Vanity: Should I switch to Mac (somebody else is paying)?

Vanity - Self | January 30, 2008 | Scoutmaster

[Terpfen]

It’s on Windows via Steam. Use Boot Camp, or buy a PS3 or 360.

[antiRepublicrat]

Do ALL those things really need a dedicated CPU though, unless you’re doing load testing?

Not all, or eight cores wouldn't be enough (the host needs some). See below.

Which if you’re doing that, you ought to be doing it on a production quality system

And have to buy multiple boxes, with the space and electricity requirements? Remember, a Mac Pro is a workstation, production-quality server parts in a desktop. Companies are already using production server virtualization to save hardware, space and electricity, and ease management.

because those things won’t even come close to peaking out a single core.

I think the problem is contention with the core's resources. They're not using much individually, but the constant fight for threads with associated context switches and dirtying the cache slows things down. Each OS instance is going to have have several hundred threads running.

Both file servers could share a core, as they'll never be loaded at the same time. AD and the client (which must remain totally responsive) can easily share. The front-ends and database each need their own, since when they kick in it'll be high load with lots of data crunching. That leaves two for the host OS in a Mac Pro, pretty good. If I put AD/file servers/client on a single core, I've still swamped a four-core system with little left for the host.

I mean, the VMs for those shouldn’t even really need that much RAM (unless these are Windows servers.).

They are. But you can skimp on the Active Directory and file servers. The rest like their RAM, especially for the use I'm envisioning.

[jack_napier]

Well, I think your scenario for application development seems unconventional, or at least outside the realm of most development scenarios. But then again, I come from the Java Enterprise world. And you could still go buy a dual slot, quad core handling setup from newegg, throw Ubuntu on it (or OSX86) and have it be cheaper. But I realize that most people have no desire to go down this route.

[montag813]

Perhaps you still have that old Mac sitting around but you would have us believe that you not only bought a new Windows PC in 2001 but also bought OSX and kept updating your Mac hardware? Frankly, I doubt it. People usually say what they intend to say in their first statement. You said: I used Macs from the first release until 2001... That's pretty clear. I think you are backtracking to try and repair that "credibility" you claim.

Why so paranoid? I still use Mac laptops and have a Macbook Air on order as we speak. These anti-PC threads remind me of the Darwin-ID threads...needlessly acrimonious. I am not a Mac-hater. I just take great exception to the bashing of Windows PCs. XP is an amazingly stable OS.

[antiRepublicrat]

Well, I think your scenario for application development seems unconventional, or at least outside the realm of most development scenarios.

Virtualization is pretty common, and getting more so every day. People are starting to look at their space lease and electric bills.

And you could still go buy a dual slot, quad core handling setup from newegg, throw Ubuntu on it (or OSX86) and have it be cheaper.

The retail cost of the equipment in a Mac Pro tends to be more than the cost of a whole Mac Pro. Apple must get some good volume deals. The Mac's 1600 MHz chips aren't on the retail market yet, but the slower 1333 version of the 2.8 would cost me about $1,500 for two. Looking at the price difference on the last bus bump, add maybe $300 to that. Now I get a mobo ($500) and power supply ($300) and I'm within $200 of the Mac Pro's price. Hope I can find the case (quality aluminum, quiet please), heat sinks/fans (gonna need good ones), video, memory (FB-DIMM), keyboard/mouse (must be decent) and hard drive really cheap.

[jack_napier]

Virtualization is pretty common, and getting more so every day. People are starting to look at their space lease and electric bills.

Virtualization is common. Developing applications where were you need to run that many VMs with that kind of load so that they need dedicated cores, is not. I really have no idea where this comment came from; no one was implying that virtualization isn't common. As I already said I use VMWare for development. I find the exact scenario you're describing to be out of the ordinary. I certainly don't think it's sufficient to describe the 8 cores as the Second Coming to software development.

You're right, the current Mac Pro incarnation is cheaper. I suppose my perception of the hardware being expensive is tainted by how it was even just a couple of years ago.

[Swordmaker]

Why so paranoid? I still use Mac laptops and have a Macbook Air on order as we speak. These anti-PC threads remind me of the Darwin-ID threads...needlessly acrimonious. I am not a Mac-hater. I just take great exception to the bashing of Windows PCs. XP is an amazingly stable OS.

Paranoid? Paranoia has nothing to do with it. I just don't believe you.

This is not an anti-PC thread... it is, however, an overwhelmingly pro-Mac thread made so by the participants who have raved about their experiences with modern Macs.

Then you pop in, self-proclaiming your credibility because you used Macs "from the first release until 2001" when you switched to Windows.

To those of us who are intimately familiar with Macs, that means you really have not used OSX.

When this chronological disconnect is pointed out to you, you change your story and claim you "...still use Mac lsptops..." and have ordered the newest released niche Apple notebook. Yet you are totally unfamiliar with the most widely praised component of OSX.5 Leopard and how it works.

Quite frankly, that has all the earmarks of the Windows users who commonly troll Mac threads and establish or inflate their "credibility" by claiming Mac usership or ownership who then demonstrate their unfamiliarity with the Mac in everything they post with remarks made from an obvious Windows bias... such as your mistaken claim that a Mac advertisement touting Time Machine is merely claiming something as new that's been available on Windows for six years.

"The latest one has Macs bragging about being able to restore themselves to a point before an install. HELLO! Ever hear of System Restore? Only been on PCs for like 6 years or more.

Then you unleash your coup d' grace - denying the truth of what Freepers on this thread wrote who have told Scoutmaster they experienced increased productivity when they switched to a Mac - you suddenly claim the exact opposite, asserting you and your co-workers are more productive on Windows PCs in the very fields where the Mac is pre-eminent and historically the preferred choice of professionals in those fields:

"We are far more productive since moving from Macs to PCs, and we are not number crunchers, but creative media producers, from print to video to internet."

After having stated that, you now claim that you use Mac laptops and have ordered a brand new $1800 Macbook Air, a computer that has yet to demonstrate that it can run Windows at all, lacking the means to install any form of Windows from an optical drive.

Good Grief, man, if what you claim is true, WHY? Why would you use OSX notebook computers when you claim you"... are far more productive" on a PC "? You want to have less productivity? Are you a masochist??? I call BS. Your posts reek of it.

Now do you see why I don't believe you?

[HAL9000]

Are you a masochist???

Wow, that is exactly what I was wondering.

Windows is barely usable at all. In most respects, it is a frustrating, shoddy piece of crap. It's amazing that anyone gets anything done with it. Our national productivity rate would rise dramatically if everyone switched to Macs.

I have to admit that I've been totally spoiled by Mac OS X (and Linux for servers). I would quit the industry if I had to use Windows daily.

[Richard Kimball]

Old Aggie joke: An Aggie buys a chain saw after the salesman tells him he can cut two cords of wood a day with it. The Aggie works all day, but only gets a half cord cut. Next day he gets up before dawn, skips lunch and only gets 3/4 of a cord cut. He takes the saw back to the salesman. The salesman offers to investigate and pulls the cord. The saw starts right up. The Aggie says "What's that sound?"

I thought of that joke when reading the post about the guy that complained about the Startup Gallery always opening up when he started Office on the Mac.

[LearnsFromMistakes]

For moving to a Mac from Windows, does this help?

http://www.parallels.com/en/products/desktop/features/transporter/

Parallels Transporter is an innovative, powerful tool that enables you to migrate your entire PC system to a Parallels virtual machine. Migrate your entire PC system, including operating system, applications, files, and personal settings – without losing data or reinstalling any software.

I had heard of parallels, but never heard of this ‘transporter’...

[antiRepublicrat]

Virtualization is common. Developing applications where were you need to run that many VMs with that kind of load so that they need dedicated cores, is not.

What can I say? What I want to do involves clusters, and it's not a web app. How do you propose to handle four servers running at heavy load (pushing lots of data and probably hogging the processor), plus the other three servers and client, plus host OS, on four cores?

It could technically work, and probably work somewhat acceptably on extremely small test datasets, maybe a few tens of megabytes. That would get me through early development. But I need to test and optimize this for realistic datasets, like hundreds of gigabytes. I don't want to wait all day.

[jack_napier]

I’m not proposing that you do it any differently, just reiterating that 8 2.8GHz cores is in fact, more horsepower than most people, even most developers, can use. If you can use it all, more power to you.

[antiRepublicrat]

just reiterating that 8 2.8GHz cores is in fact, more horsepower than most people, even most developers, can use. If you can use it all, more power to you.

It is a lot of power, but there is a big market for high-power workstations for various uses. Dell, HP and IBM are other big players in this market. One FReeper uses it to do video, and having a dual core I can say I wish I had eight for that since renders and conversions tend to take hours.

[montag813]

After having stated that, you now claim that you use Mac laptops and have ordered a brand new $1800 Macbook Air, a computer that has yet to demonstrate that it can run Windows at all, lacking the means to install any form of Windows from an optical drive. Good Grief, man, if what you claim is true, WHY? Why would you use OSX notebook computers when you claim you"... are far more productive" on a PC "?

Why would I want to run Windows on my MacBook Air? Every Photoshop, Illustrator and AfterEffects file I create on my MacBooks transfer over to PC with no problem at all. I have always used MacBooks because I have never found PC laptops I like as much. I tried Sony but the battery life sucked. I use PCs only in our studio, jacked to the hilt doing 3D animation and video editing. Pound for pound and dollar for dollar we are faster in every way rendering on PCs. And many specialty effects apps aren't available on Mac. I really don't give a shit if you believe me. I am hardly the only one out there using both platforms. You Mac-Only maniacs are just nutbags sometimes. It really reminds me of the intelligent design threads. Take a valium.

[Scoutmaster]

"If you want to make your procurement department happy with you, get the RAM expansion from someone other than Apple post purchase... just make sure you get quality memory from one of the reputable firms. You can save a lot of $$ that way. Apple does charge a high premium for expansion RAM."

Thanks. Apple's RAM prices looked to be through the roof and reputable aftermarket RAM is much less expensive.

Does the same logic apply to hard drives? I could install Hitachi or Western Digital server-quality drives in the extra bays for much less than the cost of buying them from Apple.

[Swordmaker]

Does the same logic apply to hard drives? I could install Hitachi or Western Digital server-quality drives in the extra bays for much less than the cost of buying them from Apple.

yes.

[Scoutmaster]

What would you recommend regarding Raid and backup storage? Goal is to minimize risk of data loss and to speed hard drive access to the extent the two goals are compatible; minimizing risk of data loss is the priority.

Obviously, external back up options include the new wireless router/wireless storage unit (500Gig or 1TB) from Apple, or good old external drives. To use XServe Raid external drives, the Mac Pro requires a $700 fibre optic card.

The regular Raid controller for the Mac Pro is a hefty $800. A plus to the Raid controller is that if SAS drives become available with greater storage capacity at a reasonable cost, the Raid controller is required to use SAS drives.

My current Core 2 Duo ASUS motherboard has the Raid controller built into it. Running four 500 gig drives (Western Digial, 16 MB Cache) with Raid (whether 0,1, or 5) never seemed to do anything but slow my computer.

Would you use Raid 5 with four drives to optimize both data security and access speed? Would you recommend the regular Raid card, the XServe Raid card, or another option for backup and, if appropriate, Raid?

I generally replace PC case fans with quieter, higher air flow, fans, with silicon or rubber gaskets — even on Lian Li or Cooler Max cases. What’s the quality/noise like on OEM Apple fans? Would you replace them (or gasket them)?

[Swordmaker]

What would you recommend regarding Raid and backup storage? Goal is to minimize risk of data loss and to speed hard drive access to the extent the two goals are compatible; minimizing risk of data loss is the priority.

I have not gotten into Raid too much... but the Raid 5 or the Raid 10 (1+0) would be the best trade-off combination of speed of access and reliability.

The most important thing about data back up is to do it and to make sure that a fairly recent copy (economically recent... a backup that will not cost to much to bring back up to date by recreating recent work since the backup event) is stored off-site. For some businesses, an economically viable backup is once a week... some once a day... others can use a once a month backup. Some cannot survive any data loss.

I once had a client who backed up religiously. One day thieves broke into his business and stole his computer... and his back up drives... and all of his backup copies which he stored right next to his computer. The wireless Time Machine system can allow you to backup your system without having an obvious connection to the backup system for a thief to follow.

If you have a fast enough broadband connection to the internet, you can place your backup off site for ultimate security (the building burns down, your state falls into the nearest Ocean...) by up loading it to a secure site.

Data integrity is another issue. There the internal mirrored raid 1 the Mac offers may be of value. The internal raid does not solve the problem of a stolen or destroyed computer though.

The type of data you are working with is also important in deciding what type or backup you need to utilize. If you are accessing a monolithic database the backup requirements can be different than if you are accessing large numbers of separate files. The size of your average file is also important... for example, backing up incremental changes in a large video file may not be a candidate for WiFi backup or Time Machine, it would simply take too long for the bandwidth to handle... but thousands of little files might be.

Keep in mind that copying gigabytes of data even over high speed fibre channel connections to high RPM drives will still take surprisingly large amounts of time to accomplish and plan accordingly.

As for the cost of an external Xserve Raid and the fibre optic card to drive it, that is really very small compared to the cost of replacing the lost or damaged data. The hot-swapability of the xServe drives allows you to use one as a transportable backup that can be taken off site as your "economically viable backup" and the previous backup traded back into the slot for use.

Concerning the slow down you experienced on your ASUS with an internal MB raid controller... that may not be a problem on a Mac. The Mac handles multitasking better than Windows and, depending on the type of data access you are using, you may not see any slowdown at all. With a multi-core Mac, the OS should be able to shift the drive access overhead to the least used core.

I generally replace PC case fans with quieter, higher air flow, fans, with silicon or rubber gaskets — even on Lian Li or Cooler Max cases. What’s the quality/noise like on OEM Apple fans? Would you replace them (or gasket them)?

The Macs cases and fans are engineered for efficient cooling with low noise... and the custom designed fans are generally not replaceable by third party fans. You really have to see the engineering to see why. Mac cases are built to very close tolerances and I doubt you would need to or could add any gaskets. My experience with my G5 tower which has nine fans, is that I have heard the fans only once... when I deliberately stressed the dual G5s with some real heavy duty processing. Other than that, my cat's breathing is noisier than the my noisiest Mac.

On the other hand, one earlier G4 Mac tower was not so affectionately known as the Wind tunnel Mac...

I hope this helps