Should I buy a used 3.33ghz 6 core Mac Pro NOW?

If you need it now, buy it now.

When a new one comes along the old ones do not get discounted by much, maybe US$200 if you are lucky. So if you get ANY money off, you are a lucky little feller.

Delivery from the Apple store is "In stock" on almost all Mac Pro models, so it is unlikley that a new design will replace it soon enough to impact your decision. And a new design may not even work for what you want to do with it -- it often takes several revisions to get it all humming along properly.

I'll tell you if Apple discontinues the Mac Pro, I'm done with Apple. I will switch over to Windows completely, including my tablet , and phone. It's sad because I've been a loyal Apple customer since the late 70's.

New 3.33 6-core sells for US$3699

New 120 GB SSD from Macsales runs about $160.

New 16 GB as 4x4GB runs about $130.

What warranty do you get is the only room for negotiation. You can buy a new one for the prices above, and it is eligible for AppleCare extension to 3 years coverage.

Haggling with someone who is a professional Dealer (in anything) is like dueling with Zorro.

Compare what you're looking at with the same thing new at the Apple Store. Condition is a variable only you and the seller can account for. Brand new is worth a premium, but in excellent condition with all original documentation and packaging, why wouldn't it come pretty close to new?

FWIW, I bought a 3.33 GHz Hexacore with 12 GB RAM, 500GB SSD, and miscellaneous other goodies Apple-Store-new in 2010 and haven't looked back. I love it. If that's what you want, don't sweat a couple hundred bucks one way or the other. Time is money too!

ZtevenX wrote:

Im thinking of buying a used 2010 3.33ghz 6-core mac pro 16gb ram/ 1TB/ 120GB SSD from a local seller.

Any suggestions? What would be a price you would pay for this machine?

Make sure of the condition. If it were me, and the machine is not new, I would ask that seller to run the Apple Hardware Test while you are present before buying it. Which of course begs the question, does that machine even come with its original installer dvds?

What kind of warrantee?

Since you didn't mention it is there a 5x70 card in that machine?

FWIW I also have a 6-core (see profile below).

ZtevenX wrote:

I just bought it for $3000, everything seem to be good condition. There is apple care warranty until 2013 Aug. Thanks everyone for the tips. Any resource that is good for new Mac Pro user?

You're already at a good resource. 🙂 BTW, did it come with Lion or Snow Leopard installed?

Japamac's Blog: Make space for performance - Moving the Home Folder

How to Move the Home Folder in OS X – and Why - Chris Pirillo

Or, it is simple, hard part is the writing and a matter of how well people read.

The idea: keep everything but the small home library from your account on the large hard drive.

That means you can leave the home folder alone on the SSD.

Or you can move the entire home to another drive.

Either way works.

Boot drive

Home data media drive

you can put large (huge) iTunes media libarry where ever you want too.

And bsckup drive.

It's simple to move your home dir on to a separate drive. I've been doing that as long as OSX has existed. It's even more a necessity now with only a 120GB ssd boot drive I use. Home dir is on my 2TB hdd. I only keep a minimum of my stuff (key apps, etc.) on the ssd leaving rest for the system to use.

Note keeping the boot and home dir separate also means you can maintain multiple versions of the OS, or backups of the OS, on other drives and boot from them for testing purposes or emergencies and you will still be using the same home dir.

Ok. I generally never have to say this but I don't agree with the general instuctions for moving the home dir. While the changing of the accounts is correct, most of these instructions say something like "copy you come dir to your new location". And that's what I don't agree with.

My instructions for the properly moving the home dir, to preserve all your own, group, and permissions, and the way I've always done it is to compress the home dir as a tar.gz file. Drag that over to the destination and expand the tar.gz file.