Mac pro migration?

Darryn

Darryn

Darryn

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Colne.... Up Norf.
Im looking at buying a full new rig and im thinking about going the MacPro route.... ive not used a mac for many years so ive got some questions.

Im off to have a look at them tomorrow, but I fully expect the staff to lie to me as they are trying to sell it to me.


Will it work with my existing wired network, as in will I be able to setup shared drives on it, and assess the shared drives on my other pcs from it?

Upgrades, I will I be able to buy ram and HDD upgrades from OcUK rather then paying the stupidly high Apple prices?

What the hell is bootcamp?

Why are they so damn cheap for a quad core based computer?

Sorry if this exact thread has been posted before, but ive searched and cannot see any of the questions answered.
 
I'm not fully qualified to answer these questions, but I'll answer them to the best of my knowledge...

DreederOcUK said:
Im off to have a look at them tomorrow, but I fully expect the staff to lie to me as they are trying to sell it to me.
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You won't get anything of the sort! From my experience at least, staff there are more than helpful, and usually know a thing or two about the products they are selling, which is nice. I don't think you'll have any problems with just going in to check it out, and I'm sure the staff there would be happy to advise you even in the knowledge that you won't be making a purchase then and there.

DreederOcUK said:
Will it work with my existing wired network, as in will I be able to setup shared drives on it, and assess the shared drives on my other pcs from it?
Click to expand...
It will work with any existing wired network just like any other Windows computer. I can't vouch for shared drives or anything of the sort, but I'm sure others will be able to.

DreederOcUK said:
Upgrades, I will I be able to buy ram and HDD upgrades from OcUK rather then paying the stupidly high Apple prices?
Click to expand...
I believe you can purchase the required RAM elsewhere (although it could be high-end stuff which is difficult to acquire). The hard drives, I believe are an Apple-specific design (much like the xserve RAID). The caddys in which they fit are specially designed, at least.

DreederOcUK said:
What the hell is bootcamp?
Click to expand...
Bootcamp is a free application from Apple which allows you to run multiple operating systems on your Mac (Windows, linux etc.). With bootcamp installed you are presented with a choice of which operating system you would like to use on startup, and aside from the boot process these operating systems run natively on the new intel hardware.

DreederOcUK said:
Why are they so damn cheap for a quad core based computer?
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Prices have dropped considerably, Apple have a close relationship with intel and have large purchasing power.

av. :)
 
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The hard drives, I believe are an Apple-specific design (much like the xserve RAID). The caddys in which they fit are specially designed, at least.
Click to expand...

Normal HDD's will be fine. At least the PowerMac G5's here at work take standard SATA ones. Also with a Mac Pro you'll need FB-DIMMS which are hard to come by and rather expensive (I think).

edit - shared drives are fine too :)
 
Thanks for the answers,

The specific Apple HDD is an issue for me £270 for £170 worth of 500gb HD, I need a lot of storage and already have 3.4tb of network attached HDD storage space, I just need confirmation about the shared network drives, if I can keep using my current HDDs and simply using the mac internal drives for OS, apps and scratch disk id be happy.


Edit.... thanks firebar, thats just the information I was looking for... woohoo.... looks like I best take my wallet with me tomorrow.
 
Checkout anandtech (http://anandtech.com/mac/showdoc.aspx?i=2816) for a partial review of the MacPro. Seems to use standard SATA drives to me.

The RAM is a real problem and it's expensive everywhere right now.

I've been to a few Apple Stores here and in the States and they are far more knowledgeable than other PC outlets but they don't know everything and if you are fairly knowledgeable they can seem a bit lacking. There's also a hint of the Apple smugness (or whatever it is) and they love to push the myth of constantly crashing, virus riddled PCs which I find a bit tiresome. Just my experience.

Nevertheless I'm seriously looking at a 2GB/ 2.66GHZ /7300GT for my 3D stuff right now. Can't get that sort of floating point horsepower anywhere else for the price.
 
Thanks for the help guys, the Apple guys were really helpful and even carried the box out to the car for me, im typing this on my new toy. :D

2.66ghz / 1gb / 250gb / 7300gt

Its beautiful, Ill be getting 4gb of Crucial FBDimm in the next few days and a couple of 500gb SATAII drives from OcUK.

I also bought Photoshop CS2 and Aperture. Now I just need to learn how to use this thing, it took me 15minutes to find how to open the CD drawer. :eek:
 
I would hold off on the crucial memory, i've heard rumours that crucial have decertified their fb-dimms for the mac pro as they've seen issues on test systems
 
Cheers for the advice, ive now bought 3x 500gb SATAII drives and XP-pro SP2 to run under bootcamp.

One thing that has annoyed me, but, its my own fault, is that Photoshop CS2 is running under ppc emulation, so im not really getting the best out of it, it appears id have been better of buying a Windows release of CS2 and using that under XP. No doubt when Adobe release a MacIntel version it will cost me an arm and a leg to upgrade. :(
 
Crucial seem to have relisted there MacPro ram again, ive currently got 1gb (2x 512mb) and I want 4gb total, I believe from what ive read im best having 4 stick of 1gb each and selling off my original 1gb, as the FB-Dimms work best in matched pairs and optimum with 4 sticks.

Can anyone confirm this before I buy? thanks. OSX rocks, btw.
 
Ive not noticed any HD performance issues under XP, that said, ive not used XP much at all and im thinking about removing the XP partition (30gb) as ive not actually found anything I cannot do in OSX that I can in XP.
 
I did used to play PS, but, I havent been playing anything for a while. Also with just a 7300GT im not really in a position to play any 3d type games.
 
DreederOcUK said:
I also bought Photoshop CS2 and Aperture.
Click to expand...
Why did you buy Aperture?
Unless it's been fixed, I'd heard that some of the RAW conversion was a bit iffy :(
Shame, because it's a nice looking product (and Universal Binary too).

I've got Adobe Lightroom. UB as well, but currently only a beta. Having said that, it's free! The Photoshop thing is an issue though. I've got GIMP installed, and I'm having real issues in trying to get a feel of how it works.

On my PC, I used Photoshop Elements 4 (plus Premiere Elements 2). I've got used to the way Adobe does things... so I'm looking at maybe just going for Photoshop Elements 4 (for Mac) and taking the performance hit (I suppose I could install Bootcamp, and stick my Images on a FAT32 partition and do additional editing in there with Windows Adobe Elements 4.... just a problem then with the workflow as I would still want to use Lightroom as the organiser). I don't tend to do much editing anyway... as most of the other adjustments can be done in Adobe Lightroom. Will be getting myself a copy of Final Cut Express though.. to do my video editing. Lovely!!! Just waiting to get back to Japan (from Australia), as it's about 75 quid cheaper there.


Anyway, enjoy the Mac experience. It's been a month since I switched (to my MacBook Pro), and I'm loving it.
 
I bought Aperture as an impulse buy whilst waiting in the Apple shop, ive not noticed any RAW conversion issues but I havent used it much yet, Ive tried the Lightroom beta under Windows XP and didnt like it, but as its free (as I bought RSP) I will get it another try.
 
DreederOcUK said:
No doubt when Adobe release a MacIntel version it will cost me an arm and a leg to upgrade. :(
Click to expand...

Adobe are normally quite good with their upgrade prices - £99 might be the price for a Photoshop upgrade.

And as for folder sharing - does OS X do this through Samba to enable Windows PCs to connect?
 
Sharknose said:
Why did you buy Aperture?
Unless it's been fixed, I'd heard that some of the RAW conversion was a bit iffy :(
Shame, because it's a nice looking product (and Universal Binary too).

I've got Adobe Lightroom. UB as well, but currently only a beta. Having said that, it's free! The Photoshop thing is an issue though. I've got GIMP installed, and I'm having real issues in trying to get a feel of how it works.

On my PC, I used Photoshop Elements 4 (plus Premiere Elements 2). I've got used to the way Adobe does things... so I'm looking at maybe just going for Photoshop Elements 4 (for Mac) and taking the performance hit (I suppose I could install Bootcamp, and stick my Images on a FAT32 partition and do additional editing in there with Windows Adobe Elements 4.... just a problem then with the workflow as I would still want to use Lightroom as the organiser). I don't tend to do much editing anyway... as most of the other adjustments can be done in Adobe Lightroom. Will be getting myself a copy of Final Cut Express though.. to do my video editing. Lovely!!! Just waiting to get back to Japan (from Australia), as it's about 75 quid cheaper there.

Anyway, enjoy the Mac experience. It's been a month since I switched (to my MacBook Pro), and I'm loving it.
Click to expand...

Aperture issues were fixed with 1.1 ages ago when they made it universal, it's as good as anything out there now, I tried the lightroom beta beforehand but it's nothing like as capable
 
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