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New Mac Pro

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Re: New Mac Pro

#702

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that just shows that they put the tiny, essentially useless HD in to keep the base price artificially low.

Isn't providing a lower cost option a good thing?

Considering what a price tax Apple has had on internal storage, "lower cost" is a bit far-fetched.

Even the old 5400 RPM HDDs cost an arm and a leg if you bought it pre-installed into your MacBook. This was back in the days where you could unscrew the lid on your MacBook Pro with a standard screwdriver and replace the internal memory.

Re: New Mac Pro

#703
post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The first step up from 256GB is 2x512GB, and there's configurations up to 2x2TB. My guess is that the 256GB configuration is meant for users that work primarily with data that's kept on network storage.

There's no professional that would buy a machine with 256GB of storage. Let's call it what it is - a throwaway configuration meant to hit a price point.

Or even more accurately, swap "price point" for "profit margin".

Unless these cases are manufactured in remote monasteries, the costs don't add up and price point wasn't a concern.

Re: New Mac Pro

#704
post #690
post #647

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not according to electricslpnsld: > I worked at two movie studios (Pixar, Weta Digital) and they were both almost 100% Linux with a smattering of Windows machines here and there. Apple stuff was mainly iPads for story boarding and that kind of stuff. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20088170

The point isn't that they use Apple, it's that they would be willing to pay 5 figures for a workstation: https://schuttejoe.github.io/post/disneypostmortem/ > This image was rendered at 2048x858 with 256spp and took 3.5 hours to render. I allowed it access to 28Gb of RAM but had to estimate how much embree would use for BVH data so it occasionally would exceed that number enough that the OS would start paging.

Of course there are people and companies willing to spend 5 figures on a workstation but most of them want Nvidia graphics.

When you are paying tens of thousands of dollars you don't want to be stuck in Apple's weird AMD-only walled garden.

Re: New Mac Pro

#705

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's usually direct-attached storage, not network-attached. They use USB-C or Thunderbolt cables to join to a RAID storage device, and then backup/archive to a network based storage pool later.

I rarely see direct attached storage anymore. It's too cost effective from a media management standpoint to just to right to 10Gbe RJ45 or fiber network storage. The only direct storage I see is if speed is absolutely critical and that's very rare, mostly just high end 3D stuff.

Got it. I'm a few years removed but fast DAS raid boxes for each workstation were common with work product being synced to a network share. Looks like the NICs and SANs are fast enough now to run everything off the network.

Re: New Mac Pro

#706

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see how "the target market will still pay for it" is justification for insane markups on commodity hardware. I understand paying a premium for the R&D that would have gone into the case and cooling design, but to then go and put such dated hardware in it and still start at $6000.

what's dated about an unreleased Xeon? Or the just released Vega II Pro on 7nm?

I assume the base $6000 model will come with the 580x that was advertised on that page, not the Vega II.

Re: New Mac Pro

#708
post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The kinda places I see these going in would not touch either of those products. They are both seen as the most entry level of storage devices

are we talking about workstation nas here? we have nothing but praise for synology performance and reliability. software is stable, tiering works flawlessly, expansion is inexpensive, web ui is good, ssh gives you a proper shell - do whatever operations on your nas locally, faster.

I was talking storage solutions for video editing. They typically use vendors building solutions to cater for that market.

Re: New Mac Pro

#709
post #482

This new Mac Pro design gives me trypophobia. Do we really need that many holes on the front? Somehow this "industrial design" is really giving me goosebumps. That's a first for Apple product...

Thanks for my new word of the day: "Trypophobia is a proposed phobia of irregular patterns or clusters of small holes or bumps."

Someone elsewhere on the thread said the design reminded them of something the Empire from Star Wars would make. It seems there may be a physiological reason for this kind of reaction to the design.

Re: New Mac Pro

#710
post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The first step up from 256GB is 2x512GB, and there's configurations up to 2x2TB. My guess is that the 256GB configuration is meant for users that work primarily with data that's kept on network storage.

There's no professional that would buy a machine with 256GB of storage. Let's call it what it is - a throwaway configuration meant to hit a price point.

Someone has mentioned this, 256 would be ideal for an enviroment where users store thier stuff on network drives.
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