dtonthept
Active Member
Hey all,
I'm one of those folks who has been updating their Cheesegrater Mac Pros in recent times, I'm currently rocking the 12 core 3.46GHz setup with 32GB Ram and a bunch of SSDs. I have a Protools HDX card and two UAD Octos in my machine, so wasn't able to add any fast storage via PCIe, largely because expansion chassis just seem to be at a price point where I might as well put that money into a brand new PC when the time comes.
However, I was just at a second hand shop, and on a random shelf in the middle of a ton of guitar amplifiers and PA parts, I found a lone Magma Chassis, no price, no information at all, but long story short I scored it for next to nothing, and it's a 4 slot PCIe box. I just got it hooked up to my Mac Pro, stuffed the box with my entire collection of UAD cards - two Octos and two quads, and the damn thing works perfectly.
Except it's SO noisy.
With all the self build PC research I've been doing it was immediately obvious that the power supply is a heap of junk, and what's worse it has a fan built in which sounds like a jet engine. Time to switch it out I think.
Has anyone here done this before? It "looks" like a standard PC power supply, however the case doesn't have ventilation on the bottom or top where a normal PC power supply would draw in air. Maybe I should be looking for a server rack mount type PSU?
This is what's in there at the moment:
https://www.cwtusa.com/pdf/PSG%20Series%20picture%20specs/PSG400P-89.pdf
Next up, some storage questions:
I've just ordered an Inateck USB 3.0 adaptor card, and am looking to find the right PCIe to SSD adaptor next.
I see there are some PCIE cards which have two M.2 slots on them - I'd love to run my boot drive off one and main samples off the other, and reassign my existing SSDs to additional storage.
Does anyone know if this OWC card is the only one that will work with a Mac if I wanted to buy my actual storage from other sources? Or would it even be compatible with other manufacturers? I believe I've heard somewhere that the Samsung sticks worked in there...
https://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/SSDPHW2ES2UP/
Or is the performance gain not that much better than just shoving 2.5" SSDs into one of these?
https://eshop.macsales.com/item/Sonnet Technologies/TSATA6SSDPSE/
I'd definitely prefer to have the two drives as individual volumes rather than going for RAID0.
Anyways, if anyone has any suggestions on a good replacement power supply, or this whole storage stuff, let me know.
I'm even wondering whether I could even pull the whole guts of the chassis out and shove it in a soundproofed Fractal case!
Sorry for the ramble, and thanks in advance for any thoughts.
D
I'm one of those folks who has been updating their Cheesegrater Mac Pros in recent times, I'm currently rocking the 12 core 3.46GHz setup with 32GB Ram and a bunch of SSDs. I have a Protools HDX card and two UAD Octos in my machine, so wasn't able to add any fast storage via PCIe, largely because expansion chassis just seem to be at a price point where I might as well put that money into a brand new PC when the time comes.
However, I was just at a second hand shop, and on a random shelf in the middle of a ton of guitar amplifiers and PA parts, I found a lone Magma Chassis, no price, no information at all, but long story short I scored it for next to nothing, and it's a 4 slot PCIe box. I just got it hooked up to my Mac Pro, stuffed the box with my entire collection of UAD cards - two Octos and two quads, and the damn thing works perfectly.
Except it's SO noisy.
With all the self build PC research I've been doing it was immediately obvious that the power supply is a heap of junk, and what's worse it has a fan built in which sounds like a jet engine. Time to switch it out I think.
Has anyone here done this before? It "looks" like a standard PC power supply, however the case doesn't have ventilation on the bottom or top where a normal PC power supply would draw in air. Maybe I should be looking for a server rack mount type PSU?
This is what's in there at the moment:
https://www.cwtusa.com/pdf/PSG%20Series%20picture%20specs/PSG400P-89.pdf
Next up, some storage questions:
I've just ordered an Inateck USB 3.0 adaptor card, and am looking to find the right PCIe to SSD adaptor next.
I see there are some PCIE cards which have two M.2 slots on them - I'd love to run my boot drive off one and main samples off the other, and reassign my existing SSDs to additional storage.
Does anyone know if this OWC card is the only one that will work with a Mac if I wanted to buy my actual storage from other sources? Or would it even be compatible with other manufacturers? I believe I've heard somewhere that the Samsung sticks worked in there...
https://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/SSDPHW2ES2UP/
Or is the performance gain not that much better than just shoving 2.5" SSDs into one of these?
https://eshop.macsales.com/item/Sonnet Technologies/TSATA6SSDPSE/
I'd definitely prefer to have the two drives as individual volumes rather than going for RAID0.
Anyways, if anyone has any suggestions on a good replacement power supply, or this whole storage stuff, let me know.
I'm even wondering whether I could even pull the whole guts of the chassis out and shove it in a soundproofed Fractal case!
Sorry for the ramble, and thanks in advance for any thoughts.
D