
A Mac Pro Mini - mh_
http://www.marco.org/2013/03/06/mac-pro-mini
======
teilo
Apple has abandoned any users who need real power. They have abandoned
enterprise. They have abandoned video, 3D, DAW. My company, which would love
to maintain our Mac fileservers and OpenDirectory, but we are being forced,
kicking and screaming into the open arms of Windows Server, Active Directory,
and ExtremeZ-IP. We don't need "desktop-lite". We need server-grade multi-core
workhorses to run CPU-intensive workflow automation services (graphic arts,
print production, high-end color stuff), but can't get them.

And their iMacs and Mac Mini's? Yeah, we use them as servers because we have
no choice. We actually need Thunderbolt now. But they are buggy as hell. The
built-in network interfaces on them drop for no apparent reason, and need to
be re-started. Three separate boxes do this: 2 iMacs and one Mini. We have
actually resorted to putting SmallTree PCIe gigabit ethernet cards (Intel Pro
chipsets) into Thunderbolt PCI express chassis, in order to get a stable
ethernet stack. Those never drop on us. How can Apple get something as basic
as a stable Ethernet port so wrong? No load testing. No desire to fix their
drivers or firmware, whichever is responsible.

~~~
mbell
While I realize its not 'apple approved' it is very easy and cheap to build an
extremely powerful 'hackintosh' as long as you pick the correct hardware. See
<http://www.tonymacx86.com/>

~~~
veidr
I am glad that is possible (and tempted to do it at home every time I go to
plug in a thunderbolt device into my Mac Pro, and then have to go _oh yeah,
god dammit..._ ) it is not just not 'apple approved' it is not _legal_.

In most normal business environments where obeying the law is a required
practice and bootlegging software is not allowed, building a hackintosh isn't
a solution.

~~~
mc32
Even if it were allowed, it would not be supported by the vendor in terms of
warranty support. when you're a 27x7 org, you don't need excuses from vendors
as to why your setup is not a supported configuration.

LDAP issues. Apple will not support it. Driver issues, the HW mfg will not
support the HW when weird things pop up.

~~~
niggler
"when you're a 27x7 org,"

I assume you mean 24x7 :P

~~~
shabble
I can imagine a not-too-distant future where we have cloud hosting
available[1] from flocks of solar-powered UAVs[2] loitering around the
International Date Line, thus finally paving the way for >100% uptime.

[1]
[http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2005/06/10/1389516.ht...](http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2005/06/10/1389516.htm)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_Pathfinder#Helios_Prototy...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_Pathfinder#Helios_Prototype)

~~~
niggler
In general relativity and closed-timelike-curve-time-travel there is a concept
of a universal clock, against which >100% uptime is impossible

------
S_A_P
Well I dont think that a retina iMac will suffice. I had a mac pro for my home
music studio. The point of it was to be a beefy machine that was plenty
expandable had lots of disk space and was quiet for the horsepower it
provided. Mac pros fit that bill perfectly. it was easy to load them up with
fast server class hard disks plug in your audio interface, any DSP boards,
dongles or whatever else was required and then you forget about it (that is,
until you see your electric bill the next month...)

I got the 2008 octocore Mac Pro and did just that and ran both mac os and
windows on it until I finally sold it last year(regrettably to help pay for
personal circumstances as well as a lack of time for music production) and
never had a single issue with it.

THAT is what I spend the extra money on, I want a beefy computer that will
last me 5 years. That is what the PRO audio crowd wants them for. I would
imagine its not much different in the graphics/video arena either.

------
jarjoura
A Xeon class CPU is quite a bit different than the mobile/desktop class CPU
Apple puts in their other systems.

I think Macro is being a bit dramatic in that a stagnant Mac Pro means the end
of an era and I call bullocks!

Intel's Xeon chips do not advance at the same pace and have themselves stood
still. Look at what Dell and HP are selling, they're basically the same CPUs
(albeit you can buy one generation newer).

What the Xeon workstation/server architecture provides is a fat I/O pipe
that's still extremely important to music and video professionals who rely on
near zero latency. Even photoshop cringes when working in print media scale
designs that take up a couple gigabytes in a document.

Besides, Apple tends to move slowly when a product isn't front and center,
usually milking a design for all it's worth. Tim Cook said they're working on
a pro device that will be out this year and I believe him.

~~~
veidr
No bullocks. The Mac Pro introduced at WWDC last year was the most pathetic
upgrade since the Mac Pro's debut. It's not just the CPU.

The "Pro" not only lacks Thunderbolt, it doesn't even have USB 3!

In fact the only port that my brand new retina Mac laptop and my Mac Pro have
in common is the headphone jack.

I even need a new one -- but I just can't. I would feel like such a jerk if I
bought the lame-ass Mac Pro that Apple's offering. (However, IIRC from his
now-defunt podcast, after bitching just like I am doing, Arment eventually did
just grit his teeth and buy one.)

------
electricCoder
The iMac isn't a developer machine. It looks on paper like a developer
machine, but when put to the test of compiling large C/C++ projects day in day
out it fails. We see more failures in iMacs than any other desktop we have at
work. Way more hdd failure and gpu failure than our dells or other mac
machines.

~~~
Turing_Machine
Why are you still running spinning metal drives on your developer machines?

------
Udo
The one reason people (like me) still want to keep the Pro alive, the one
thing that no other Mac can do, is support for more than two screens.

Now, Apple already made it abundantly clear what they think of multi-screen
desktops when they designed, and then failed to fix, the native full screen
feature of OS X.

I love my Mac Pro mainly for this one reason, but honestly, like many other
Pro customers at this point I'm just waiting for the other shoe to drop. I'm
not going to have different platforms as my laptop and desktop, so if the Pro
goes that's it for me and Apple - if by that time there is no real alternative
to achieve the same thing. This is a hugely depressing thought. I hopped on
board when OS X came out and never looked back to the Linux desktop since. For
me, it has never been about the hardware, but OS X which always felt like
home.

~~~
gambiting
You can connect 3 external screens even to the cheapest 11" MacBook Air. You
can do that with Retina MacBook Pros as well. I am not sure if you can with
iMacs though.

~~~
Udo
The newest MBAs can power 2 external screens, as can the higher-end iMac
(which isn't so bad since you can use the iMac itself as a 3rd). My "normal"
15 MBP can power one external (non-TB) screen, and I think the Retinas can
power two TB + one HDMI. A lot of this assumes I'm buying Apple's expensive
Thunderbolt displays, however.

[http://arstechnica.com/apple/2012/06/new-macbooks-can-
manage...](http://arstechnica.com/apple/2012/06/new-macbooks-can-manage-many-
many-monitors/)

~~~
daeken
The Retina MBP 15" (not sure about the 13") can do two Thunderbolt displays or
any two Displayport screens, plus HDMI.

~~~
Udo
Ah, OK, thanks.

Since this thread has re-opened a wound, I've been browsing external
Thunderbolt PCIe cases. Putting graphics cards in these is probably also on
option, as long as I'm not doing anything seriously taxing with them. But holy
fuck, they're expensive as hell, too.

------
lutorm
It's kind of ironic that Apple seems to be leaving the graphics professionals,
which are about the only group to never abandon them during the tough times.

------
calinet6
I couldn't agree less. A retina iMac wouldn't do it.

We'll probably see a new mid-size form factor aimed at professionals, slightly
larger than the Mac Mini but with more horsepower and expandability. It'll be
called "Mac" straight up. It'll be a throwback to the old Mac G4 Cube that
designers and graphic artists loved, with marketing to match.

No reason to have a retina display integrated iMac—it's just not that
exciting. What you'll see is the Mac Pro re-imagined for the modern world; one
in which the existing Mac Pro makes no sense.

At least, we can hope.

~~~
wtallis
The form factor will have to be significantly larger than any Mac Mini in
order to accommodate a real workstation-class GPU. However, I wouldn't be
surprised to see the PCIe x16 slot as the _only_ expansion slot on the
motherboard, with all the PCIe 2.0 lanes routed to Thunderbolt. That would
enable the motherboard to be only slightly larger than mini-ITX for single-
socket single-GPU systems.

------
larrys
"A few power users will complain, but most won’t care: by that time, most
former Mac Pro customers will have already switched away."

This is a statement that is general and without any basis at all. Where does
the OP come off writing "most former Mac Pro customers" I can almost guarantee
that this is simply pure conjecture with nothing to back it up.

"There’s even less of a reason to buy the Mac Pro today than I expected."

I run 3 monitors off a Mac Pro (24/30/24). I don't believe there is any way to
do that on anything but a Mac Pro. I could run six with the two video cards I
have now but can't fit them on my desktop. And I'm not using it for video
editing or anything like that. I just like to work with as much screen space
as possible.

~~~
bobidden
The retina MBP can easily run 3 monitors, and more with a USB graphics card. I
have 4 (24/27/24/23) running off mine right now.

~~~
larrys
Thanks. Which usb graphic card do you use and are you happy with it?

------
jiggy2011
Maybe the answer is just to sell a version of OS X that is licensed to run on
commodity X86 hardware, then just charge $1000 for it.

------
krautsourced
For 3D/VFX work you get so much more bang for the buck with a PC and Win/Linux
these days. We're a mixed environment shop, but the Mac Pros lag so far behind
the new PCs bought recently, for a fracture of the price. It's not even funny
any more. Then there's the network - I don't know what it is, but all PCs in
our network are about 50% faster than all the Macs. Personally I just use my
MBP these days for some developing and personal stuff, that's it. Everything
else has moved to PC entirely, and I can't complain. Apple would have to come
out with an insanely compelling product to sway me back.

------
rjd
And why not just by a Mac mini and thunderbolt expansion chasis? achieves the
same goal doesn't it?

e.g.
[http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/Thunderbolt/PCIe_Chassis/Merc...](http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/Thunderbolt/PCIe_Chassis/Mercury_Helios)
, <http://www.magma.com/expressbox-3t> ,
<http://www.sonnettech.com/product//thunderbolt/index.html>

~~~
stevejb
It does not, because you are still stuck with i5/i7 processors, whereas
workstations, especially those in high performance applications, would be much
more suited to a Xeon.

I run a linux workstation with dual 6 core Xeon Sandy Bridge-EP's, with 64 GB
of RAM. Being on an i7 would be limiting.

------
jpxxx
To put a needle fine point on what market is not being served here: content
producers and editors who need all of the CPU, GPU, disk space, pixels, and
I/O they can possibly get in a relatively price-insensitive business
environment.

Homebrews, file serving, enterprise, SOHO, and those with nostalgia for DIY
home desktop are non-factors now. The creators need a no-compromise beast with
a flawless Adobe and Avid story.

If Apple won't provide it, they're throwing their crown jewel customers in the
trash.

------
ChiperSoft
I see there being basically three types of person in this market niche:

\- Those who want more storage without external latency

\- Those who want more than one or two monitors

\- Those who want addon cards.

Thunderbolt is capable of solving all of these problems, and in fact there's
already market solutions for them. The problem is that the enclosures cost
more than the Mac itself, and that's not including the hardware you want to
put into them.

Thunderbolt drive enclosures and RAID systems are already starting to fall in
price and will continue to fall as TB gains marketshare, but the PCIe cages
are still STUPID expensive. If Apple were to release their own bus cage for
people to add PCIe cards to their macs at a sane price point, suddenly the
MacPro stops being the only Mac with that capability.

A chain-able TB display adapter would also go a LONG way to expanding the
Mac's capabilities. One DisplayPort output per bus just doesn't cut it for
some power users, and the only alternative is significantly slower USB
adapters.

~~~
xymostech
> A chain-able TB display adapter

You do know that you can already hook up more than one thunderbolt display to
a single thunderbolt port using daisy-chaining, right?

~~~
ChiperSoft
And if I felt like spending $3000 to replace all my existing monitors, that
might be a viable option.

------
bashinator
I have the perfect name for this product that would sit between the Mac Mini
and the Mac Pro: The Mac Plus.

 _rimshot_.

~~~
MaysonL
Don't you mean the Mac SemiPro?

------
mahyarm
I just want a dual or quad socket mac pro with haswell processors. I'm forced
to use a Mac for iOS development, and large compile times just get annoying.
Hackintoshes are not quite right at times and can screw up builds.

~~~
glhaynes
Are you saying Hackintoshes are known to sometimes generate executables that
differ from those made by real Macs? That seems really unlikely to me.

~~~
drewcrawford
As a person who used a hackintosh as a primary development machine, the
problem is more that it is difficult to keep a hackintosh up to date, and due
to Apple's aversion to backwards compatibility, this poses a significant
problem for generating executables that will be accepted by a toolchain
released 30 days ago.

------
protomyth
If someone were to design a Mac Pro Mini, then it really needs both the memory
and hard drives easily replaceable. I can even handle all flash if it mSATA
and not some funky connector. It needs two (4 would be awesome) thunderbolts,
usb3, and two (working, solid) ethernet connectors (one for network, one for
storage). HDMI is nice (I would like an added input). I need 32GB of RAM on
the minimum side. Core i7 and NVIDIA GPU would be fine. Include an iSCSI
initiator.

If the next Mac Pro is any good, I predict a huge buy on its first day due to
two years of pent up demand.

------
davidroberts
I wonder, since Apple is obviously abandoning this market, why is Microsoft
trying so hard to alienate the power desktop user market with Windows 8
instead of aggressively trying to bring this group of Mac Pro users over to
them. Of course they would have to improve Windows into a high-quality OS that
works for them and find OEM's to partner with who are willing to find out what
hardware these users want and provide it. Maybe it's a forlorn hope, but it's
better than flailing after the tablet ship that sailed past them two years
ago.

~~~
actf
I agree completely.

Lately everyone seems to be convinced that we're witnessing the death of the
desktop computer, but I wonder if this could be partly due to the lack of
options in this market. Apple and Microsoft have both dropped the ball here.
Apple has eliminated hardware options that power users are looking for, while
Microsoft still doesn't provide a decent POSIX environment or even a passable
terminal.

I honestly wonder what the world would look like if Microsoft were to suddenly
switch focus and deploy a version of windows with full POSIX support built in,
a decent terminal, a first class package manager, and a decent app store.
Instead they are removing features like the start button that confuse existing
users, and adding a Metro UI that power users don't want.

Maybe I'm just getting old and cynical, but I think we would be witnessing
stronger desktop sales if Apple and Microsoft were providing options that
users actually wanted.

~~~
jiggy2011
So, basically you want MS to make a Linux distribution?

~~~
actf
I'm not sure if you're being serious or just sarcastic, but no - that's not at
all what I'm suggesting.

OSX provides a POSIX environment, and OSX is obviously not a Linux
distribution. In fact Microsoft already provides SUA (Subsystem for Unix
Applications) which is basically a POSIX environment, but iirc SUA is only
available in certain versions of Windows, and only as a download from
Microsoft, post installation.

So no I'm not in anyway suggesting Microsoft re-architect Windows as a Linux
distribution. I'm suggesting that Microsoft make POSIX tools an integral part
of the OS, like they are in OSX. For example, making bash the default shell,
providing cmdline tools like powershell cmdlets to manage the system from the
command line, providing a useable terminal etc. Basically similar to what
cygwin and msys provide today, but better and with deeper integration in the
OS.

~~~
jiggy2011
A Unix system intended primarily to run on X86? May as well be a Linux
distribution. At that point it probably doesn't make economic sense to
maintain your own kernel.

~~~
cmircea
Unless, of course, you have these millions and millions of apps that need your
on kernel to run.

------
smoyer
I have the rMBP with 16GB RAM and a giant SSD. Add the 27" Thunderbolt monitor
and I think I have the new Mac Pro.

The power consumption is great and the performance is top-notch too.

~~~
krautsourced
But try rendering a large 3D or video sequence over night, and watch it melt
through your desk.

~~~
smoyer
It doesn't get that hot, even while running full-bore. I don't render video or
graphics, but I do simulations and run a lot of VMs for various test modes. I
suspect that fully loaded CPUs are going to hit a maximum temperature
regardless of the application that is running. And yes ... I can't expand the
RAM beyond that 16GB (it's actually the limiting factor for my VM count).

------
themstheones
I see it going the other way. Apple needs a bridge product between the iPad
and the iMac. They are also getting clobbered by PCs in the business market. I
suspect the big announcement will be a mid-range line of macs aimed for large
scale roll-outs to corporations and governments. I read an article backing up
this viewpoint in Business Week a while back, but alas it was only in the
print edition.

~~~
likeclockwork
I don't see that happening.

Apple products are luxury items with high margins. They don't need to or want
to chase that mass PC money.

~~~
Legion
> Apple products are luxury items with high margins. They don't need to or
> want to chase that mass PC money.

This reality gets less true every day. It's the same argument people repeated
to insist that the iPad Mini would never happen. Or the Mac Mini. Or $0-after-
subsidy 8GB iPhones.

I don't think it would be surprising at all to see Apple look at business
computing as money they no longer wish to leave on the table.

~~~
jiggy2011
Apple already sell a relatively cheap desktop computer in the mac mini. I
don't think they could make anything much cheaper without digging into their
margins.

Microsoft's value in the business market is their suite of server desktop &
cloud products and the integration between those. Adding all of that stuff to
OS X would be a big undertaking and would probably take away a lot of the
simplicity of the Mac.

------
ksec
I wanted, MacPro in Cube Shape. Dual CPU ( Not Xeon Only, ) and up to 64GB of
Memory, Dual Geforce GTX Titan, Dual Thunderbolt, SSD in Raid.

Because the Margin of SSD and Geforce GTX is much larger, Apple could make
their own SSD and Buying Geforce GTX Titan at discount price. Making the New
MacPro as similar pricing if you have built it up yourself.

------
spinchange
I thought I had seen it speculated that Apple's "Made in the USA" efforts
would be for the next Mac Pro.

------
Bud
Sounds like what is needed is a modern version of the SE/30.

Let's call it the iSE/30!

