Best HD Upgrade Strategy?

I have a MacPro ("Early 2008") 2.8 GHz Quad Core 45-nm Intel Xeon E5462 2008 with 8GB RAM. I am running it as an office server with Mountain Lion Server. Two years ago I upgraded the two harddrives to 3TB each ... but at the time, did not install the RAID. I use a utiltiy to clone one drive every week or so (for "back-up"). I now have more than 2.2TB on the drive (cloned when I do the back-up) ... including files and system, etc.
I would really like to increase my storage space to last a while and reinstall the RAID. Two 6TB drives would be great.
Questions: Best hardware options for this? Other recommendations (SSD for system)? What is a specific process for migrating to new config (i.e. to re-establish RAID, keep users, preferences, permissions, etc.
Alot of info, I know. I appreciate the advcie/help.

Avoid the Apple hardware RAID card. For one thing it does not support 2.5TB and up.
Want to stay iwth mirroring, look at SoftRAID.com
Of course SSD is fine for system.
Seagate Enterprise drives for RAID, NAS or software arrays.
Seagate ST1000NM0033 Enterprise Constellation ES.3
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00A47FPL8/
SSD: Samsung 840 EVO 128GB
http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-Electronics-2-5-Inch-Internal-MZ-7TE120BW/dp/B00E3 W15P0/
One issue with 3TB, often those are 'green' not 7200 rpm and not suited to arrays, let alone hardware RAID.

Similar Messages

Upgrade strategy for 2008 Unibody: Comments wanted

Short-time lurker, first time poster. :-)
I have a 2008 unibody Macbook (2.4 GHz w/ 4 GB of RAM). It's not my primary computer, but it is my primary travel laptop. Currently it is running Snow Leopard and a Vista Bootcamp partition. I attempted Parallels, but was disappointed with the performance and memory utilization. I'm trying to put together
an upgrade strategy to get another 2-3 years of good practical work out of the machine, as it's in fairly good shape.
Usage for the machine is primarily in OS X while around the house, and a mix of 75% Windows / 25% OS X while traveling, due to the need to run some proprietary apps that are Windows-only. Most are processor and memory bound, rather than GPU bound, which is why I'm able to keep using this machine despite the relatively poor Nvidia GPU.
I've read a fair bit, and decided on getting a larger SSD (300 - 500 GB), probably the OWC 480 GB SandForce-based model, and upgrading to 8 GB of RAM. I'd also like to migrate the BootCamp install to Windows 7, because Vista really quite *****, and I'm on Win 7 everywhere else. However, I have a couple of questions I was hoping y'all could help me with / provide opinions and feedback.
1) Should I wait for the release of Mountain Lion, and do a clean install from a custom USB/DVD? Or should I do a clean reinstall of Snow Leopard, then upgrade to Mountain Lion through the App Store? I am primarily concerned about Boot Camp.
2) Recommendation on an SSD: My understanding is that this particular MB revision is SATA II, so the best I can hope for is 1.5 GB throughput because it will be split with the SuperDrive. I was looking at an OWC Mercury Electra 6G in 480 GB (though that may be overkill). I wanted enough space for a comfortable Windows and OS X install for bootcamp (and to re-try Parallels), and going with 240 GB seemed a bit...sparse.
3) Many of the modeling files I use are already pre-compressed to save space (it's not uncommon for a single simulation to use 4-5 GB grid files and produce 20-30 GB of "compressed" output. Should I stay away from SandForce, or just bite the bullet and pay the higher cost for the OWC Extreme drives?
4) I've read mixed reports about the ability for 2008 unibody Macbooks to address the full 8 GB of RAM, and instead only sees 6 GB. Is this true/false? They don't make 3 GB sticks, so I'm upgrading anyway, but it would be nice to know. I'm okay with only seeing 6 GB, but I'm curious whether folks have observed serious stability issues with an upgrade to 8 GB?
5) Are there any issues WRT Windows 7 through BootCamp on a non-Apple SSD that I should be worried about? I figured I could use TRIM while in BootCamp, and not worry about it in OS X. It still seems to be a toss-up (who do you believe!) whether TRIM makes a difference on SandForce SSDs or not, yes?
6) Any stability issues with FileVault2 full-disk encryption on SSDs in Lion I should worry about? Planning on upgrading to Mountain Lion as soon as it is available.
Thanks for putting up with teh n00b questions.

Get a regular HDD for your computer. It should be a notebook sized drive, SATA II-3.0 Gb/s, 7200 RPM. A Seagate XT500 Hybrid is a good trade-off of performance and price.

I have a MacBook Pro, 15-inch, Mid 2009. I would love to upgrade to a Solid State Drive. What is the best possible upgrade I can buy. I need the specs and even brand name. Thank you to anyone who can help.

I have a MacBook Pro, 15-inch, Mid 2009. I would love to upgrade to a Solid State Drive. What is the best possible upgrade I can buy. I need the specs and even brand name. Thank you to anyone who can help.

A 15" mid-2009 MBP RAM specifications are: 204-pin PC3-8500 (1066 MHz) DDR3 SO-DIMM.
As has been pointed out, OWC is an excellent source for Mac compatible RAM. Crucial is another first rate source for Mac RAM. RAM from either vendor will work just as well as any purchased from Apple with the bonus of being less expensive and having a lifetime guarantee.
Ciao.

BW Upgrade Strategy

Hello!
We are planning to perform a BW upgrade strategy - BW 3.x to BI 7.0. Without enough experience in doing upgrade, an alternative strategy is formed. Will this be possible?
1. Install BI 7.0 on a new box
2. Create connection of BI 7.0 with source systems
3. Replicate exisitng objects from BW 3.x
4. Load history data
If this is possible, how would other objects such as user master data, roles and profiles (basically non-BW objects) be replicated/migrated in the new BI 7.0 also?
TIA!

Usually the upgrade strategy would be to do a technical upgrade and then do a functional upgrade later on. From your process im not sure what you plan to achieve when u say replicate existing objects after new installation. Do you want to create those again in BI7?? That depends on how much stuff you have developed in ur BW. If you just do an upgrade on a 3.5 system, you dont have to worry about loading data.
As far as roles go , BI7 uses analysis authorization which is different from 3.5, so you have a provision of not switcing it on and still using the 3.5 secuirty and there is migration tool that lets you convert these to 7.0 when u r ready.
Gokul

"Best" Back Up Strategy

According to Apple, I have a corrupt Leopard install and I need to back up my Mac and clean install Leopard again. I had originally intended to use Time Machine for my back ups, but since I also have a Airport Extreme, I wanted to use a HD connected to this for my back ups. Unfortunately, this won't work; the HD must be connected directly to the APE.
So, I am looking for the best back up strategy that will -
1) Let me back up all my info to a external drive, so I will have everything I need to get my Mac back in the same shape it was after I reinstall Leopard, i.e. everything on it, including mail, itunes, photos, etc. I can connect directly to a drive for this part.
2) After this, I want to back up 2 Mac Book Pros regularly to the external drive connected to the Air Port Extreme. I would like to be able to access this back up in a native format, i.e., find a file and open it from the back up without having to restore it or any other gymnastics. I don't know if Time Machine is the best solution; looking for suggestions.
Is this possible?
Thanks for your help!

Hi,
1. Get the biggest external drive you can afford. You cant have enough storage space.
2. Use Carbon Copy Cloner from here...
http://www.bombich.com/software/ccc.html
That will clone the entire content of your computer on to the external.
3. Time Machine won't work in this scenario. As I understand it, Wireless back ups were removed from the list of goodies in Leopard at the last moment. It may become available in later releases of Leopard. It may not.
Regards
Ian

What is best OS upgrade from 10.8.6 to be able to install spss 22?

Before the year is out I need to purchase and install, for the first time, statistics software SPSS 22 on my MacBook Pro but my current OS (10.8.6) doesn't support SPSS. The SPSS vendor site says I should install on another platform and then upgrade my OS...huh? Best to upgrade my OS first no doubt but I can't tell my Yosemites from my Mountain Lions etc. Advice on the appropriate OSX version and the particularities of installing SPSS 22 would be appreciated. Also, advice on which community to post to for this question would be very valuable!

I would suggest Mountain Lion for $20 or Yosemite for free (App Store).
Mountain Lion

Support Pack Upgrade Strategy

Hi Experts,
I am trying to develop a strategy for testing SP upgrades in development and "okaying" them for migration into production.
What steps do you normally take to ensure your system works as intended and the update is really for production?
I would think to go through and verify all of the changes from the SAP note which contains the SP detail, but what else? It is often the case that implementing a SP has an effect on other functionality.
Please share your thoughts and experiences.
Thanks,
Grace Rae

Hi Grace,
Firstly, this question should be posted in the Basis forums You will have more experts who dealt with these activities there.
Regarding the support pack upgrade strategy, we would normally implement it in the test systems, and closely monitor the system performance in peak and normal hours, background jobs, and any other issues that are highlighted during the monitoring period. If there are no issues reported by the functional testing team, we will go ahead implementing it in production system.
Hope this helps!
Regards,
Raghu

What is the best osx upgrade for a G5 2gig dual core

what is the best osx upgrade for a G5 2gig dual core for running music software please

That box definitely needs an additional graphics card to run Aperture. I seem to remember the Nvidia 8800 GT as the one to get (~$60 at Amazon) but you need to verify that it will work in that old G5 because my recall could be faulty.
HTH
-Allen

Best Upgrade Strategy

Currently on 10.6.8 and have resisted upgrading because it runs great and handles Quicken 2006 For The Mac and several other programs that I use frequently. Now it looks like I will have to upgrade to 10.7 or higher just to use Turbo Tax this year. If I am going to upgrade, should I go all the way to Yosemite or one of the interim levels? Have read so many bad reports about some of the interim upgrades.
Will also have to find out the highest OS that Quicken 2006 will run on, which will probably also be a limiting factor. If I do upgrade the OS, I will be able to use the new Quicken 2015 for the Mac but will have to find a copy of Quicken 2007 or later to convert files for the Quicken 2015.
How did I get in this mess? (I know, failure to stay current but Snow Leopard has been such a great system). Current hardware:
iMac 27" Model 10,1
Core 2 Duo 3.06 GHz
8GB Ram
Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Eric Root wrote:
You will have to contact Intuit directly to get a copy of Quicken 2007 for Lion (10.7) and above.
The procedure to obtain Quicken 2007 for Intel (Snow Leopard, Lion, Mt. Lion, Mavericks, Yosemite) for $15 from Inuit:
Go to this page:
https://quicken.custhelp.com/app/contact/plvl1/win
and use the chat feature for Quicken for Mac: Quicken 2007 for Lion: Shopping and Buying: Buying Quicken
Once installed, be sure to check for upgrades (current version is 16.2.0)
It will open your Quicken 2006 data file directly.

Upgrade Strategy To 4.1

We are currently using 3.2 but want to start work on the upgrade to 4.1 or 4.2, if available soon.
We currently have a dev, test and prod environments.
1 database with many schemas.
12 workspaces, each with 1 application and 1 schema.
My boss wants a gradual roll out of the apps not a big bang.
So I will upgrade one app, test and then issue to prod.
Then I upgrade second app, test and issue to prod etc.
My boss still wants the ability to make changes to the 3.2 apps which have not been upgraded yet
What is the reccommended stategy to achieve this
Gus

I'm not clear if you have 1 db with a dev ,test and prod env.
I'm going to assume that you have 3 dbs, one each for dev, test, prod.
For your Strategy you will need to clone all 3 databases.
You will need another web server for the 3 apps because the image directory is different unless you can come up with some clever apache config.
You will need to decide what you mean by upgrade from 3.* to 4.*.
you could:
1. import app, test, prod. Unless you have some very clever javascript or highly dynamic pages this should mostly "just work".
or
2. import run auto update utilities, (new data picker, IRR changes, etc.), test, prod. This should be as above mostly "just work" but is slightly more risky.
or
3. import, change the theme to a "more modern" one, run the upgrade utils, run the "quality" advisors. Check where custom javascript can be replaced with dynamic actions or new component types etc. Do lots of testing and then prod.
We on the whole did 1 and then revisited the apps to do more of a 3, but that is because we couldn't clone all the dev, test and prod DBs. So we upgraded dev in place, did "unit" test and then upgraded test for system and UAT. Then big bang upgraded prod.
If we'd had the luxury of multiple environments I think I would have still gone for option 1. Version 4 is a big jump and there are many things to learn and best practices to be developed. Dynamic actions are such a game changer.
Edited by: Matt Ball on Oct 5, 2012 2:40 PM

HDD Upgrade Strategy

My daughter's 250gb hdd is almost filled to capacity w/songs and videos...kids! What is the best strategy for dealing with this? New upgraded and larger hdd or some sort of external storage device?
Any thoughts.
Thanks.
Jim

I would agree with MarkH on installing a much larger drive and using Super Duper to make a clone of the internal. You might check with OWC--they have a deal where they will sell you the drive and an enclosure for a good price. Depending on which MBP your daughter has, you can fit a 750 GB or even a 1 TB capacity drive. The 1 TB model is 12.5 mm in height, so it would have to go into a 17" older model MBP or into a Unibody MBP. All the others are 9mm in height and would fit in any MBP. OWC can help you pick the right drive for her machine.
That said, a large external storage device might be good to have for backup. It's always prudent to have your data on more than one hard drive. You can use Super Duper to make backups as well.
Good luck!

What's the best system upgrade for 'older' Mac Mini?

My MacMini is about five years old:
Model Name:    Mac mini
Model Identifier:    Macmini4,1
Processor Name:    Intel Core 2 Duo
Processor Speed:    2.4 GHz
Number Of Processors:    1
Total Number Of Cores:    2
L2 Cache:    3 MB
Memory:    2 GB
Bus Speed:    1.07 GHz
Boot ROM Version:    MM41.0042.B00
SMC Version (system):    1.65f2
This mini is still running System 10.6.8, with the 'latest' version of Safari being version 5.1.10.
Lately, Safari fails to perform certain features correctly on certain websites, and I have to switch to Firefox to make the websites work.
Is it time for a system upgrade, so I can run a newer version of Safari? If so, which newer OSX system version would be the best for me to upgrade to?

A few other things to consider if you want to upgrade your OS.
If you are using any apps that are still PowerPC apps, they will not run on
any newer Mac OS. So you will need to find replacements ($$$$).
Also, in terms of apps, you need to make sure the apps you are currently
using are compatible with the newer MacOS. You may need to upgrade ($$$$)
or find alternatives.
Also, you will need to make sure any external hardware that you use with
your Mac is also compatible with the newer MacOS. You may simply need to
update drivers or the hardware may no longer be supported ($$$$).
So, upgrading your MacOS could end up costing more than just adding RAM!!!

Anyone have a Snow Leopard Upgrade strategy for their Audio Production...

Hi All. I have arrived at a place where I need to do a fresh OS install. I am thinking it is a good time to upgrade to SL. Like many people I not only have GarageBand (my main DAW) but a range of free and paid 3rd party apps, Jam Packs, DL'd loops, Drivers and a library of projects (mostly unfinished hehe..). What is the current wisdom or strategy for people in this situation to make this kind of transition and not break anything? Thanks.

If you choose to do a completely fresh install (including re-installing all software programs), GB's critical components are:
• the Loop Library (HD/Library/Audio/Apple Loops)
• the Instrument Library (HD/Library/Application Support/GarageBand/Instrument
• Midi Drivers, Midi Devices, Plug-Ins (all under their names in HD/Library/Audio)
For all these folders, there's a corresponding one in your User Library. Stuff goes there if you have checked that it is only available for the current user when you installed/saved it.

Best Practice: Upgrade BOXIR2 to BOXIR3.1

Hello,
I have to upgrade from BOXIR2 SP3 to BOXIR3.1
Any experience or best practices with it ..
How long does it need approximately to perform this task ..
Do i have to uninstall all BO Service Packs before beginning in this Rank ? (SP3, SP2, Monthly HotFix 1 then BOE XIR2)
Thanks

there are 2 options
1) upgrade, install XI 3.x on top of XIR2 and choose the upgrade option. This is risky so backup your FRS and CMS db 1st.
2) if a 2nd computer or VM is available then migrate using the import wizard or combination CMS DB copy and FRS copy. (these would be the recommended way to (upgrade/migrate).
Regards,
Tim

Upgrade strategy with regard to Intel chip.

Greetings all,
I have an aging PPC G4 Dual 500 which has served me well for several years but is getting a bit pokey for some tasks. It is getting close to time for an upgrade. But we are at a cusp in Apple development, with the coming of Intel-based Macs, so I am in a quandary.
If I wait a bit and get an Intel-based machine when they become available, I understand that most of my software will run in emulation :P, and that I will have to upgrade it as soon as upgrades are available to get decent speed out of it. Many of the titles I own are from Adobe, and I suspect that they will ask their usual $149 per title for the "privelege", which will maybe provide me with a performance boost, but probably no new features.
Or, I could whip out the wallet right now, get the best, last Motorola Mac, and continue using all the software I have right now at blazing speed (relative to what I'm used to. . . ) with no software upgrade costs. The downside is that I will be buying a machine for which soon no new software will be written, and I will be excluded from the use of new whiz-bang features on future versions of software that is written for the MacTel box, and not my PPC.
So, place your bets ladies and gentlemen. Will software companies come out with must-have feature upgrades for their "Made-for-MacTel"-only software before I've gotten my money's worth out of a PowerPC I buy today?
I would appreciate any thoughts on this.
— Spalding
Various Mac OS X (10.4.3)

Actually it's Freescale Mac's (Freescale Semiconductor broke off of Motorolla if I remember right) and that's just for the G4 chips, IBM makes the G5 chips.
There are two choices I see, if you need portability, then wait for the Mactels laptops and updates of your needed software.
If you need a desktop then get a Quad for the best longterm power bang for the buck and continue to use present software as universal binaries will be available for a long time.
Do get AppleCare and grab as much Powermac CPU power as you can get at the expense of better monitors, RAM and video card. You can upgrade these later.
Apple monitor is covered by AppleCare if purchased with a new Mac.
The new Mactels will very highly likely be dual cores standard as will be most all computers too, so to seperate yourself from the rest a Quad PowerMac is in order as the software will be bloated to take advantage of new hardware as always.
http://appleintelfaq.com/

Best HD Upgrade Strategy?

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