Just Ordered 32 Gigs of Ram

[jbyerly1]

Any advice out there for smooth install. Found a couple of vids online. Seems simple enough.

The woman I talked with is having me take all the old ram out and install 4 new 8 gig chips

[HCMarkus]

EZ PZ in a Mac Pro. Just discharge static from your body by touching your plugged-into the wall Mac, slide out the daughter board, then handle RAM by edges with care, no shuffling feet.

If you haven't already, why not pop an SSD or two into your 4,1 while yer at it? You can throw one into the optical bay and connect with the cables provided. With a 4,1, you are also a candidate for the "Flash to 5,1 - CPU Upgrade" mod I did. If you ever ht the CPU wall, give it some consideration!

[Radiogal]

EZ PZ in a Mac Pro. Just discharge static from your body by touching your plugged-into the wall Mac, slide out the daughter board, then handle RAM by edges with care, no shuffling feet.

If you haven't already, why not pop an SSD or two into your 4,1 while yer at it? You can throw one into the optical bay and connect with the cables provided. With a 4,1, you are also a candidate for the "Flash to 5,1 - CPU Upgrade" mod I did. If you ever ht the CPU wall, give it some consideration!

HCMarkus. Will any SSD do fine, or do we need to think about some speed limits or something else. Have no idea about the terms and rates with these ones. Thinking of putting one in the optical bay.
Is it possible to boot from there?

Sorry to hijack the post. Hoping the OP might find this to be of interest too.

[kgdrum]

Until HC responds,from my understanding any internal sata drive in the Mac can be a boot drive.

fwiw: I use the empty optical bay for a 2nd sample drive and it works well,I also have boot clone but haven't needed to use it,thankfully!
I have it running off a eSATA card,now I'm wondering if it can boot this way,I guess if i had a failure I can always swap.......

MacPro's like we have can only access 3G(I think that's the term) SSD speeds,it's backwards compatible so you can get a 6G in case in the future you decide to use it with a newer Mac that can support the faster SSD.
HC knows way more about this, preferred brands etc.....
I still use traditional drives but I thought I'd hijack your hijack and give you some info in the meantime.

[HCMarkus]

Until HC responds,from my understanding any internal sata drive in the Mac can be a boot drive.

fwiw: I use the empty optical bay for a 2nd sample drive and it works well,I also have boot clone but haven't needed to use it,thankfully!
I have it running off a eSATA card,now I'm wondering if it can boot this way,I guess if i had a failure I can always swap.......

MacPro's like we have can only access 3G(I think that's the term) SSD speeds,it's backwards compatible so you can get a 6G in case in the future you decide to use it with a newer Mac that can support the faster SSD.
HC knows way more about this, preferred brands etc.....
I still use traditional drives but I thought I'd hijack your hijack and give you some info in the meantime.

KG is right on. Get a SATA 3 SSD (6gb/sec) and it will throttle itself down to the SATA 2 speed your Mac provides. And yes, you can boot from the optical bay SATA connection... that's where my boot drive resides. I actually have two SSDs in the optical bay, having disconnected the optical drive; I use an external CD/DVD burner that sits on my desk, far removed from the Mac Pro machine closet.

As far as drive manufacturers, I can't make a recommendation based on anything other than hearsay and my own limited experience. The Samsung 830/840 have been well-received. I've got a four Intel 330's (one system, one project data, and two VI servers) which are working flawlessly to date. The Samsung does not use a SandForce controller; the Intels do. I got a great deal on the drives I purchased. Price, and pretty good write ups on the Intels, combined to steer my decision.

One thing: If you go with any SSD for a boot drive, I'd consider changing the preference on your web browser so downloads are directed to another drive. No sense in filling precous SSD space with downloads. Same with big photo libraries. Put big data somewhere else, except sample libraries of course. They are very happy being served from SSDs.

I have been running projects off a separate SSD for a while now; it sure is a pleasure opening projects so quickly. Time will tell how that drive holds up to the constant writing and re-writing.

[Radiogal]

Such great posts by KGD and HCMarkus!!! Thank you guys. Veeeeeeeeeeeeeery helpful!! (as aways)

[Michael Canavan]

Any advice out there for smooth install. Found a couple of vids online. Seems simple enough.

The woman I talked with is having me take all the old ram out and install 4 new 8 gig chips

does your Mac Pro have 6 or more RAM slots? If it does consider filling the last two slots with another pair of 8GB sticks. Not for the extra memory, but because the type of RAM it is will benefit from pairs of three. Weird I know but I talked with a couple people at Other World Computing about this and for my machine with 8 slots, the recommendation was 6 identical pieces, either 4, 8, 16GB. This increases the RAMs efficiency and therefore the speed.
Look into it. If you only have four slots you probably have a different type of RAM.

[HCMarkus]

You are right Michael, at least some Mac Pro CPUs access RAM on a triple channel basis. However, my research has caused me to believe the speed difference is nominal and, by reports I have seen, imperceptible to the user. I understand that if one's applications actually use the full 32 Gigs of RAM, more will be gained than will be lost by filling all four slots.

So enjoy all that new RAM jbyerly1 ! And rock your SSDs RG!

[mikehalloran]

I have it running off a eSATA card,now I'm wondering if it can boot this way

Yes. Even iMacs with the eSATA mod (like mine) and MacBooks with an eSATA card can boot from the external.

[kgdrum]

I have it running off a eSATA card,now I'm wondering if it can boot this way

Yes. Even iMacs with the eSATA mod (like mine) and MacBooks with an eSATA card can boot from the external.

Good to know! Thanks

[jbyerly1]

While I'm thinking about it. Is there any reason from DP8 standards to update the video card in these machines. I'm not a gamer. As of this moment I do not have Final Cut Pro but I might soon depending on Future venture.

[HCMarkus]

I can't say I know for sure, but it seems like some of folks' DP8 issues with video may be GPU-related. If you will be running Mountain Lion you can, from what I've read, use certain stock PC GPUs and the drivers are either already present or can be downloaded. This offers some powerful options for a lot less money than an "official" Apple GPU. Do a little hunting 'round Macrumors.com. In the Mac Pro forum, there is a lengthy thread on the topic.

I got my 4,1 with an Apple 5770 (was able to trade in the original card, so paid only $150), and have been using DP7 with three monitors with no issues, as long as I turn the monitors on before I boot the Mac. If I boot first, I get occasional flickers on one of my display port-connected monitors.

[kgdrum]

I can't say I know for sure, but it seems like some of folks' DP8 issues with video may be GPU-related. If you will be running Mountain Lion you can, from what I've read, use certain stock PC GPUs and the drivers are either already present or can be downloaded. This offers some powerful options for a lot less money than an "official" Apple GPU. Do a little hunting 'round Macrumors.com. In the Mac Pro forum, there is a lengthy thread on the topic.

I got my 4,1 with an Apple 5770 (was able to trade in the original card, so paid only $150), and have been using DP7 with three monitors with no issues, as long as I turn the monitors on before I boot the Mac. If I boot first, I get occasional flickers on one of my display port-connected monitors.

That's very interesting info about being able to use stock PC GPU's,I never heard about this!
I really don't have any noticeable issues to speak of,I use only 2 monitors,don't do film work and my use is on not very demanding by most standards on the lighter side.
But thanks for the tip will search for this, it sounds interesting.
If I can update to a newer card without spending the kind of money a 5770 goes for I'd be more inclined to do so.
Thanks,