to all of the above, more or less.

Your internal SATA II bus speed is lower than current Macs (but same as mine). It's still blazing fast. It can be boosted to SATA III through a PCIe card but you'll be doing some re-cabling — I wouldn't bother with that unless editing lots of video.

You have 4 drive bays so consolidate. No need for external drives and, if you do, eSATA.

I'm a big fan of having one Time Capsule out of view in a hidden location. It can be wireless or ethernet if an Apple Time Capsule.
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Re: Advice on New Macs

Post by HCMarkus »

NealF
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Re: Advice on New Macs

Post by NealF »

This is great news.

I really had no idea you could change the cpu.
So now I'll get the Xeon and probably another ssd to replace the bad drive. And replace the battery.
That should hold me for quite a while.

Then I'll have two ssd drives and a new CPU. Probably cost about $400 for the whole thing.

I think I should get a pro technician to do it all for me. I'm much more of a composer than a techie.

Thanks, everyone.
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Re: Advice on New Macs

Post by dix »

I think many of us are trying to keep a solid old MacPro together anticipating the next gen modular Mac Pros promised by Apple about a year ago. Due to come out next year.

I didn’t have the inclination to do the upgrade, so I bought a tray out right from this guy. He reimbursed me when I sent my old tray back to him. That way I had no downtime. http://www.ebay.com/itm/12-Core-Apple-M ... SwDk5T7bsP
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Re: Advice on New Macs

Post by toodamnhip »

mikehalloran wrote:I boot from an internal 2T drive for apps including DP. My VIs now sit on an external 2T SSD via eSATA. The only reason is space. With Komplete and Superior Drummer 3, my boot drive was getting crowded. A 4T still costs over $1,400 and a 2T can be found well under $600 so it made sense for me.

There is no advantage to splitting them up if running a large enough SSD over SATA or faster.

My only spinners are Time Capsules that I have loaded with 6T and 8T WD Red NAS HHDs. Reds cost only a little more but have heavier bearings and are rated to go years 24/7 as NAS drives must. Time Machine is a light duty app but I have had drives go bad over the years... Since they spin only up to 5400, they are recommended as backup drives if not used in a RAID/NAS setup.

I didn't used to back up my VIs since I can download them again if the drive went down but recent installs of Komplete and SD3 each took over 24 hours so, with 8T drives being cheap...
Hey Mike, you seem to be one of the computer gurus around here. I upped mid mid 2012 from a (6 or 8?) core, to a 12, doing the mod everyone spoke if here. For years before the cpu upgrade, I had various issues that some here could duplicate, others could not. In my current set up, I am still having some strange issues, such as needing to go back to Dp 8 for automation to recall properly once a file gets big. I did notice a nice cpu bump going to 12 core, but I am wondering if it is possible that some of my “bugs” are because of either old OSx iterations under the hood still having some sort of detrimental effect on my OS, or, because of having installed a 12 core chip on a comp that wasn’t;t necessarily meant to have a 12 core chip.
All that said, I have started to think of either A) a system complete drive reinstall, B) getting a brand new Mac.
Seems like buying a “new” Mac for the next few years is like buying backwards since they are completely redesigning things. Your thoughts?
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Re: Advice on New Macs

Post by mikehalloran »

toodamnhip wrote:...I upped mid mid 2012 from a (6 or 8?) core, to a 12, doing the mod everyone spoke if here. For years before the cpu upgrade, I had various issues that some here could duplicate, others could not. In my current set up, I am still having some strange issues, such as needing to go back to Dp 8 for automation to recall properly once a file gets big. I did notice a nice cpu bump going to 12 core, but I am wondering if it is possible that some of my “bugs” are because of either old OSx iterations under the hood still having some sort of detrimental effect on my OS, or, because of having installed a 12 core chip on a comp that wasn’t;t necessarily meant to have a 12 core chip.
All that said, I have started to think of either A) a system complete drive reinstall, B) getting a brand new Mac.
Seems like buying a “new” Mac for the next few years is like buying backwards since they are completely redesigning things. Your thoughts?
A number of issues...

As to the 8 vs 9 issue regarding large files, this thread may shed some light:
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=63964

When it comes to anomalies, Console.app is my friend. What exactly is happening when something isn’t right? Old code can appear after years of being dormant. I’ve watched HP print utilities from 2005 and other ancient crap try to load in DP ... remove those and the issue goes away. For some reason, Finale 2009 Help files caused me all sorts of grief as did the Bresink temp monitor and utilities that used to be included with Toast. I’ve gotten really good at using Google to find the source of weird files — also what’s benign and causes no problems.

Crashing is easier. Now that Apple Support can be called, I do so. The support tech might not know the source of the bad code but at least can give you the name so it can be researched. Since El Cap, when a lot of bad code is now sandboxed, Crashing almost never happens to me.

Freezing is normally caused by memory leaks. Enough RAM and rebooting daily has done it for me.

See this thread for my thoughts on clean installs:
viewtopic.php?f=26&t=64008&start=30
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Re: Advice on New Macs

Post by dreamuse »

Hi there,

I too am looking seriously at either an upgrade to my early 2009 8-core, or buying a new/refurbished machine. Doing a back-of-the-envelope calculation, it seemed like I might be able to get a 12-core machine, and up my overall performance by around 50%. Am I missing something here, folks? If it's "only" (which is big), I'm wondering if I shouldn't wait till december, and jump on an iMac with an i7, assuming it's not too noisy. I've heard things about its fan, and that concerns me.

Thanks for any light you can shed here,

Len
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Re: Advice on New Macs

Post by dix »

The first thing that comes to mind is, what type of interface do you have? iMac's are now USB3 and Thunderbolt only. PCIe I/Os won't work obviously - for that reason, if I were your position, I'd go for the 12-core upgrade. Buying a new Mac for me would also mean buying a new i/o and (unless I bought an Apollo) a UAD Satellite. Very expensive! Also, the new modular-Macs are suppose to show up next year. I'd at least wait until I see what those are about before I bought a new Mac. ...I have the same upgraded 8-core machine that you have btw and it runs well.
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Re: Advice on New Macs

Post by HCMarkus »

dreamuse wrote:Hi there,

I too am looking seriously at either an upgrade to my early 2009 8-core, or buying a new/refurbished machine. Doing a back-of-the-envelope calculation, it seemed like I might be able to get a 12-core machine, and up my overall performance by around 50%. Am I missing something here, folks? If it's "only" (which is big), I'm wondering if I shouldn't wait till december, and jump on an iMac with an i7, assuming it's not too noisy. I've heard things about its fan, and that concerns me.

Thanks for any light you can shed here,

Len
+1 on the upgrade. You will probably bump your CPU horsepower by significantly more than 50% if you go with X5680s or 90s.

viewtopic.php?f=4&t=58848

Just be careful, as your 4,1 dual CPU Mac uses de-lidded CPUs. You can buy pre-de-lidded CPUs OR use a de-lidding service OR DIY de-lid OR use the "tighten until it feels right" approach. Just don't bend those CPU socket pins!

Also, drop in an SSD or two if you haven't already.
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Re: Advice on New Macs

Post by toodamnhip »

I have done the 8 core upgrade. And it did increase my CPU and all in all, went well. But I have having various strange issues with the latest DP 9.51 etc, and waves. And I cannot help but wonder if having upgraded my machine is somehow connected to issues I am having such as relative pitch mode re draw not working right, and waves automation having problems. Are these and other issues due to a 12 core cpu in a machine meant to be 8 core? Do my issues have nothing to do with the upgrade? I don’t know. But it does make me wonder. I do feel if I got some sort of brand new mac, and started from scratch, I’d likely see various issues resolve themselves. This is all highly technical stuff of course. So to know the answers requires technical research beyond my capability. Just sharing my experiences for what they are worth. Some 9.5 users swear their machines are running very well. Others are having problems. I think 9.51 pretty much sucks and has become sluggish on my machine. Is it the machine? Is it Sierra? Who the heck knows.
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Re: Advice on New Macs

Post by bayswater »

dreamuse wrote: ... jump on an iMac with an i7, assuming it's not too noisy. I've heard things about its fan, and that concerns me.
It's not the the fans are especially noisy. During normal operation you can't hear them at all. The problem is the iMac is right in front of you all the time, so when the fans speed up you can't avoid hearing them the way you can with a computer you can put under the desk or in a cabinet.
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