Welcome Guest! To enable all features please Login or Register.

Notification

Icon
Error
Forum Jump  
Best VE PRO slave: 1 Mac Pro or 4 mac mini?
Last post Tue, Oct 04 2011 by colony nofi, 33 replies.
Options
Go to last post
2 Pages12>
Posted on Mon, Mar 07 2011 09:56
by V_ad_im
Joined on Fri, Feb 25 2011, Posts 130
Hello!

What case is better for performance: 1 Mac Pro (6-8 cores) or 3-4 mac mini with SSD inside?

Best regards,
Vadim
Back to top
Posted on Mon, Mar 07 2011 10:29
by Cyril Blanc
Joined on Thu, Dec 19 2002, Paris France, Posts 2799

The problem is the memory limitation of the MacMini

So it will depends of your setup

I have heard there are new Mac mini on the shelve !!!

MacBook Pro 2019 16" + 2 x Odisseey G9 49"
MacPro 2010 12 core 2.93 ghz 64 GB Mac OS X 10.11 2722 Rocket Raid Sata III card with 8 x ssd
Kbd : P80 Yamaha, S88 and S25 Komplete Kontrol, DX7
I-Controls Pro, 2xMidi expression pedals
Synth : many....
--
Logic X , Dorico, Band In A Box, ORB Composer
VSL : MIR PRO, Appassionata Strings I, Solo strings , Wind and Brass Complete, Dimension Brass, Big Band Orchestra series, Many Synchronised libs
Kontakt, Omnisphere, QLSO, QLSC, CS 80, Arturia V5, Maximo, Realivox Blue. CS 80 V3, The Orchestra 3, Art Conductor, Genesis Children Choir, Lunaris, Lacrimosa
Many Sychron Instruments

Final Cut pro
Camera full HD
Back to top
Posted on Mon, Mar 07 2011 12:15
by V_ad_im
Joined on Fri, Feb 25 2011, Posts 130
Memory? but mac mini (8gb) x 4 = mac Pro (32gb)
Back to top
Posted on Mon, Mar 07 2011 12:40
by DG
Joined on Wed, May 12 2004, Posts 8608

There are various options. Assuming that you want to stay with OSX (which won't give you the best VE Pro slave) then there are various things to consider:

  1. You will be able to load less with the 4 Minis, because you have the OS overhead on each computer to take into account.
  2. It depends what Virtual Instruments you are running as to whether or not you will get better performance with a Mac Pro.
  3. SSD will load your samples quicker, but is unlikely to improve performance. The exception would be if you wanted to run Kontakt (for example) at a lower pre-load buffer. However, be aware that SSD is not performing well on OSX for many people, so you may see little to no benefit.

DG

Nuendo 6.03, 4.3
2 x Intel Xeon x5675 3.07GHz Hex Core
48GB RAM
Windows 7 (x64)Pro
RME Multiface II
Intensity
ATI HD5400 series graphics card
Back to top
Posted on Mon, Mar 07 2011 13:08
by V_ad_im
Joined on Fri, Feb 25 2011, Posts 130
DG wrote:
(which won't give you the best VE Pro slave)


What difference between Mac and PC for use as slave? Latency?
Back to top
Posted on Mon, Mar 07 2011 13:12
by Cyril Blanc
Joined on Thu, Dec 19 2002, Paris France, Posts 2799
DG wrote:

 However, be aware that SSD is not performing well on OSX for many people, so you may see little to no benefit.

DG

just be a little bit patient !!!! 

MacBook Pro 2019 16" + 2 x Odisseey G9 49"
MacPro 2010 12 core 2.93 ghz 64 GB Mac OS X 10.11 2722 Rocket Raid Sata III card with 8 x ssd
Kbd : P80 Yamaha, S88 and S25 Komplete Kontrol, DX7
I-Controls Pro, 2xMidi expression pedals
Synth : many....
--
Logic X , Dorico, Band In A Box, ORB Composer
VSL : MIR PRO, Appassionata Strings I, Solo strings , Wind and Brass Complete, Dimension Brass, Big Band Orchestra series, Many Synchronised libs
Kontakt, Omnisphere, QLSO, QLSC, CS 80, Arturia V5, Maximo, Realivox Blue. CS 80 V3, The Orchestra 3, Art Conductor, Genesis Children Choir, Lunaris, Lacrimosa
Many Sychron Instruments

Final Cut pro
Camera full HD
Back to top
Posted on Mon, Mar 07 2011 13:49
by mosso
Joined on Thu, Jun 23 2005, London, England, Posts 376

In my opinion you get far more bang for your buck with a PC slave (rather than OSX). Why are you only looking at Macs?

I use OSX and Logic on my master machine (just in case you thought I was biased). Wink

M

Martin Thornton
<a href="http://www.mosso.co.uk/" target="_blank">www.mosso.co.uk</a>
Back to top
Posted on Mon, Mar 07 2011 14:42
by DG
Joined on Wed, May 12 2004, Posts 8608

V_ad_im wrote:
DG wrote:
(which won't give you the best VE Pro slave)
What difference between Mac and PC for use as slave? Latency?
 

VE Pro runs more efficiently under Windows than under OSX.

DG

Nuendo 6.03, 4.3
2 x Intel Xeon x5675 3.07GHz Hex Core
48GB RAM
Windows 7 (x64)Pro
RME Multiface II
Intensity
ATI HD5400 series graphics card
Back to top
Posted on Mon, Mar 07 2011 14:45
by DG
Joined on Wed, May 12 2004, Posts 8608
Cyril wrote:
DG wrote:

 However, be aware that SSD is not performing well on OSX for many people, so you may see little to no benefit.

DG

just be a little bit patient !!!! 

 

Cyril, I'm not sure that there is anything to be patient for. Apple seems to have had very little response to the many complaints about the lack of performance using SSD with OSX. Also, now that Thunderbolt is out, I'm not sure that there is much incentive to do anything about it. I suspect that the full potential of SSD with OSX will only be seen with an external drive connected via Thunderbolt.

DG

Nuendo 6.03, 4.3
2 x Intel Xeon x5675 3.07GHz Hex Core
48GB RAM
Windows 7 (x64)Pro
RME Multiface II
Intensity
ATI HD5400 series graphics card
Back to top
Posted on Mon, Mar 07 2011 14:47
by DG
Joined on Wed, May 12 2004, Posts 8608
mosso wrote:

In my opinion you get far more bang for your buck with a PC slave (rather than OSX). Why are you only looking at Macs?

I use OSX and Logic on my master machine (just in case you thought I was biased). Wink

M

 

I think you're right about that. However, some OSX users do worry about running a Windows machine, and I quite understand that if OSX is your home territory, anything else can be daunting. It's a bit like changing sequencer or notation program. Not for the faint of heart. Wink

DG

Nuendo 6.03, 4.3
2 x Intel Xeon x5675 3.07GHz Hex Core
48GB RAM
Windows 7 (x64)Pro
RME Multiface II
Intensity
ATI HD5400 series graphics card
Back to top
Posted on Mon, Mar 07 2011 15:20
by mike connelly
Joined on Wed, Apr 28 2004, Posts 260

Personally, I'd go with a PC slave before getting any mac to use as a slave machine.  But my mac pro is handling everything I need, with my current setup it's plenty, I have no need for a slave machine.

DG wrote:

Cyril, I'm not sure that there is anything to be patient for. Apple seems to have had very little response to the many complaints about the lack of performance using SSD with OSX. Also, now that Thunderbolt is out, I'm not sure that there is much incentive to do anything about it. I suspect that the full potential of SSD with OSX will only be seen with an external drive connected via Thunderbolt.

Apple is improving SSD support.  Recently it was found that 10.7 has TRIM support, after that new MB air models included it for the latest version of 10.6 (in both cases, just for the apple SSDs but I expect that to get updated to support all).

In terms of performance on mac, it seems more dependent on the software.  PLAY doesn't work well on SSD/Mac, and it sounds like the vienna stuff isn't really optimized for SSD on either platform.  But Kontakt has major gains on SSD, mac and PC.  That, along with major improvements on mac/ssd with other types of software, makes it seems like it's much more an issue for third party devs to fix than something on Apple's side.
Back to top
Posted on Mon, Mar 07 2011 15:52
by MS
Joined on Wed, Feb 19 2003, Vienna, Austria, Posts 1762

A new update is currently in testing, which improves SSD loading performance. For one user with an SSD RAID on Mac, loading speed has increased from10-15MB/sec to roughly 480MB/sec. With this update - disk speed is the only limit to loading speed.

--
Martin Saleteg
Software Developer
Vienna Symphonic Library GmbH
Back to top
Posted on Mon, Mar 07 2011 18:19
by V_ad_im
Joined on Fri, Feb 25 2011, Posts 130
MS wrote:

A new update is currently in testing, which improves SSD loading performance. For one user with an SSD RAID on Mac, loading speed has increased from10-15MB/sec to roughly 480MB/sec. With this update - disk speed is the only limit to loading speed.



New update of what? OsX or programm?
Back to top
Posted on Mon, Mar 07 2011 18:22
by MS
Joined on Wed, Feb 19 2003, Vienna, Austria, Posts 1762

A new update of VI & VIPro. We have implemented a workaround to get around some of the pitfalls of the OSX kernel.

--
Martin Saleteg
Software Developer
Vienna Symphonic Library GmbH
Back to top
Posted on Wed, Mar 09 2011 07:10
by Sakamoto
Joined on Sun, Jan 19 2003, Germany, Posts 115

Hello,

this increase of performance sound amazing. But what does RAID mean in this case and which SSD do you recommend for a Mac Pro. Should I wait till the faster ones come out end of April?

Thanks

Alfred
Back to top
Posted on Wed, Mar 09 2011 07:52
by Cyril Blanc
Joined on Thu, Dec 19 2002, Paris France, Posts 2799

> But what does RAID mean in this case

raid 0 is about 1.5 the speed per disk, more disk you have, faster is the loading

the 490 mb/s test was done with a 11 GB template on a 4 x 64 gb crucial  raid on a Rocket raid sata III, a 11.83 GB template was loaded in 50 secs  using VE pro server and VI pro

> which SSD do you recommend for a Mac Pro.

Sata III if you can have a SATA III card in your MAC (like the Rocket Raid)

> Should I wait till the faster ones come out end of April?

up to you !

MacBook Pro 2019 16" + 2 x Odisseey G9 49"
MacPro 2010 12 core 2.93 ghz 64 GB Mac OS X 10.11 2722 Rocket Raid Sata III card with 8 x ssd
Kbd : P80 Yamaha, S88 and S25 Komplete Kontrol, DX7
I-Controls Pro, 2xMidi expression pedals
Synth : many....
--
Logic X , Dorico, Band In A Box, ORB Composer
VSL : MIR PRO, Appassionata Strings I, Solo strings , Wind and Brass Complete, Dimension Brass, Big Band Orchestra series, Many Synchronised libs
Kontakt, Omnisphere, QLSO, QLSC, CS 80, Arturia V5, Maximo, Realivox Blue. CS 80 V3, The Orchestra 3, Art Conductor, Genesis Children Choir, Lunaris, Lacrimosa
Many Sychron Instruments

Final Cut pro
Camera full HD
Back to top
Posted on Wed, Mar 09 2011 08:40
by Sakamoto
Joined on Sun, Jan 19 2003, Germany, Posts 115

Thanks for your advice Cyril,

I don´t know if my Mac Pro 12core takes the SATA III, but I hope so.  Do you win performance only when you load the instrument or does the SSD increase the performance during playing too?
Back to top
Posted on Wed, Mar 09 2011 10:31
by Cyril Blanc
Joined on Thu, Dec 19 2002, Paris France, Posts 2799

loading and playing

No problem to put a sata III card in your Mac

MacBook Pro 2019 16" + 2 x Odisseey G9 49"
MacPro 2010 12 core 2.93 ghz 64 GB Mac OS X 10.11 2722 Rocket Raid Sata III card with 8 x ssd
Kbd : P80 Yamaha, S88 and S25 Komplete Kontrol, DX7
I-Controls Pro, 2xMidi expression pedals
Synth : many....
--
Logic X , Dorico, Band In A Box, ORB Composer
VSL : MIR PRO, Appassionata Strings I, Solo strings , Wind and Brass Complete, Dimension Brass, Big Band Orchestra series, Many Synchronised libs
Kontakt, Omnisphere, QLSO, QLSC, CS 80, Arturia V5, Maximo, Realivox Blue. CS 80 V3, The Orchestra 3, Art Conductor, Genesis Children Choir, Lunaris, Lacrimosa
Many Sychron Instruments

Final Cut pro
Camera full HD
Back to top
Posted on Wed, Mar 09 2011 11:45
by Sakamoto
Joined on Sun, Jan 19 2003, Germany, Posts 115

Crazy world - this morning I found out that my official mac-trader installed Western Caviar green HDs instead black ones on my new Mac. So maybe the exchange will bring me some gain of performance. We will see...

What do you think about a Western raptor? Is this kind of HD out of time now? It´s no so expensive...
Back to top
Posted on Wed, Mar 09 2011 12:45
by Cyril Blanc
Joined on Thu, Dec 19 2002, Paris France, Posts 2799

Raid 0 of HD is also a solution now, this as soon the fix is out

If you leave in France in Paris I can sell you an 8 out Rocket raid PCI E with 6 raptors

Best

Cyril

MacBook Pro 2019 16" + 2 x Odisseey G9 49"
MacPro 2010 12 core 2.93 ghz 64 GB Mac OS X 10.11 2722 Rocket Raid Sata III card with 8 x ssd
Kbd : P80 Yamaha, S88 and S25 Komplete Kontrol, DX7
I-Controls Pro, 2xMidi expression pedals
Synth : many....
--
Logic X , Dorico, Band In A Box, ORB Composer
VSL : MIR PRO, Appassionata Strings I, Solo strings , Wind and Brass Complete, Dimension Brass, Big Band Orchestra series, Many Synchronised libs
Kontakt, Omnisphere, QLSO, QLSC, CS 80, Arturia V5, Maximo, Realivox Blue. CS 80 V3, The Orchestra 3, Art Conductor, Genesis Children Choir, Lunaris, Lacrimosa
Many Sychron Instruments

Final Cut pro
Camera full HD
Back to top
2 Pages12>
You cannot post new threads in this forum.
You cannot reply to threads in this forum.
You cannot delete your posts in this forum.
You cannot edit your posts in this forum.
You cannot create polls in this forum.
You cannot vote in polls in this forum.