New Mac Pro for FCPX

Hi,
I have posted this on the hardware forum, but since I have to do my shopping tomorrow morning before I go back home (where I can't anything on the list) I am posting here hoping that someone helps:

I just got a new Mac Pro 6 core 3.5GHz 16GB ram etc.

MONITOR(s)
I am now hunting for a monitor (or should I get 2?)...
What are the options?
Everything I find is HDMI output...is this ok? I though thunderbolt was the way to go.

Hard Drives(s)
It comes with a tiny 256GB hd (I don't get it...why such a machine has such a small hd).
But, for external drives for video, should I get USD3 drives or thunderbolt? What are the pros and cons?

Offer is limited here. So here is what's available:
www.dionwired.co.za/monitors.html
www.istoreonline.co.za/category/83/desktop-hard-drives
www.incredible.co.za/category/1206/storage/
www.dionwired.co.za/portable-storage.html/?p=1

One more thing. Should I upgrade ram to 24 or 32? Would it help a lot?

Thank you in advance.
joni

There are some good Dell monitors which have Display ports. Going from Thunderbolt (with miniDisplay) to Display adaptor is an easy way to go.

When thinking about monitors it's not just inches but pixels. I"d recommend at least 2560 x 1440 but 4K would be good if you can afford it.

I think two monitors really helps with screen real estate. It allows you to display video or library full screen on one monitor.

For additional drive space I purchased an OWC Thunderbay 4 using it as JBOD. That gives me 4 drives much like the old MacPro. Since that's all on one TB port, and it has pass through, it doesn't tie up ports.

The New Mac Pro, while it has 4 USB3 ports, they're all on one bus so I reserve them for other uses such as card reader and client supplied USB3 drives.

Hi Joni,
Congratulations on your new MP.
You don't say what type on video you edit. System requirements for 4/5K is very different than HD. Also do you shoot with multiple cameras? Here is article by Larry Jordan on configuring your system… www.larryjordan.biz/app_bin/wordpress/archives/2559

If you shoot 4K, then you might want to consider a 4K equivalent monitor (pixel to pixel), and very speedy RAID external drive units.
I do like to work off at least a couple of monitors. One can be high resolution for playback, while the other can be lower res for libraries, etc…

Cseeman is somewhat correct in that the MP xeon CPU does not natively support USB3, so Apple fudged a work around off the PCIe (PCH) chips. Bottom line is USB3 is hampered and limited in the current nMP. In fact the rMBPs have better USB3 implementation using the i7 CPUs. Your MP should be able to achieve around 420MB/s via USB3. Is that fast enough for the work you do?
See this article by DigLloyd… macperformanceguide.com/MacPro2013-Thund...erformance-tips.html

Be careful when plugging in to the Thunderbolt Ports as while there are 6 ports, they share 3 buses and the way Apple configured them is confusing. Wish they had just paired the ports per bus horizontally. Also the bottom 2 ports share band width with the HDMI port.

Get as much 3rd party ram as you can afford! 16GB is getting to be a minimum, 64GB not overkill in some situations.

Hope this helps, Greg

I do 1080, 2K, 4K on an Apple 27" t'bolt display, and am perfectly happy with it. No compatibility issues, no headaches, just works, and looks great. Your mileage may vary. I'm on a latt 2013 MP, 3GHz 8-core, dual D700s, external P2, very happy, even with 4K.

Thank you guys. And sorry for the lack of details.

I shoot 1080 and should stay at this res for the next year or so. But the move to 4k feels inevitable...But for now 1080 is what I need this MP to deal with!!!

My main project now is a 90 minute documentary.
I also do a lot of multicam work: concerts & music videos.
I am just getting into video as my main area is music & audio :woohoo:

I don;t mind getting one or two 4K monitors. Budget is not the main issue here.
I just can't decide on which ones to get: which i/o connection should I get???

On the HD side, I am only finding USB3 hard drives. The only Thunderbolt drive I found is the 2TB WD portable one (which I own one already).
Would really like get some very speedy RAID external drive units. Where can I buy these online? And which ones do you recommend?

Please advise on where to get ram only as I would like to go all the way up to 64GB.

thanks
joni

Promise P2, I'm very happy with it. Otherworldcomputing (dot com) makes some really nice ones, also.

Hi Joni,
As to monitors, there are several out there and more all the time. Dell makes some nice monitors, ASUS, even Monoprice has a fairly nice IPS large display. I would first decide the type of display technology (IPS) and then resolution and size and wouldn't worry too much about the I/O port.
TB and HDMI will both support up to 4K. ThunderBolt incorporates Display Port so if Display Port is the I/O for the monitor, a simple adapter is all you need. For that matter, there are TB adapters for most I/O ports.
If going 5K or greater, then there are problems with the nMP. This could be resolved by Apple later, I think, via software/firmware updates. Currently, I think it will only support 4K res. See this article… barefeats.com/mpt5k.html
The current HDMI port on the nMP does not support 5K.

As to the media storage issue…
There is a growing number of hardware RAID enclosures using TB1/2. Promise Pegasus, OWC, G-Tech, and now StarTech all make various models with up to 8 bays. The type of RAID configurations differ between models, so you need to decide what flavor of RAID you want.
BareFeats also has some reviews on RAID enclosures.

Several manufactures do not allow you to swap drives in the enclosure without violating the warranty. I really dislike this and personally wouldn't buy their products for this reason alone.

You can also use non RAID multi-bay enclosures and create software based RAIDs. There are pros and cons to hardware vs software RAID. Hardware RAIDS are generally faster, but if the enclosure fails, you need an exact duplicate to recover your data.
Apple's Disk Utility does not do RAID5 but there is now a software RAID 5 solution.
Please be advised that no matter what RAID you use, you should have separate drives as back-up. RAID is not back-up.

Ram for the nMP is also becoming more available from different dealers. IMHO I would steer clear of eBay sales and go with a reputable company like OWC… eshop.macsales.com/shop/memory/Mac-Pro-Memory#1866-memory
The are other reputable companies as well.
Guess you can install up to 128GB if your wallet is starting to weigh your pants down.
Yes it will help when you have heavy usage. Running multiple apps also uses ram.
Not sure about this, but, the nMP has 4 ram slots, if your mac comes configured using only 2 slots, you can populate the remaining slots with ram chips even with different capacity(??) Recommend you research this statement first. If I am correct, then you could just buy a couple of chips (2x32GB) and see if you need more memory. This would be on top of your Apple 16GB memory.
Hope this helps, Greg

Schwalbach wrote: ....
On the HD side, I am only finding USB3 hard drives. The only Thunderbolt drive I found is the 2TB WD portable one (which I own one already)...Would really like get some very speedy RAID external drive units. Where can I buy these online? And which ones do you recommend?...

Below are some possibilities. In general I suggest going with whatever you perceive to be the best one, not the cheapest one. There is a lot riding on this.

You will also need backup for the RAID and internal drive, preferably two different types of backup to two different drives. E.g, Time Machine to a constantly-connected drive, plus periodically-connected Thunderbolt array for Carbon Copy Clone. E.g: G-Raid: www.g-technology.com/products/g-raid-thunderbolt-2

For RAID5, it's good to have a spare drive on hand. That way if one fails you can immediately replace it without incurring downtime.

Promise Technology Pegasus line: www.promise.com/storage/raid_series.aspx...=192&rsn1=49&rsn3=47

G-Speed-Studio: www.g-technology.com/products/g-speed-studio

OWC Thunderbay 4: eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/TB2IVT08.0S/

AkiTiO Thunder2 Quad: www.akitio.com/desktop-storage/akitio-thunder2-quad

CalDigit T4: www.caldigit.com/T4/index_TBT2.asp

Comparison of Thunderbolt RAID systems: www.macfixit.com.au/blog/?p=20

Thank you VidGreg and Joeme for your help.
I will go through your advices and get back with my shopping list before I buy,
take care...

Hi,

Is this one a good choice?
OWC Thunderbay 4: eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/TB2IVT08.0S/

Since I am buying the ram from this store, I might swell get the hd too.
For ram I am thinking of going to 64GB. Or this is too much for this machine?

Thanks.

joema wrote:

Schwalbach wrote: ....
On the HD side, I am only finding USB3 hard drives. The only Thunderbolt drive I found is the 2TB WD portable one (which I own one already)...Would really like get some very speedy RAID external drive units. Where can I buy these online? And which ones do you recommend?...

Below are some possibilities. In general I suggest going with whatever you perceive to be the best one, not the cheapest one. There is a lot riding on this.

You will also need backup for the RAID and internal drive, preferably two different types of backup to two different drives. E.g, Time Machine to a constantly-connected drive, plus periodically-connected Thunderbolt array for Carbon Copy Clone. E.g: G-Raid: www.g-technology.com/products/g-raid-thunderbolt-2

For RAID5, it's good to have a spare drive on hand. That way if one fails you can immediately replace it without incurring downtime.

Promise Technology Pegasus line: www.promise.com/storage/raid_series.aspx...=192&rsn1=49&rsn3=47

G-Speed-Studio: www.g-technology.com/products/g-speed-studio

OWC Thunderbay 4: eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/TB2IVT08.0S/

AkiTiO Thunder2 Quad: www.akitio.com/desktop-storage/akitio-thunder2-quad

CalDigit T4: www.caldigit.com/T4/index_TBT2.asp

Comparison of Thunderbolt RAID systems: www.macfixit.com.au/blog/?p=20

Schwalbach wrote: Hi,

Is this one a good choice?
OWC Thunderbay 4: eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/TB2IVT08.0S/

Since I am buying the ram from this store, I might swell get the hd too.
For ram I am thinking of going to 64GB. Or this is too much for this machine?....

The Thunderbay 4 got a pretty good review from Mac Performance Guide, and he's very critical of any problems: macperformanceguide.com/Reviews-OWC-Thunderbay.html

For RAID5 it requires software-base via SoftRAID: www.softraid.com/ Traditionally software-based RAID5 has been much slower at writes than hardware RAID5, but tests show the Thunderbay 4 + SoftRAID is pretty fast.

A further advantage is if the chassis fails you can pull the drives and install them in any brand drive chassis that supports JBOD (Just a Bunch Of Disks). By contrast hardware-based RAID5 often writes a proprietary format which requires the same make/model of replacement chassis.

That said a chassis failure isn't that common relative to a drive failure.

The Thunderbay 4 has received some complaints about the fan noise but I think they have an optional quieter fan.

I personally prefer hardware RAID5 by a well-established vendor like Promise Tech, but I'm just conservative.

This assumes RAID5, which IMO is the best choice for 4-drive arrays. For two-drive arrays some people are OK with RAID0, provided frequent backups are done. A little more risky would be a 3-drive RAID0 array like the Caldigit T3: www.caldigit.com/T3/

There's no one right or wrong answer.

Re 64GB in general I don't think that is needed for FCP X but I'll let others comment.