Mac Pro specification help requested

[STORMDAVE]

Glad everyone is enjoying Macs along with EDIUS hehe

Geoff, I'm pretty much lost on your issues, that is the only way I would figure out what the problem is would be to actually see your system. Something must be wrong, I haven't really had any major problems that you are having.

The Mac Pro is on the way :). Pending the purchase of a couple of extra drives (budget is tight for a couple of months) are there any tips for setting up bootcamp on the main 750Gb drive please?

Not much, Apple has made it very easy that even a non techie can do it. Just make a partition as big as you want, if you plan to install alot of Windows applications leave room for it. I would give it at least 250GB since you have such a big OS drive. It's upto you. Bootcamp only creates the partition for you and formats it to FAT32, once it creates it, Bootcamp asks you to insert the Windows CD and then you restart. When you run the Windows installer, you will have to format to NTFS (use Quick Format, takes less time) and then off you go.

Booting to Windows or OSX is easy, all you do is hold down the Option key to before the Mac sound comes up and it will give you the option of picking either OS. You can also setup the default to be Windows (it is OSX by default, obviously) so when you start your computer it will boot into Windows.

[SRsupport]

I am with you on this Dave.
Have the second generation mac.
I am using it with vista ultimate 64 now (had xp earlier)
No problems here .
2 of my friends also use this combo and they are happy

May be it is a special Geoff bug?? he he........ (joking)

Steve

[hedleyw]

Glad everyone is enjoying Macs along with EDIUS hehe

Just make a partition as big as you want, if you plan to install alot of Windows applications leave room for it. I would give it at least 250GB since you have such a big OS drive..

Thanks Dave - I appreciate your help and that of everyone else who has joined in this thread.

Presumably Edius will be able to read files on the Mac partition without any problem?

[GrassValley_KH]

Presumably Edius will be able to read files on the Mac partition without any problem?

If you've purchased and run MacDrive, sure. If not, Windows cannot access HFS/HFS+ partitions.

Also note: MacDrive is incompatible with x64 XP/Vista. I found out that out the hard way recently..

[pjsssss]

Also note: MacDrive is incompatible with x64 XP/Vista. I found out that out the hard way recently..

Ohhhh. I did not know this. Thanks for keeping me from making the same mistake

[hedleyw]

If you've purchased and run MacDrive, sure. If not, Windows cannot access HFS/HFS+ partitions.

Also note: MacDrive is incompatible with x64 XP/Vista. I found out that out the hard way recently..

Thanks KH - verging on support for Mac OSX ;)

But each answer raises another question - when I add the two extra drives if I am using MacDrive are they best formatted for windoze or Mac? I plan to use the Mac side for some editing and DVD creation as well.

[GrassValley_KH]

HFS+ for sure - Mac OS support for NTFS is read-only, unless you buy a third-party app from Paragon (the counter to MacDrive). Mileage may vary on performance.

(certainly, it would be better than the free MacFUSE+3G-NTFS package - it's slower than a wet week)

[hedleyw]

HFS+ for sure - Mac OS support for NTFS is read-only, unless you buy a third-party app from Paragon (the counter to MacDrive). Mileage may vary on performance.

(certainly, it would be better than the free MacFUSE+3G-NTFS package - it's slower than a wet week)

Thanks again - appreciated :)

[STORMDAVE]

Yeah you're better off using the Paragon software to read from NTFS drives, however as KH stated performance is not guaranteed. I have the software but I haven't installed it on my newer Mac Pro. I used an older copy of MacDrive under XP and loaded clips into EDIUS from an HFS+ partition. It worked ok but I didn't do any extra testing. Besides there was one instant problem that I found with that solution, if you wanted to go into the properties of the clip from EDIUS, it would give an error and not open the properties. So that made it pretty much unusable for me, I always use the properties.

Your other option would be to setup a Windows machine with a gigabit connection and share your NTFS windows drives with the Mac. Since SMB networking does not see any drive formats and doesn't care for it, you can use it as you would any other drive just that you will have access to it from Windows and OSX without problems. Under Windows you can mount the drives with drive letters, under OSX you can mount the Windows share on your desktop and have fast access to it. However, gigabit maxes out to about 80MB/sec, so if that is enough for you, I would think that is a better route. You can probably build a nice RAID 5 windows box for about $1,000 and put it in another room so you won't hear the fan noise (maybe 5x500GB seagates or 5x1TB)...I was thinking of doing that instead of going the eSATA route as I have to pick a drive format for that. Right now I am using single drives, which are enough for DV/DVCPRO50/DVCPROHD and some other formats. I also have an internal 400GB drive in my Mac Pro for After Effects work (I work at 8bit uncompressed) under OSX.

[hedleyw]

Yeah you're better off using the Paragon software to read from NTFS drives, however as KH stated performance is not guaranteed. I have the software but I haven't installed it on my newer Mac Pro. I used an older copy of MacDrive under XP and loaded clips into EDIUS from an HFS+ partition. It worked ok but I didn't do any extra testing. Besides there was one instant problem that I found with that solution, if you wanted to go into the properties of the clip from EDIUS, it would give an error and not open the properties. So that made it pretty much unusable for me, I always use the properties.

Your other option would be to setup a Windows machine with a gigabit connection and share your NTFS windows drives with the Mac. Since SMB networking does not see any drive formats and doesn't care for it, you can use it as you would any other drive just that you will have access to it from Windows and OSX without problems. Under Windows you can mount the drives with drive letters, under OSX you can mount the Windows share on your desktop and have fast access to it. However, gigabit maxes out to about 80MB/sec, so if that is enough for you, I would think that is a better route. You can probably build a nice RAID 5 windows box for about $1,000 and put it in another room so you won't hear the fan noise (maybe 5x500GB seagates or 5x1TB)...I was thinking of doing that instead of going the eSATA route as I have to pick a drive format for that. Right now I am using single drives, which are enough for DV/DVCPRO50/DVCPROHD and some other formats. I also have an internal 400GB drive in my Mac Pro for After Effects work (I work at 8bit uncompressed) under OSX.

Getting a bit complex now - I think I have to decide where my priorities lie - at the moment that is with Edius, Mac editing will be secondary on this machine. So format the raid 0 drives as NTFS from windows and move anything across to the system drive that I want to work on under Leopard. Hope that makes sense!

[STORMDAVE]

Yeah it does get a bit complex. For me I do all my motion graphics work under OSX but editing jobs are done under Windows. You can put in 2x1TB drives in the Mac Pro and RAID0 them as I explained previously in this thread. Cheap way to go, but unsafe. Make sure to keep backups of your projects on external USB drives in case of drive failures.

If you need to do DVD authoring etc under OSX, just get the Paragon NTFS for Mac software, it will work fine for that kind of stuff.

[hedleyw]

A very basic question - where do I route the power from for the component out board? fx: blush

[STORMDAVE]

Nowhere :)
Mac Pro doesn't have any molex adapters onboard except with the 2 super drive slots (They use IDE). You don't need the power. That molex is only for supplying power to the 6pin component boards firewire connection. If you need power for a firewire device (Not many nowadays), use the Mac Pro firewire ports.

For audio, skip the included aux cable that's included and buy a short 3.5mm male to male cable and route the LINE OUT from the NX to the LINE IN on the Mac Pro. Then enable Line In from the audio menu in Windows.

[hedleyw]

Nowhere :)
Mac Pro doesn't have any molex adapters onboard except with the 2 super drive slots (They use IDE). You don't need the power. That molex is only for supplying power to the 6pin component boards firewire connection. If you need power for a firewire device (Not many nowadays), use the Mac Pro firewire ports.

For audio, skip the included aux cable that's included and buy a short 3.5mm male to male cable and route the LINE OUT from the NX to the LINE IN on the Mac Pro. Then enable Line In from the audio menu in Windows.

Whoah that was quick! Thanks very much :). Just installing the 4.61 update then it's off for some shut-eye.

[Geoff]

Perhaps you will read my other post, but Edius NX is now working on my Mac!!!! It was an EX card problem.

Good luck with your system, it will fly!

Geoff