Buying Mac Pro 8 core, advice needed

[yumdrum]

okay, did some more research and answered my RAM question:

Mac Pro Memory - Apple Mac Pro Xeon 8-Core and Quad Core Memory Upgrades DDR2 Fully Buffered 240 Pin DIMM 800MHz PC6400 / 667MHz PC5300 at OtherWorldComputing.com


However i still would like advice on an additional internal hard drive. Which one is best for audio?

Thanks.

[FFTT]

OWC is a well respected retailer.

Also favored highly is Datamemorysystems.com

When you add RAM, you want to add in matched sets of 4 DIMMS.

So you'll actually end up with 6 GB if you leave the Factory DIMMs
Installed.
Fortunately, the prices have gotten quite reasonable.

If you ever need to take your system back in, always remove any
3rd party RAM to rule out any possible issues with 3rd party components.

Samsung and Western Digital seem to hold up the best as far as larger HDs.
With the Samsungs leading the pack on quiet operation.

NewEgg has great prices on drives, but they do not offer specific guaranteed Apple compatibility especially on their RAM.


Barefeets does a great job testing various drives.
Real World Speed Tests for Performance Minded Mac Users
2008 Mac Pro - Best Boot Drive?
2008 Mac Pro - Best Boot Drive?

[yumdrum]

Originally Posted by FFTT

OWC is a well respected retailer.

Also favored highly is Datamemorysystems.com

When you add RAM, you want to add in matched sets of 4 DIMMS.

So you'll actually end up with 6 GB if you leave the Factory DIMMs
Installed.
Fortunately, the prices have gotten quite reasonable.

If you ever need to take your system back in, always remove any
3rd party RAM to rule out any possible issues with 3rd party components.

Samsung and Western Digital seem to hold up the best as far as larger HDs.
With the Samsungs leading the pack on quiet operation.

NewEgg has great prices on drives, but they do not offer specific guaranteed Apple compatibility especially on their RAM.


Barefeets does a great job testing various drives.
Real World Speed Tests for Performance Minded Mac Users
2008 Mac Pro - Best Boot Drive?
2008 Mac Pro - Best Boot Drive?

Many thanks,

What size and speed of the secondary internal HD would be optimal?

[FFTT]

Personally, I would rather have the highest quality boot drive and
two additional drives, one for my primary boot and maintenance drive, the 2nd for dedicated audio applications and the 3rd for storage.

I'm still not comfortable with having all my eggs in one basket on some huge storage drive.

The new perpendicular drives like the WD and Samsung seem to be the way to go.

The speed and the cache size are the most important performance factors, in general, but for audio, you also want quiet operation, so Raptors are probably not a good idea.

Looks like the Samsung Spinpoint 1000GB is the leader of the pack with the 32 Mb cache, but again I worry about that much data on one drive.

More worthwhile reading
http://www23.tomshardware.com/storag...=1016&chart=33

NewEgg is selling the WD6400AAKS for $119.99 if you use Promo Code EMCAEABBC.
A pair of these would be an affordable way to go.

I've been happy with my Seagate Barricuda, but so much has changed now with the new perpendicular drives.

[cane creek]

I live in the UK i bought my Ram from OWC (8GB 4x2) and a 750GB samsung spinpoint

[clonewar]

I bought my ram from transintl.com memory, hard drive, processor upgrades for Mac or PC computers. and was really happy with the purchase.

For the second drive I went with a Hitachi 1TB. There's room for 3 additional drives (if you leave the original installed) so I'm going for big ones when I add them. (Actually there is a kit out there that will let you install 2 more drives into the empty optical drive bay if you're not using a second optical drive). I went with the Hitachi drive because its the fastest 1TB on the market (or it was when I researched them 2 months ago).

As far as the processor speed, for me the price jump from 2.8 to 3.0/3.2 was too much..