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I am finally going to upgrade from DP 7.2.4 on a G5 PPC Mac to an Intel 5,1 Mac.

The machine I am looking at is 3.46GHz 6-Core, 32gb RAM, OS 10.10 Will that be enough for DP 8 or 9 ? If not, what spec should I go up to ?

VIs I will be running are Vienna orchestras, MachFive 2, possibly up to 3, XLN Addictive drums, LXP Native, so tracks counts for full symphony orchestra with extra percussion here and there, few plug-ins ?

Can you use the G5 to farm out the VIs? Whether or not that is necessary it would really depend on how dense your projects are. You should be fine for most things. 32GB RAM is quite sufficient, especially since you'll be in a multi-core environment.

What you should when instantiating a sample heavy and/or heavily scripted VI patch is put it in it's OWN instance of the VI. IOW, one VI per complex instrument. You can put multiple, less demanding patches in other instances of the VI. DP will assign each VI instance to a different core, so the load is spread between the cores and the result is a much more efficient use of the power in the machine.

Thanks goes to Magic Dave for pointing that out in an older thread.

Like MLC above, I also went from a G5 to an Intel Mac.

The savings on your electric bill will make it highly unlikely that you'll ever plug in your G5 again once you've ported everything over. Otherwise, what he said.

You are going to be tempted to just take your drives out of one machine and put it into the other to shortcut the changeover. Depending on what you have installed, this will actually take more time and involve more headaches than a fresh install of the OS and porting everything over via Migration Assistant or Time Machine. Migration Assistant over Ethernet will be the fastest way to do this.

Deactivate any internet based licenses on the G5 first to save time. ILok won't be an issue.

It is not supported, of course, but DP 7.24 installs and works fine in OS 10.11, btw. Since there are some changes such as the Trim plugin, it's a good idea to have it working and makes the transition easier between 7.24 and DP 8/9 for some projects. You will need your install CD to authorize on the new Mac but, having moved your projects over via TM or MA, they should just fire up. Some 32bit only 3rd party plugins may not behave properly after OS 10.8—lots of threads and some workarounds for that on these boards.

If you decide to do a clean install and copy things over instead, it is imperative that you zip (compress or archive in the File menu) your DP project folders on the G5 first. This will avoid permission and privileges issues that might keep your files from opening properly on your Mac Pro. This is a good idea with MS Office and all other other user files. Not necessary if Time Machine or Migration Assistant is used.

I made the same move about 4 years ago... loved the Quad G5, but the Mac Pro running DP8 64 bit simply blew the G5 out of the water and I never looked back. I'm currently running hardware identical to that you propose with DP8.07 under Mountain Lion (10.8 last version) and enjoying very stable and responsive performance.

A couple of thoughts:

See this thread for info on CPU upgrades you can do yourself:

http://www.motunation.com/forum/viewtop ... =4&t=58848

If you buy a Mac as you describe, someone has already done the upgrade; the 3.46gHz hex CPU was never Apple original equipment. Make sure that if you are paying for a 2010 or 2012 (5,1) you are not getting a 2009 that has been upgraded. Nothing wrong with a 2009 4,1>5,1, but you should pay less than you would for a true 5,1.

Go SSD for boot/application, work drive and VI sample drive! You all not regret it. Use spinners for backups. For a little extra speed bump, install a SATA3 PCIe card for SSDs that are streaming data. Boot drive won't make much difference SATA2 or 3 due to small random reads and writes that don't saturate the SATA2 buss. Or spring for PCIe SSD for ultimate speed.

Older plugins will need to be updated to 64 bit compatible versions. Running DP 64 bit is a must when using VIs, to avoid memory constraints quashing your joy.

Same here -- G5 to i7 some years ago. I planned to keep using the G5 for plugins, but the difference in power between the two Macs is so large, the G5 adds so little to the capability of the i7 by itself, it is not worth powering up the G5. I do still use it to host a UAD-1 now and then.

FWIW, I've managed to do a 61 track orchestral piece on my Mac, and the model you have in mind is much more powerful.

bayswater wrote:Same here -- G5 to i7 some years ago. I planned to keep using the G5 for plugins, but the difference in power between the two Macs is so large, the G5 adds so little to the capability of the i7 by itself, it is not worth powering up the G5. I do still use it to host a UAD-1 now and then.

FWIW, I've managed to do a 61 track orchestral piece on my Mac, and the model you have in mind is much more powerful.

I have a similar setup and agree 100%. The Mac Pro you are looking at has a lot more horsepower.

Go SSD for boot/application, work drive and VI sample drive! You all not regret it. Use spinners for backups. For a little extra speed bump, install a SATA3 PCIe card for SSDs that are streaming data. Boot drive won't make much difference SATA2 or 3 due to small random reads and writes that don't saturate the SATA2 buss. Or spring for PCIe SSD for ultimate speed.

Older plugins will need to be updated to 64 bit compatible versions. Running DP 64 bit is a must when using VIs, to avoid memory constraints quashing your joy.

Oh yea.

Thank you everyone for your advice

I have a couple of questions about moving my DP project files

Deactivate any internet based licenses on the G5 first to save time. ILok won't be an issue.

.....

If you decide to do a clean install and copy things over instead, it is imperative that you zip (compress or archive in the File menu) your DP project folders on the G5 first. This will avoid permission and privileges issues that might keep your files from opening properly on your Mac Pro. This is a good idea with MS Office and all other other user files. Not necessary if Time Machine or Migration Assistant is used.

My plan is a clean install in the new Mac then connect to the G5 PPC and move the DP project files using MA - which means I won't need to zip them all first ? Is it that the zipping is only necessary when the files are copied under OS ?

Can I just plug in all my USB keys into the new mac ?

Gone To Lunch wrote:Thank you everyone for your advice

I have a couple of questions about moving my DP project files

Deactivate any internet based licenses on the G5 first to save time. ILok won't be an issue.

.....

If you decide to do a clean install and copy things over instead, it is imperative that you zip (compress or archive in the File menu) your DP project folders on the G5 first. This will avoid permission and privileges issues that might keep your files from opening properly on your Mac Pro. This is a good idea with MS Office and all other other user files. Not necessary if Time Machine or Migration Assistant is used.

My plan is a clean install in the new Mac then connect to the G5 PPC and move the DP project files using MA - which means I won't need to zip them all first ? Is it that the zipping is only necessary when the files are copied under OS ?

Can I just plug in all my USB keys into the new mac ?

Yes to both questions. MA will deal with the files. I suppose its possible the content of some USB keys will have to be updated but they don't need to be altered in any way.

I would not do a clean install and use Migration Assistant. MA will pull over any old crap associated with your files—kind of defeats the purpose.

You can zip (archive/compress) the contents of your entire user data folders such as Documents, Music, Pictures, Desktop etc. and just move them over. Go into the folder, Select All from the Edit menu. I know that the current OS calls it Compress; I think it was called Archive in 10.5 — I don't remember. Move the entire Archive.zip into the same folder on the new machine, double-click to unzip. Drag all the files from your Archive folder to the top level. Now trash the Archive.zip on both machines and Empty to free up disk space. If you don't have enough space on the G5 drive, then do this in smaller bites.

The reason to do this is that zipping and unzipping grants you privileges and permissions to work your own files on your new machine. DP and Word will give you grief if this is not done. Yes, MA and Time machine don't require zipping but it takes longer and, well... I wouldn't do it if already doing a clean install.

While you can copy user data, file by file, from Time Machine, it takes a long time. Been there, done that due to a bug in Mavericks (fixed in 10.9.5) and it took three days. Still, as long as Time Machine was indexed (some people disable this—a bad idea}, this can be done— nice to know.

I don't believe in clean installs. When I had to do one in 2014 because of the Mavericks bug, it was my first in nearly 25 years (since my Mac+ to my 6200) and I wasn't happy to be doing it. After I was done, my new system was about 350G lighter so it wasn't a bad thing. Still, I was happy putting it off forever.

I did a clean install when moving from PPC to Intel. There were so many upgrades to do anyway, it just seemed like a good idea to make a fresh start.

Note on authorization: I recently bought and upgraded a second Mac Pro 4,1 to 5,1 hex status, this time going with the 90 series Xeon CPU (W3690 or X5690), as opposed to my original 80 series upgrade. Since the CPU trays on the two Macs are interchangeable, I moved the new, slightly faster CPU tray and RAM to my studio machine. Out of all the software I have installed, only BFD2 required me to reauthorize, apparently sensing the new CPU as a new computer. In order to get it all to go, I had to deauthorize then reauthorize BFD.

Thanks once again, I have more questions....

I would not do a clean install and use Migration Assistant. MA will pull over any old crap associated with your files—kind of defeats the purpose.

I have to do clean install as the new Mac Pro is supplied without drives, so I have to take out the drives from 10.5.8 G5 then reformat them under 10.11 in the Mac Pro

You can zip (archive/compress) the contents of your entire user data folders such as Documents, Music, Pictures, Desktop etc. and just move them over. Go into the folder, Select All from the Edit menu. I know that the current OS calls it Compress; I think it was called Archive in 10.5 — I don't remember. Move the entire Archive.zip into the same folder on the new machine, double-click to unzip. Drag all the files from your Archive folder to the top level. Now trash the Archive.zip on both machines and Empty to free up disk space. If you don't have enough space on the G5 drive, then do this in smaller bites.

So I can zip at the level of the holding folder, I don’t have to zip each DP project file ?

Yes, MA and Time machine don't require zipping but it takes longer and, well... I wouldn't do it if already doing a clean install.

Why not ? I don’t mind how long it takes, I just want to be able to open the projects in DP on the MacPro - would you recommending zipping as the best approach ?

Do you have a Time Machne backup of your system?

No, I don't have a TM back up

Ok. Do you have a backup at all? If so, how?

You can't take the drives form one machine to another and do a clean install unless you can pull the files from something else.

What am I missing?

Ok. Do you have a backup at all? If so, how?

You can't take the drives form one machine to another and do a clean install unless you can pull the files from something else.

What am I missing?

All the files are backed up on external drives and dropbox, And I have now zipped them as well. Zipped BUs on the same external drives.