Photo storage

[Aldaron]

And while the new Pros don't have the internal drive bays, isn't Thunderbolt 2 considerably faster than eSATA?

 

[Aldaron]

Of course, looking at your original post on the iMac, I guess you've already considered that with the iMac...

 

[Nick]

And, Yes You Can have the same great 27" display with the Mac Pro simply by buying the Apple Cinema Display to attache to it. Or better yet, three of them :twothumbs:

Good to know - I guess that proves I'm not a true fan boy because I thought it was still just available in the 24" size. That actually might have made me think much harder about the Mac Pro option. Hmmm....

Also good to hear your thoughts on fusion.

Nick, take a look at the benchmarks for the mid and high-grade Mac Pros. They've started showing up online, and they're nuts. I agree that the cost might not warrant the increase, but it's impressive engineering. The iMacs are plenty fast but workstations come with workstation price tags for a reason.

I just spent a few digging around. The order status on my iMac is still 'processing' so I could still cancel the order and switch things up. Those things look very impressive, but it seems like you'd have to go all in to make it significantly better than the high end iMac. With the 4-core at $3k (under iMac score) and the 6-core at $4k (not that far over iMac score), I'm really curious what an 8 or 12-core is going to go for. A bit scary really, but they do look insanely powerful.

Here's some benchmark for multi-core performance if anyone is curious. I couldn't find them all on the same chart, so you get two pics:

EDIT: I realize the two benchmark pics might be slightly flawed. Anyone seen any charts with the imacs and new pros together?

New Mac Pros with old Mac Pros:




Same test with the latest high end iMac:




I guess if anything, all that should make me consider a used Mac Pro! Haha!

And while the new Pros don't have the internal drive bays, isn't Thunderbolt 2 considerably faster than eSATA?

Of course, looking at your original post on the iMac, I guess you've already considered that with the iMac...

Yep. That's why I need the RAID setup. The iMac has Thunderbolt 1 which is still stupid fast.

 

[Dave]

I think there will be performance crossover between the high-end iMac and the bottom-end Mac Pro. Where the Pro will smoke the iMac will be in ram and in video-related tasks. The dual GPUs in the new Pros will kill.

Really though for most consumer buyers I think the decision will come down to whether or not they plan to run a 4k display. I'm still running the original 23-inch Cinema Dispay HD (best panel Apple ever sold, IMO) but would love to upgrade if they released a "retina" density 4k display.

 

[Artemus]

I guess if anything, all that should make me consider a used Mac Pro! Haha!

I, myself, wouldn't go used anything computer-wise. Still too many moving and wear parts inside them plus the hardware scene is still advancing fast enough and you will be getting discontinued components. I think your geekbench tests show that the new workstation is superior in many ways. The iMac has to make many compromises to fit gear in that form factor - like smaller diameter, slower spin speed hard drive platters that the work station does not have to live with. Same kind of compromises on the video GPU. This is your business computer so you can write it off. I vote buy it and three 27" displays and invite me over so I can drool.

 

[Nick]

I, myself, wouldn't go used anything computer-wise. Still too many moving and wear parts inside them plus the hardware scene is still advancing fast enough and you will be getting discontinued components. I think your geekbench tests show that the new workstation is superior in many ways. The iMac has to make many compromises to fit gear in that form factor - like smaller diameter, slower spin speed hard drive platters that the work station does not have to live with. Same kind of compromises on the video GPU. This is your business computer so you can write it off. I vote buy it and three 27" displays and invite me over so I can drool.

I'm with you on used. I like to buy them and keep them until I have about 6 months left on AppleCare then sell and refresh. 30 months isn't bad to hang onto a computer, right? And they hold their value so well, it almost just makes sense. Looks like my new machine shipped today, now I just have to figure out the external RAID dilemma. I think I might have to hold off on $3k worth of extra displays for now! Haha!

 

[Nick]

Well I ponied up and bought a Drobo 5D with thunderbolt for my external storage. Spent the last couple of days getting it all setup with the new imac and WOW is this setup fast!

For the Drobo, I started out with three 3TB drives in it so it gets me about 5.5TB of storage in addition to the 3TB in the machine. It's all loaded up with plenty of room to grow now.

First impressions photo editing on the new setup are outstanding. Haven't done any video yet. I'll report back as things progress. That's all the non-outdoors geeking out from me for today.




Side note - the fusion drive in the late 2013 iMac is even better than the last one because they switched to PCIE flash. Insanely fast...

 

[wnorton]

My Drobo setup is much older (pre FireWire) and it's running on an older iMac as well. I have no problems editing photo and video so I'm sure you will be thrilled with your setup.

Wade



From wnorton using an iPad and Tapatalk HD.

 

[Nick]

I know this has pretty well strayed from the subject of photo storage, but thought I'd better post about this. I've been experienced image retention, aka burn-in on the new iMac. When I go from bright windows to grey or images/video, the bright stuff stays in the form of green lines. Sometimes for a long time. I called up Apple and initiated an exchange for a new unit today. Sad thing is, based on all the threads around the internet about the problem over the last year, it's a crap shoot whether the new one will actually be any better. Good thing I spent the last week getting this machine all setup and configured nicely. I deliberately did not use migration assistant because I wanted everything to be fresh. This sucks...

 

[Nik]

i am thinking about buying a synology nas for my photo and multimedia (movies) storage. any recommendations on which synology unit i should buy?

 

[andyjaggy]

I know this has pretty well strayed from the subject of photo storage, but thought I'd better post about this. I've been experienced image retention, aka burn-in on the new iMac. When I go from bright windows to grey or images/video, the bright stuff stays in the form of green lines. Sometimes for a long time. I called up Apple and initiated an exchange for a new unit today. Sad thing is, based on all the threads around the internet about the problem over the last year, it's a crap shoot whether the new one will actually be any better. Good thing I spent the last week getting this machine all setup and configured nicely. I deliberately did not use migration assistant because I wanted everything to be fresh. This sucks...

I had the same issue when I used an apple monitor, in fact all 8 of the 30" cinema displays we had in the office suffered from image burn in. I think that was the start of the end of my love affair with Apple.

 

[Laura]

Well, it appears the law of hard drives getting bigger as more space is needed is not true, because I'm about maxed out again.

As you can see below, I only have 86GB left on my main 2TB drive, then on my mirrored 2TB RAID, I only have a bit left (raidicus and vaulticus are both on one 2TB RAID with mirrored 1TB drives). Then I have another 2TB striped RAID array that I use as my Time Machine backup drive. Add to that 4 qty loose 1TB drives, 3 or 4 2.5" drives between 250GB and 750GB and then a couple of external 1TB's and I'm about filled up.

View attachment 4938

So how do you manage your massive photo libraries??? I need help!

Except for the last sentence, I have no idea what you just said.

 

[Nick]

I had the same issue when I used an apple monitor, in fact all 8 of the 30" cinema displays we had in the office suffered from image burn in. I think that was the start of the end of my love affair with Apple.

I've only had it with the most recent iMacs. The second one I got had it too, but it stopped after the first few days of use and hasn't happened since (same for the original but I still sent it back).

 

[Nick]

i am thinking about buying a synology nas for my photo and multimedia (movies) storage. any recommendations on which synology unit i should buy?

I looked at Synology too. I had it narrowed down to one, but I don't recall anymore. There are so many models! I do still love my Drobo though. I'd like to pickup a Drobo 5N in addition to use as NAS redundancy for my 5D and all other computers.

 

[andyjaggy]

I've only had it with the most recent iMacs. The second one I got had it too, but it stopped after the first few days of use and hasn't happened since (same for the original but I still sent it back).

It was about 5 years ago that I worked at that place with the 30" cinema displays. Gorgeous monitors, but I couldn't believe that a 2500 dollar screen could have such a glaring flaw. It sounds like Apple has worked out the issue since then.