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The alternative is building a large machine containing vast empty space on the speculation that someone might fill it - leaving almost every unit significantly
by ctdonath 13y ago
The alternative is building a large machine containing vast empty space on the speculation that someone might fill it - leaving almost every unit significantly larger than necessary.
TB2 is fast enough that putting the storage outside the box makes sense. Makes upgrades easy: plug it in, rather than having to tear the box apart.
- mikeash 13y agoI totally agree. The new Mac Pro is plenty expandable, the expansion just happens on the outside. I've had two Mac Pros so far. They're great, and I love the internal expansion... in theory. In practice, they never got any PCI cards beyond the graphics cards that came with them, and I used the hard drive bays more because I could than because I really needed it (e.g. keeping the old drive in the machine when upgrading storage and using it for secondary stuff). About the only problem will be GPU upgrades a few years down the line. TB2 is not quite fast enough to make that a good option. But most Mac Pro owners don't upgrade that, and it's plenty good for storage and other PCI cards.
- KaiserPro 13y agoOr you can have a z820 which has much more space, cheaper, and has a much better warranty and support(next day engineer on site, for free.) want two GPUs? sure. want 96 gigs or ram? go for it. want three fusion io cards? you betya.
- wonderzombie 13y agoOn the other hand, if you prefer OS X as I do, you are SOL. :)
- kayoone 13y ago> Makes upgrades easy: plug it in, rather than having to tear the box apart. In theory yes, in practice it comes with a hefty price tag. External thunderbolt disk arrays are quite expensive and something that would be unnecessary if the mac pro had some form of support for internal drives.