Mac Pro for large Photoshop Editing Project

[rdonson]

Wow, didn't realise they were soldering in RAM to save space on the new 21. Won't be a popular move.
27 inch still has slots though thankfully.

Wow!  I wasn't aware they'd turned the 21.5 inch into something that's not upgradeable.  That's very disturbing.

Thankfully the 27" has 4 slots you can easily access and can take to 64 GB RAM.

http://blog.macsales.com/33640-owc-tears-down-21-5-inch-imac-retina-4k-confirms-memory-is-soldered

[dmward]

I'm using an iMac 5K with 32GB RAM, 256GB ssd for the OS / Apps & an external Thunderbolt ssd for large working files & PS scratch. I've got a 3.2 GB psb file open at the moment ( which weirdly shows up as 25GB in the Finder ) & I find performance perfectly acceptable.

I was considering a trashcan instead of the iMac but felt like I'd just be handing over a pile of cash for 2 high end graphics cards which would spend the next few years doing very little. ( & since the trashcan doesn't have any more internal storage options than the iMac I'd still have the same mess of external drives under my desk ).

Graeme,
This is sounding more and more like the best approach.
The 21.5 inch iMAC I am using now has two memory slots but they are buried under the motherboard according to the OWC video.
The latest 5K 27" iMAC appears to be quite fast based on the OWC speed comparison link someone shared.
So, SSD drive in the computer for OS and Apps, 1 Thunderbolt SSD for scratch, 1 Thunderbolt SSD for working files, Additional Thunderbolt drives for longer term storage. Backup for the SSD working file and backup for the longer term storage?
Is there any performance hit putting the SSD drives in the same Thunderbolt enclosure?
Is there a benefit getting the extra video memory?

[dmward]

Graeme,
This is sounding more and more like the best approach.
The 21.5 inch iMAC I am using now has two memory slots but they are buried under the motherboard according to the OWC video.
The latest 5K 27" iMAC appears to be quite fast based on the OWC speed comparison link someone shared.
So, SSD drive in the computer for OS and Apps, 1 Thunderbolt SSD for scratch, 1 Thunderbolt SSD for working files, Additional Thunderbolt drives for longer term storage. Backup for the SSD working file and backup for the longer term storage?
The 5K configuration that seems best is 512GB SSD, 8Gb RAM and then upgrade to 64Gb from OWC.

Is there any performance hit putting the SSD drives in the same Thunderbolt enclosure?
Is there a benefit getting the extra video memory?

[graeme]

Graeme,
This is sounding more and more like the best approach.
The 21.5 inch iMAC I am using now has two memory slots but they are buried under the motherboard according to the OWC video.
The latest 5K 27" iMAC appears to be quite fast based on the OWC speed comparison link someone shared.
So, SSD drive in the computer for OS and Apps, 1 Thunderbolt SSD for scratch, 1 Thunderbolt SSD for working files, Additional Thunderbolt drives for longer term storage. Backup for the SSD working file and backup for the longer term storage?
Is there any performance hit putting the SSD drives in the same Thunderbolt enclosure?
Is there a benefit getting the extra video memory?

I've actually been using the 2 external ssd's in a single thunderbolt enclosure. I had them set up in a RAID 0 configuration. I'm not techie enough to know if this is the absolute optimum set up & I'm not spending any more on a second thunderbolt box. All I can say is that Photoshop seemed to run very well on this configuration.

Earlier today I've changed the configuration to 2 separate drives in the enclosure: This is in an effort to get Lightroom to run better ( OS & Catalogue on iMac HD, PS Scratch & Camera Raw Cache on external SSD 1, working files on SSD 2). I'll let you know how I get on.

I miss my old 2007 Mac Pro - sort of wish I'd got a newer recondition version from on of the companies that upgrades them.

[davidgp]

So, SSD drive in the computer for OS and Apps, 1 Thunderbolt SSD for scratch, 1 Thunderbolt SSD for working files, Additional Thunderbolt drives for longer term storage. Backup for the SSD working file and backup for the longer term storage?
Is there any performance hit putting the SSD drives in the same Thunderbolt enclosure?

If you are buying SATA SSDs and putting them in just one unique enclosure, USB3 enclosures that support UASP protocol will give you more or less them same performance. I have one like that and I'm getting more or less 500MB/s...

Thunderbolt will be useful if you put them both in the same enclosure. The combined bandwidths of both SSD or more is more than USB3 can handle.

Also, if you go for both SSDs in USB3 don't share that port with anything else. Not even between both SSDs.



http://dgpfotografia.com

[dmward]

I've actually been using the 2 external ssd's in a single thunderbolt enclosure. I had them set up in a RAID 0 configuration. I'm not techie enough to know if this is the absolute optimum set up & I'm not spending any more on a second thunderbolt box. All I can say is that Photoshop seemed to run very well on this configuration.

Earlier today I've changed the configuration to 2 separate drives in the enclosure: This is in an effort to get Lightroom to run better ( OS & Catalogue on iMac HD, PS Scratch & Camera Raw Cache on external SSD 1, working files on SSD 2). I'll let you know how I get on.

I miss my old 2007 Mac Pro - sort of wish I'd got a newer recondition version from on of the companies that upgrades them.

Thanks.
That's essentially what I have planned.
The Thunderbolt enclosures I have currently are the OWC 2 bay and 4 bay. Currently I have the 4 bay configured with each drive as a unique volume. I just updated the 2 bay with fresh 6TB drives and have them configured as RAID 1 which it's been pointed out isn't really backup.

BTW, can someone suggest good Mac Backup software?

[rdonson]

I've had good experiences with Carbon Copy Cloner for a number of years.

https://bombich.com/

[graeme]

I've had good experiences with Carbon Copy Cloner for a number of years.

https://bombich.com/

+1