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Mac Pro trash can USERS

I've seen some adapters for Macbook/Macbook Pro 2013 that are the same kind of connector as on Mac Pro 2013 so a regular SSD M.2 can be used.

Has anyone here tried one of these? - It would mean being able to use Samsung or WD or Crucial (if needed) - Someone here may have tried already???

12+16 pin ?
 
I've seen some adapters for Macbook/Macbook Pro 2013 that are the same kind of connector as on Mac Pro 2013 so a regular SSD M.2 can be used.

Has anyone here tried one of these? - It would mean being able to use Samsung or WD or Crucial (if needed) - Someone here may have tried already???

12+16 pin ?

Regular M.2 SSD's
Added-I've ordered an adapter or two that may work, after all it is for the MacBook. Someone else seems to think the adapter can cause CRC errors whilst some You tubers may have had some OK results.

Does anyone know if Apple sell Mac Pro owners an M.2 SSD as a spare?

Lastly the physical size of the drive, is it 2260 or 2280?
 
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I haven’t done a time machine backup yet, but I need to for sure.

If you do music, it would be best to do time machine backup! - I've been getting some backups straight last two days and not being that proficient at OS X made it a little harder but now they're setup (for now)
 
It's 20 Gb/sec on each pair of ports on the Mac Pro cylinder. Each pair of ports is called a "Thunderbolt Bus" and each is roughly equivalent to a single PCIe slot, so the architecture is similar to the 3-slot arrangement on the silver Mac Pro towers. See attached picture for an explanation.

Mac Pro 203 TB busses.png



I have a 4k display on one TB Bus, two fully-loaded MultiDocks and a 2560x1440 display on the second TB Bus, and on the third TB Bus I have a UAD2-Octo Thunderbolt DSP box and a MOTU 112d+1248 setup. The MOTU setup is configured to provide 128 channels of audio i/o to the host, and even with that and the UAD box maxed out there have been no problems. I think for a while I had the 4k display and the 2560x1440 display on the same TB Bus by accident but everything worked fine. I basically just plug stuff in wherever I want and it always works.

The only restrictions on this setup in terms of being in danger of saturating any one of the TB Busses is if you're trying to use two 4k displays on the same TB Bus. I was told that a single 4k display can use more than 50% of a TB2 Bus depending on refresh rate, but I haven't tested this. The guy who wrote the TB drivers and firmware for the MOTU AVB audio interfaces told me that for audio use I could put my 128 i/o MOTU rig and as many UAD boxes as I wanted on the same TB2 Bus and not be in any danger of saturation. He actually kind of chuckled when I asked if I was in danger of saturating the bus when using it for audio. He was like, "not a chance".

That said, TB3 via USB-C is potentially double the bandwidth of TB2 - so 40 Gb/sec. If there is a successor to the Mac Pro cylinder it will undoubtedly use TB3 on USB-C connectors. It would be a very Apple-like decision to have nothing on the back but a row of identical connectors.

Hello Charlie,

Just wondering if this is what you actually meant.

Screen Shot 2018-07-09 at 5.06.06 PM.png
Thank you.

- J
 
Hello Charlie,

Just wondering if this is what you actually meant.

Screen Shot 2018-07-09 at 5.06.06 PM.png
Thank you.

- J

Yes, that's basically how I've got everything hooked up right now. Although I think that for a while I had the Thunderbolt display, which is only 2560x1440 resolution, on Port 3 / Thunderbolt Bus 1 alongside the 4k display and it still worked. But basically your diagram is correct.
 
Yes, that's basically how I've got everything hooked up right now. Although I think that for a while I had the Thunderbolt display, which is only 2560x1440 resolution, on Port 3 / Thunderbolt Bus 1 alongside the 4k display and it still worked. But basically your diagram is correct.
Thank you
 
It was most useful to have a picture of the Apple thunderbolt ports and an explanation. I've saved image as JPEG / backed up for future reference! - Was this from the Apple website?
 
Hi,

Does everyone here use time machine and nothing else?

Just thinking back last few years when I had a go at doing a Hackintosh, I got Carbon Copy Cloner 3.5.7 and it worked without issue.

Yesterday though on Verson 5 CCC it just wouldn't work

But with time machine backups working correctly why would anyone wish to use anything other than time machine?

I don't because you couldn't clone or move data from a TM disk for the longest time. I also find it to be a HUGE PITA if I needed to restore, or clean install and migrate. CCC I find fuss-free, but I'm probably just an old grump like that :P
 
I don't because you couldn't clone or move data from a TM disk for the longest time. I also find it to be a HUGE PITA if I needed to restore, or clean install and migrate. CCC I find fuss-free, but I'm probably just an old grump like that :P

OK I get your point. I've got some time machine backups as a start point which I'm sure are worth keeping.

I've got CCC V5 and I just couldn't get it to work - then I realized I used 3.5.7 on a Hackintosh (experiment) but CCC 3.5.7 just worked so I'm thinking CCC V5 must have had an error/bug in it in the version I used.

I'll probably try again on CCC and do some more backups on a different disk - The Mac Pro I've got was Sierra 10.12.6 and maybe CCC V5 is High Sierra ??? - I'll find out what the issue is and later versions may just work.
 
I use a wired Apple keyboard and mouse (posh Kensington Expert Mouse trackball actually - it's my favorite for 25+ years). The Lightning cable is usually used with your keyboard and mouse only to charge their internal battery - they connect to the computer wirelessly over BlueTooth. No cables needed! But I use wired because I don't want to deal with recharging the battery and my keyboard never moves, so...

You can absolutely use just about any USB hub you want on the Mac Pro, and only the cheapest and crappiest ones won't be able to recharge your keyboard and mouse using the Lightning cable. I like to stick to name brands like Belkin and D-Link, and they have never failed me. I've been using Belkin hubs for more than 20 years with no problems. I always use and recommend "powered" USB hubs that come with their own AC adaptor (wall wart). That way there will be no issues with devices needing too much power. Passive (non-powered) hubs only pass the power from the computer's USB ports down to the connected devices, and if you're dividing the power from one Mac Pro USB port into four connected devices it is possible you'll get a "low power" alert on the computer screen. (It is practically impossible to physically damage anything, so don't worry about that).

I currently have six USB hubs on my Mac Pro:

- Two D-Link four-port powered USB3 hubs, daisy-chained (in other words, the second hub plugged into a port on the first hub so they only use one of the Mac Pro's USB ports, giving a total of seven ports available across two hubs while using only one Mac Pro port) = connects things like USB3 hard drives, Virus TI, Linnstrument, and other data-hungry and power-hungry devices. One port from the second hub goes to a USB Extender which uses a little box on either end and a CAT5 cable connecting the two - this lets me do a long (30-foot) run across the room to my guitar/synth rack. On the far end the extender connects to yet another Belkin powered 7-port USB2 hub to which I connect all the stuff in the guitar/synth rack - Line6 Pod, Roland VG-99, Eventide H9, Dave Smith Pro-2, and another Unitor MIDI interface to deal with other synths, the EuroRack setup, etc. So that stuff in the guitar/synth rack is at the far end of two USB hubs (one USB3 and one USB2) with a USB>CAT5 cable extender in between. It sounds crazy but it all works just fine.

- Three Belkin four-port USB2 hubs (two of them daisy-chained and one running solo) = the solo hub is for computer keyboard (with the trackball plugged into the keyboard itself so it doesn't use up a port on the hub), PreSonus FaderPort, a Unitor8mk2 MIDI interface, and my main MIDI keyboard (M-Audio Keystation 88 plugged in via USB). The two daisy-chained hubs are only for dongles - three iLok2 and three e-Licenser dongles, with the last port used for connecting to the Dynaudio AIR Control or Genelec GLM system to configure my speakers from the computer.

This leaves me one empty USB port on the back of the Mac Pro in case I get a new device and want to experiment before I decide where to plug it in.

You can feel free to daisy-chain USB hubs pretty much any way you want. The only thing to be aware of is that USB2 is much slower than USB3 (and USBv1 is slower still), so if you plug a USB2 hub into the computer, anything that's "downstream" of that hub will run at USB2 speed - so don't go Computer > USB2 hub > USB3 hub or the USB3 hub will be only passing data at USB2 speed. The other way around is fine - Computer > USB3 hub > USB2 hub. Just keep in mind that a USB2 hub will choke anything that passes through it down to USB2 speeds. No biggie really, and you won't damage anything by trying out various configurations. I even have a few 20-year-old Belkin powered 7-port USBv1.1 hubs lying around and I can use them just fine, mixed in with the more modern ones, but they are really only suitable for simple stuff like iLok, keyboard, trackball, etc.

When I first got the Mac Pro cylinders I wanted some bad-ass, all-metal USB3 hubs with huge power supplies, and I found some online and bought them - only to find out that they required you to manually push the power button every time you powered up the room in order to turn them on. (Not all of them do, but the ones I bought did. I'm an idiot.) So I just went down to my local and bought some simple D-Link and Belkin hubs and they work just fine. There are, however, lots of cool hubs with 7 or more ports, individual power switches per port, etc. Check on Amazon or MonoPrice to see the crazy variety available.

If you need to extend USB cables beyond the basic 15-foot limit, look for an extender solution that uses a CAT5 cable in between two little boxes - these usually don't have their own power supply, but do require that they're plugged into a powered port - either on the back of the Mac or on a well-powered USB hub. This is similar to what I use:

https://www.monoprice.com/product?p..._1JACn-FpydavWfiMed3-T-X4yUv9K3BoCqWkQAvD_BwE

Hi Charlie,

I'm planning to stream samples from the multidock wondering if I could use Thunderbolt to Gigabit Ethernet Adapter with good ethernet cable and stream sample from Blackmagic multidock, as I would like to place the multidock in separate racks.

So wondering if this could be acheived.

Thank you.

-JK
 

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Hi Charlie,

I'm planning to stream samples from the multidock wondering if I could use Thunderbolt to Gigabit Ethernet Adapter with good ethernet cable and stream sample from Blackmagic multidock, as I would like to place the multidock in separate racks.

So wondering if this could be acheived.

Thank you.

-JK

Well, that's not what the TB > Ethernet adaptor is for - it's for connecting a computer which does not have built-in Ethernet ports to a wired network. Like if you have a Macbook Pro that only has USB-C connectors but you want to connect to a wired Ethernet network instead of / in addition to WiFi.

It's not like the "USB > CAT5 > USB" extender solution that I may have mentioned earlier in this thread - at least, I don't think it can be used like that. Maybe it can work like that, but.... I highly doubt it.

And that adaptor certainly can not be used to plug the MultiDock into the Ethernet ports on the Mac Pro. Definitely not.

In short, the MultiDock must be connected to a Thunderbolt port on the Mac - if it's a newer Macbook or iMac that only has USB-C / Thunderbolt 3 connections, use the Thunderbolt 2 > USB-C adaptor (shown here):

https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MMEL2AM/A/thunderbolt-3-usb-c-to-thunderbolt-2-adapter?afid=p238|sEc33DURg-dc_mtid_1870765e38482_pcrid_246386725857_&cid=aos-us-kwgo-pla-btb--slid--product-MMEL2AM/A

...and a normal TB2 > TB2 cable.

It would be better to get a TB cable of the correct length. They can be had up to 3 meters for not much money, and if you need to go further you can get Corning Optical cables up to 100 meters.

But in any case, the MultiDock is absolutely silent, has no moving parts, and generates no heat, so why would it need to be mounted more than 3 meters away from the computer? The Mac Pro cylinder is silent as well. I have mine mounted behind my displays, about five feet from my head and I've never heard so much as a whisper from them.
 
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Well, that's not what the TB > Ethernet adaptor is for - it's for connecting a computer which does not have built-in Ethernet ports to a wired network. Like if you have a Macbook Pro that only has USB-C connectors but you want to connect to a wired Ethernet network instead of / in addition to WiFi.

It's not like the "USB > CAT5 > USB" extender solution that I may have mentioned earlier in this thread - at least, I don't think it can be used like that. Maybe it can work like that, but.... I highly doubt it.

And that adaptor certainly can not be used to plug the MultiDock into the Ethernet ports on the Mac Pro. Definitely not.

In short, the MultiDock must be connected to a Thunderbolt port on the Mac - if it's a newer Macbook or iMac that only has USB-C / Thunderbolt 3 connections, use the Thunderbolt 2 > USB-C adaptor (shown here):

https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MMEL2AM/A/thunderbolt-3-usb-c-to-thunderbolt-2-adapter?afid=p238|sEc33DURg-dc_mtid_1870765e38482_pcrid_246386725857_&cid=aos-us-kwgo-pla-btb--slid--product-MMEL2AM/A

...and a normal TB2 > TB2 cable.

It would be better to get a TB cable of the correct length. They can be had up to 3 meters for not much money, and if you need to go further you can get Corning Optical cables up to 100 meters.

But in any case, the MultiDock is absolutely silent, has no moving parts, and generates no heat, so why would it need to be mounted more than 3 meters away from the computer? The Mac Pro cylinder is silent as well. I have mine mounted behind my displays, about five feet from my head and I've never heard so much as a whisper from them.

Thank you Charlie for taking time and writing back.
 
if you need to go further you can get Corning Optical cables up to 100 meters.

I wouldn't recommend that, I've got two of the 10m ones that died a few years out of warranty, and lots of others have experienced the same thing according to the reviews.

Otherwise the trash can is silent and it's right above my RED interface, a few feet from my ears. I have two Pegasus R2's for data, one with spinners and the other with 4x500GB drives striped which gets 1GB/s easy hardware RAID. They're great but unfortunately no longer available.

Blackmagic is popular, but I object to the price, size and fact that they reportably are sensitive to SSD thickness. I have a OWC 4X SSD enclosure which is silent (after a fan swap) and has lower capacity drives in it, there are equivalents on eBay. Blackmagic is good if you need to swap drives a lot.
 
I wouldn't recommend that, I've got two of the 10m ones that died a few years out of warranty, and lots of others have experienced the same thing according to the reviews.

Otherwise the trash can is silent and it's right above my RED interface, a few feet from my ears. I have two Pegasus R2's for data, one with spinners and the other with 4x500GB drives striped which gets 1GB/s easy hardware RAID. They're great but unfortunately no longer available.

Blackmagic is popular, but I object to the price, size and fact that they reportably are sensitive to SSD thickness. I have a OWC 4X SSD enclosure which is silent (after a fan swap) and has lower capacity drives in it, there are equivalents on eBay. Blackmagic is good if you need to swap drives a lot.

Yeah, I don't use the Corning glass cables either - I think the Mac Pro cylinder is plenty quiet for use right in the control room for sure.

The BlackMagic docks are set up to accommodate the thicker (9.5 mm) SSD mechanisms if needed, even though most these days are 7mm. The 7mm drives fit just fine in the dock although there is a little extra space at the top and bottom (about 1.25 mm each side) and so they can rattle around if you are hauling the units around on tour. At one point I did find a company that made little spacers that stick on to 7mm SSDs with double-sided adhesive to bring them up to 9.5mm size, but since my setup is not taken on the road I didn't need these spacers. I've been using two of the BlackMagic docks for a few years now and have not had one single issue of any kind with them - I love 'em.
 
Thanks to all for this thread. I was in the fence about going from a MP 3,1 to either an iMac quad i7 or MP 6,1 six core and I decided on the latter. I bought it base from Apple and upgraded the ram to 64gb soon after. It’s super quiet and has plenty of power. My Thinderbay 4 isn’t quite as quiet so I had to order a longer TB cable to move it further away from the composing area however
 
So, the Apple "Event" has passed with nothing new on the Desktop front, despite the rumours about the Mac Mini.

Assume we are looking at March at the earliest as the next potential date for announcement of any "Pro" models? Do they only ever announce at these events or have there been interim, less trumpeted releases in the past?
 
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