[Leica] Slightly OT: New Mac Pro for photo editing? Also whisk[e]y. -DAS

[dstella1 at ameritech.net (Dante Stella)]

Hi all -

Some questions for the hive mind:

1.      For people who have actually used it, how is the new (late 2013) Mac 
Pro? I need to upgrade my model 1,1 - not in the least because it is 7 years 
old, draws a ton of power and is not capable of upgrading to 10.8 or 10.9.  
For context, I edit a ton of 500mb scans using Photoshop and Lightroom, and 
some of these renders are now taking 5-10 seconds (as in enlarging from LR 
preview to 100% to dust spot). M240 (DNG) renders are faster, but it still 
takes a while to do previews for a whole card.

2.      What of mass storage? - I have 8Tb of internal storage right now, 
and that much SSD capacity would cost as much as a HAL9000 and the Discovery 
spaceship it came in.  I have looked at Drobo 5D and the Sinology 
equivalent.  It seems that the Sy has some issues with sleep/waking. Are 
these units reliable enough to omit Time Machine/NAS backups? Is a 5T with 
the mCard fast enough to use in real time?

3.      For photo editing, there any limitation in the system that would 
make a 27" iMac an equally good choice? I'm willing to drop $3-4K for the 
pro model - but what I don't want to do is find out that Lightroom or PS is 
bottlenecked at a software level such that an i7 machine would do.

4.      Any issues with Firewire devices via the Thunderbolt adapter? I'm 
thinking of a Nikon LS-8000 or a Sprintscan 120.

5.      How annoying is it to have an external DVD drive? Where else do you 
get nickel and dimed with the Pro?

6.      If my 1.25-year-old daughter likes putting things in the trash 
(notably small toys, car keys, USB drives and SD card readers), does the Mac 
Pro look sufficiently like a trash can to act as a decoy receptacle?

Now two questions about whisk[e]y:

1.      If I like McGill (I inherited a few bottles from my grandfather), 
where can I get some more? If it is defunct, what's the closest Canadian 
whiskey?

2.      As to this bottle of Johnny Walker Green whisky (no e) that has been 
staring at me from the bar ever since my birthday, is this something you 
drink straight? Rocks? I do know that Red has to be mixed and that Black is 
drinkable with ice. I would have to imagine that 15-year blended whisky has 
to be drinkable as-is.

Thanks!
Dante

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