transition advices to new Mac Pro needed

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Level 1

21 points

transition advices to new Mac Pro needed

hi everyone ... I would like to ask your opinion in how to transition from my old Mac Pro to the new one that will arrive soon.

my main concern is my old habit in using the 4 hard-drive slots of my old MP for so many years now:

disk 1: contains the operating system with basic data

disk 2: contains my main data I use every day for work

disk 3: time-machine backup

disk 4: bootcamp

basically I would like to keep a similar setup but so far I have seen only raid systems available for Thunderbolt 2 storage devices and I don't see the possibility to use a raid system and splitting it up the desired way.

1) in your opinion would it be a good solution to buy 3 external Thunderbolt HDD housings and use my existing HDD's?

2) so far I have seen only Thunderbolt 1 housing's without HDD's. but am I right that 10GB/sec is enough for read/write data transfer-speed?

3) or should I change my old habit and get used to a Raid-system and use Thunderbolt 2? (but what to do with bootcamp and time-machine?)

my second concern is about my 2 displays I use that are connected via DVI:

4) will a "simple" DVI adapter to Mini DisplayPort do the job in connecting my displays or do I need a special adapter?

and finally your advice for all the CD/DVD's:

5) what device would you guys recommend for reading and burning CD/DVD's with the new MP?

looking forward to the new MP but very afraid of all the needed extra devices and cables with the "mess" they will be creating around my work-aera!

anyway a BIG thanks in advance for your tip's and helpful input!

Mac Pro, OS X Mavericks (10.9), 25 years behind a Mac

Posted on Feb 10, 2014 3:20 AM

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Answer 1

Best reply

Alias808

Level 1

19 points

Feb 10, 2014 5:38 AM in response to zaphod42

Same issue here. Here's my suggestion:

1. Purchase a Pegasus2 R4 empty RAID from the Apple store. Thunderbolt2. Move your drives there. If you want to keep your same setup, you're done, but then you are losing the advantage of not having the redundancy of RAID, such as RAID5, RAID10, or RAID6.

2. Purchase Apple's minidisplay port to DVI adapters for $99 ea.

3. Lots of options for CD/DVDs. Here's one that was designed for the new MacPro: http://www.numac.co or use the existing ones in your old MacPro, as explained below.

........

While I wait for my MacPro to arrive, I am using a MBAir 2013, a MacPro 2006, a 30" cinema display, a bluetooth keyboard & trackpad, and a Pegasus2 with four new 4TB drives (Seagate NAS) in a RAID6 yielding 8TB of storage with dual redundancy (two drives can fail out of 4). The old MacPro is connected via wifi file/display/CD&DVD sharing. The MBAir is connected to the Pegasus2 which also is connected to the cinema display. The MB Air's lid is closed and accessed with Apple's bluetooth keyboard and trackpad. Not only do I have 8TB of new storage, but I can access all the drives in the old MacPro. The two CD/DVD drives on the MacPro remain available, if needed. I will get rid of the old MacPro once the new one arrives and replace the MB Air with the new MacPro, so I will need to buy an external CD/DVD drive. 8TB of storage is enough.

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Answer 2

Feb 10, 2014 6:37 AM in response to Alias808

The best single rotating Hard drives can produce a burst of data at about 140 MBytes/sec. ThunderBolt-1 is fine for that.

This enclosure will become available soon (they are quoting about 60 days):

http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/Thunderbolt/External-Drive/OWC/Elite-Dual-RAID

They suggest this pair as a stopgap solution:

http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/Thunderbolt/Elite_eSATA

.

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