Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2014/03/10
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]I cancelled my order for the new Mac Pro (probably shouldn't have since I could have sold it for over list on eBay since they seem to be the latest must-have) Mainly since it uses Mavericks which no longer allows me to archive my contacts or diary at home. Whatever else Mavericks has that means I won't use it for my main computer. The second reason has been the noise. I have 3 Drobos which are pretty noisy when they are running. It struck me that having a powerful computer sold partly on its quietness which -needed- noisy external drives and the associated nest of cables to do what it is best at seemed to be missing the point. I would have to buy a fourth Drobo to replace the capacity of the internal drives. I have just kept using my 3,1 which only has the disadvantage of pricey heat-sinked extra RAM. I used to buy a new computer when the replacement would be significantly faster than the one I had. That meant at least twice as fast. On Bare Feats the new Mac Pro is about 5% faster than a top iMac on their tests. I have replaced my Macbook Air with a new i7 processor Macbook Pro 13" which is actually pretty competent. It only has a 2 core i7 processor rather than the 4 core of the fastest iMac, I have bought a thunderbolt to eSata convertor and am in the process of checking if it is sufficiently close in performance on Lightroom for an amateur like me to make the old Mac Pro redundant for this (and use almost half a kilowatt less power!). On 10 Mar, 2014, at 02:05, Dante Stella <dstella1 at ameritech.net> wrote: > 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 > > NO ARCHIVE > > _______________________________________________ > Leica Users Group. > See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information