[dantewaters]

Will be getting a Macpro this month (quad core or 8 core)


Ordering base model of Macpro and adding the ATI x1900 and dropping the internal drive to 160gig.

I already have 1 500gig, and I'll buy the 2gigs from crucial or Smalldog.

Will also order a 24" from Dell
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Price will be the deciding factor in the end. All the funds will be coming from a business
partner so whenever he gives me go it will happen (more than likely online ordering).

Anyway I'm concern with render times/DVD encoding (to decrease them) which would be best:

RAID thinking of 3 500gigs in a 0 stripped array (only concern though is a harddrive failure)

RAM Adding more than 2gigs (want 4gigs but will have to add as time progresses) I also noted from this site that buying 1gigs sticks are the best move (low latency/high bandwidth).

[Naaaaak]

The RAID 0 array sounds dangerous. I hope you keep good backups. It really sucks we can't do RAID 5 in software (although I think some 3rd party app might be able to). I suppose you could get a PCI-e RAID card and keep a hard drive rack on top of your case for a hardware RAID 5 solution, but I find that too much external stuff to keep around.

For 4 GB of RAM you are correct in that buying in 1 GB sticks is the way to go. The optimal configuration is 4 of the RAM slots filled. Make sure you get RAM with an actual heatsink attached and not a heat spreader. Apple and I think RamJet are the only people I know who offer a really high quality heatsink (I think OWC uses one too, but it looks funky to me). If you go third party be sure to run some hardcore RAM tests with Rember.

Just note that Dell's 24" uses an S-PVA panel not an S-IPS. Whether this matters to you I don't know. I personally find S-PVA panels great for LCD TVs but demand S-IPS panels for comp monitors. You might want to hold off on the finality of this decision until after Macworld (I really hope Apple announces new displays). But it sucks that there are so few choices for LCDs in the 23" - 24" range.

I'm not sure what the BTO price for the X1900 is; you could end up saving money finding one aftermarket on eBay or something and then flashing it. This is something I am considering doing (I ordered back when the pros were first announced and didn't want to wait 6 weeks for the BTO X1900). I'm really hoping Apple offers a new high end card with their next update (Nvidia 8800 or soon to be shipping ATI R600); paying $400 aftermarket for an X1900 is just NOT worth it.

[Thade]

great advice on the display Naaaaak. You know your monitors well Any feedback on the gateway 24" ? I'm in the same boat. I also ordered an X1900XT on eBay for 230.00 shipped to be flashed. We'll see how it goes...

[dantewaters]

I looked up the S-PVA and S-IPS What is the major difference what would I be losing?


Also I think Crucial's ram is spot on with regards to working with Macpros. What is RAID 5
is it striped mirrored? 3drives working as 1 with 3 others as back up?

But isn't the ati $250 from apple?
I'm quite sure the new Macpros will be a bit more money.

[dantewaters]

Originally Posted by Thade 

great advice on the display Naaaaak. You know your monitors well Any feedback on the gateway 24" ? I'm in the same boat. I also ordered an X1900XT on eBay for 230.00 shipped to be flashed. We'll see how it goes...

What's the difference here with the monitors?

[Thade]

Originally Posted by dantewaters 

I looked up the S-PVA and S-IPS What is the major difference what would I be losing?


Also I think Crucial's ram is spot on with regards to working with Macpros. What is RAID 5
is it striped mirrored? 3drives working as 1 with 3 others as back up?

But isn't the ati $250 from apple?
I'm quite sure the new Macpros will be a bit more money.

True, 250 addl as BTO option but a bit pricier as a stand alone/upgrade card

[rehoot]

I have four hard drives and 4GB of RAM. 2GB of RAM might be just enough to run at full speed, but if you but 3rd party RAM, your warranty might not be good (there are posts on this forum about that).

I run 2 drives in RAID 0 and 2 in RAID 1 with many partitions. On the RAID 1, I have a partition for the operating system and most documents, I then have a big partition that serves as a backup for some of the RAID 0. I can then run quick backups to the other drives. On the RAID 0, I have a big partition for audio and video, and another partition that is a second boot volume in the event that I have problems with the main boot volume. I also run an external archive process daily (or more) to run incremental backups and an external mirror of my main documents.

This might be a good option for you so that you have the safety of RAID 1 on you main drive and a faster RAID 0 for video. You could create scripts to send quick copies of certain RAID 0 folders to the extra partition on the RAID 1 so that your risk is reduced. ALSO, you should get a spare hard drive so that you can swap the RAID 1 if you should ever lose a disk. If one of the drives failed, you could drop to using the mirrored drive alone, or you could pop in a new drive and be mirrored once again.

[Naaaaak]

Originally Posted by Thade 

great advice on the display Naaaaak. You know your monitors well Any feedback on the gateway 24"?

Nothing to report on the Gateway model. If I see it in person I'll try stuff out and let you know.

Originally Posted by Thade 

I'm in the same boat. I also ordered an X1900XT on eBay for 230.00 shipped to be flashed. We'll see how it goes...

I will be interested to hear your results. Be sure to post a thread when you do this. I was actually tracking this one (w/Accelero-2) but opted not to bid. I'm going to see if they offer any new BTO or aftermarket GPUs at Macworld and if not I'll find another (I doubt it but I can wait anyway).

Originally Posted by dantewaters 

What's the difference here with the monitors?

This thread on HardOCP explains the generalities of panel types nicely. You may also want to read some threads on Dell and other vendors on that forum and research any particular issues with the model you are looking at. I found through trying various LCDs (and paying some restocking fees) that I am really sensitive to more accurate colors when working up close. For me, monitors with S-IPS panels displayed colors as I expected them to appear. I think it all largely depends on what type of monitor you are used to using and what you expect from your next one; what improvements you want and what changes you can live with.

[nspire]

Hi guys!
I'm new to RAID and have no clue how it works?!
What are the benefits to having multiple drives and setting them to RAID

[Cadaver]

Originally Posted by Thade 

I also ordered an X1900XT on eBay for 230.00 shipped to be flashed. We'll see how it goes...

I seriously would have held off on that.

Since we're all expecting refreshed Mac Pro models, it would not be a stretch to think that the graphics card options would also be refreshed. Potentially X1950 XTs, nVidia GeForce 8800s, etc...

[Cadaver]

Originally Posted by nspire 

Hi guys!
I'm new to RAID and have no clue how it works?!
What are the benefits to having multiple drives and setting them to RAID

Wikipedia article on RAID.

[rehoot]

Originally Posted by nspire 

Hi guys!
I'm new to RAID and have no clue how it works?!
What are the benefits to having multiple drives and setting them to RAID

RAID 1 means that your computer will write the exact same information to two drives at once. If one drive fails, you can drop on of the copies and continue running on the one good drive. Your Mac Pro can do this for you.

RAID 0 (also called "striped") means that multiple drives are grouped together so that they run faster. For example, if you take 4 drives and put them in a RAID 0 it might run 2-4 times faster than a single drive. The risk is that if one of the drives fails, you lose all of your data. Your Mac Pro can do this for you.

There is also RAID 5 that requires a special card but that combines striping and redundancy. If you had 4 drives, the computer would stripe data across three of them and put some "check digit" information on the other so that if you lose any single drive, you can recover without any data lose (it's a bit more complicated than that, but that is the effect). There is some more overhead involved with this, and you need to buy some extra hardware, but it is what big companies use.

There are other types of RAID, but those are the major types.

[Thade]

Originally Posted by Cadaver 

I seriously would have held off on that.

Since we're all expecting refreshed Mac Pro models, it would not be a stretch to think that the graphics card options would also be refreshed. Potentially X1950 XTs, nVidia GeForce 8800s, etc...

true but easy enough to resell. I'm counting the minutes

[nspire]

Originally Posted by rehoot 

RAID 1 means that your computer will write the exact same information to two drives at once. If one drive fails, you can drop on of the copies and continue running on the one good drive. Your Mac Pro can do this for you.

RAID 0 (also called "striped") means that multiple drives are grouped together so that they run faster. For example, if you take 4 drives and put them in a RAID 0 it might run 2-4 times faster than a single drive. The risk is that if one of the drives fails, you lose all of your data. Your Mac Pro can do this for you.

There is also RAID 5 that requires a special card but that combines striping and redundancy. If you had 4 drives, the computer would stripe data across three of them and put some "check digit" information on the other so that if you lose any single drive, you can recover without any data lose (it's a bit more complicated than that, but that is the effect). There is some more overhead involved with this, and you need to buy some extra hardware, but it is what big companies use.

There are other types of RAID, but those are the major types.

Originally Posted by Cadaver 

Wikipedia article on RAID.

rehoot, thank you for a thorough explanation.
Appreciate it!