Moving a Mac Pro to a LianLi case

dan_aka_jack · 16 Dec 2007 at 03:38

Hi there,

I'm a long-time Windows user who's seriously thinking of jumping ship. The problem is that I have thousands of pounds invested in PC hardware and software. Not least of which is my lovely Lian Li V2100+ case with 8 x 500GB hard disks.

If I were to buy a Mac Pro, would I be able to move the mobo and the rest of the innerds to my LianLi V2100+ case so I could run up to 12 hard drives in the case?

Many thanks,
Jack

dan_aka_jack · 16 Dec 2007 at 12:06

Hey guys,

Thanks loads for all the replies.

I agree the Mac Pro looks nice and that the case has great air-flow. My reasons for swapping the Mac Pro to a LianLi case is simply to allow me to use more than 12 HDDs (with a PCI-E SATA RAID card) without having to resort to ugly and expensive external HDD enclosures.

Value judgements aside... In principal, is it possible to swap the Mac Pro system to another case or does Apple somehow lock the motherboard into the case? Or is there some sort of sensor which tells the system that it's in a non-certified enclosure?

Also, I should explain that my job is video editing. If I bought a Mac then it would be for fairly intensive video editing so I need a Mac Pro really.

Thanks again,
Jack

dan_aka_jack · 16 Dec 2007 at 12:38

yantorsen said:
well it should work with some case mods, but its not the same form factor, so you will have to do some drilling.

OK, thanks. What form-factor is the Mac Pro mobo? The LianLi v2100 case can take loads of different form factors - it's a very big case!

Thanks,
Jack

dan_aka_jack · 16 Dec 2007 at 12:57

yantorsen said:
it's a unique Apple-only form factor, dunno what it's called.

It's antics like this that have kept me away from Apple for so long. I'm a big fan of open-architecture, standard-compliant stuff. Apple isn't and that really distresses me. I guess I'm just gonna have to learn to live with the straight-jacket that Apple supplies with all its systems.

dan_aka_jack · 16 Dec 2007 at 18:02

Thanks for all the replies. OK, I'm going off the idea of moving the Mac Pro mobo into a new case. Oh well.

EVH said:
This is the dumbest idea I've ever heard of.

If this is true then you've lived a very sheltered life

dan_aka_jack · 16 Dec 2007 at 18:17

VBDub said:
If you have a top end PC, just install OSX on it.
I mate has done it and its ridiculously fast.

This is a very interesting option. Do you, by any chance, know if Final Cut will run on a "non-certified" OSX install?

dan_aka_jack · 16 Dec 2007 at 18:26

electric ant said:
also illegal and hardware support will be patchy at best

Bummer. Thanks for the heads-up though.

I guess I'll be coughing up £1Bn for a moderately-specced Mac Pro + FCP even though I have more then enough processing power sitting under my desk right now. Oh well.

dan_aka_jack · 16 Dec 2007 at 20:34

theheyes said:
I don't quite get how this solves your original problem. You wanted a Mac Pro inside a PC case so you could have more hard drives? Correct?

You would have had to buy a Mac Pro and Final Cut anyway? At least now you'll have two machines instead of one bastardised freak of a PC and a disemboweled Mac Pro husk.

Yeah, you're absolutely right. My only choice is to go out and buy a Mac Pro + FCP + an external HDD array.

I suppose, in my ideal world, I would like to be able to go out and buy an OS X DVD and a Final Cut DVD and tripple-boot my system with WinXP, Linux and Mac OSX. I've invested a lot of money in my PC (quad-core Xeon, 4GB RAM, 2TB RAID10 array, Corsair 750W TX PSU, LianLi case etc etc) so it really stings that I have to go out and buy a very similar box to run Mac OSX on. But, of course, I understand that Apple will never sell OSX on its own because Apple make a lot of profit from their hardware sales and also because Apple's philosophy is "keep the hardware choices very simple to reduce the probability of incompatabilities".

I think I will always have both a Windows box and a Mac box for the foreseeable future and I'll use the most appropriate tool for the job in hand.

Thanks,
Jack

dan_aka_jack · 16 Dec 2007 at 21:08

Caged said:
Why do you have to use Final Cut?

Because I can't keep using Premiere Pro. I've been using PPro for years and there are loads of things I love about it. But it's riddled with bugs. On large projects, it becomes so unstable it's almost unusable. It's putting my professional credibility in jeopardy and that's simply not acceptable. And, also, FCP is used by lots of other London post-production houses so it'll allow me to work with other editors. And I love the look of Color.

More discussion on why I'm fed up with PPro here:

http://forums.creativecow.net/thread/3/879792

Could you not make some money back by selling the PC and moving to a dual-boot Mac Pro?

Yeah, that's a good idea. It'll hurt though. I kinda like my PC and I must have put about 100 hours into building it and getting it just the way I like it. Ho hum.