Migrating to Mac Pro from Windows intensive GIS modelling only in WinXP..

Hi all,
I have some cash for a new workstation and have been pondering moving to a Mac as I am frustrated with Windows for som many reasons. I am a scientist who does a lot of modelling, luckily software such as R is available on Mac so I am happy with that. However, I am stuck with some windows dependency due to ArcGIS which is windows only.
I have several questions:
1. I have a couple of existing machines that have cheapo PCI-E Sil3132 RAID cards that run RAID 0 on two 1TB disks as swap. It should be possible to use this in Bootcamp no problems as Windows has drivers for it, but could I access this array through OSX and importantly, through Parallels so I could use the Mac and Windows at the same time?
2. I have several external arrays that use the ESATA connection from some RAID cards, however, these are all in NTFS format. Can I read/write to these disks in OSX? I am confused by an abundance of posts which say yes, no but yes in Snow Leopard..
3. Reading people's comments, it is widely accepted to steer clear of the Mac RAID card as it is overpriced. Is it also not compatible with Windows?
4. Do you guys think it is worth it to move? I could just go down the PC route again and get a similar spec machine as to the Mac Pro, but I can't tell you how much Windows upsets me sometimes.
Any advice at all is appreciated.
Thanks,
A

Dual boot though makes things more complex and doesn't sound like running Windows programs in a VM is going to help.
Therefore a lot to convert, consider, and limitations.
Don't know how well if at all Parallels 6 will work with your arrays.
Swap. Put your system on an SSD, be sure to have enough RAM, because Mac OS and users avoid swapping and pageouts like the plague.
A Mac Pro can be a fine Windows only system, suitable almost, and similar to others that use Xeon processor.
Burn out hits everyone, but maybe if you could get past that and build a new system from ground up that meets your needs and expectations, that would be easier.
NTFS write ability is not hard to add, but is not native to OS X either.
Disclaimer: I run my Mac Pro as Windows 99% and have played around with some PC controller cards and Mac controller cards, and there is always trouble with cross platform.
As for Mac Pro, $4k+ for 3.33GHz 6-core 3 x 8GB RAM buys a lot of hardware, and in PC realm something that can be clocked much higher and more RAM...

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I did find this link from 2006 --
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=435350&tstart=0
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Hi
I have a new (refurb) dual 2.66 2 core Xeon machine arriving today. It ships with 250Gb HDD plus 1Gb RAM and I have a 1Tb HDD and 4 additional Gb of RAM waiting for it.
I am presently using a dual 2.7 G5 with a 250GB HDD with Filevault turned on. I require more empty space than is available on that disk to switch FV off (according to the system).
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No. PPC apps and system vs Intel.
While you should or may be able to migrate data and use a non system drive, it is also better to reformat drives to GPT.
The presence of G5 system can also cause oddities. But this guide spells out more.
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=435350

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Is Apple compatible with Microsoft Office?
Any computer is compatible as long as it can read and write Office files. But for perfect (or at least near perfect) compatibility, you would want to purchase Office 2011 for Mac.
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CaptainTom1

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Folks,
I got a MAC PRO a couple of weeks ago and I have two USB printers (an EPSON CX 4200 and a CANON S900 connected to it).
I tried both Ifelix's procedures to add the printers connected to the MAC and I had problems with both procedures.
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The Laptop is a wireless laptop and the mac pro is conneced to the linksys router via a regular network cable.
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regards,
marcelo

What risks does that imply?
Well, it implies that the battery is not user serviceable, which it is not. However, your warranty has already been effectively voided by the spill. So, you don't have that much to lose. As I already said though, there are risks inherent in cleaning any electronic equipment with any sort of liquid. The safer route is definitely to take the machine in for repair, as eww says.
And for the Q-tips, when I opened the machine, it seemed really complicated to unmount or access parts with Q-tips.
Unfortunately, it is complicated. It's not something to undertake unless you are comfortable with it. And it can never be guaranteed that it will actually be clean because there are many spaces that you'll never be able to clean. I should perhaps emphasize that I would only clean the machine myself if there was no chance of being able to pay for repairs. It is sort of a last-ditch option to attempt to avoid the cost of repairs. Nothing is guaranteed though and you may have to pay for repairs anyway.
Wouldn't it be better to just let it bath in the distilled water, wait a few minutes and then let it dry?
Definitely not. If you do that you can forget about the machine ever working again, at all.
do you think there is hope that once cleaned, everything would work again ?
It is doubtful. Like I said, if paying for repairs are not an option, then you should consider at least attempting to clean it. Otherwise, you should have the top case replaced (new keyboard and trackpad).
--Travis

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Hi,
is there a way to a boot disk-less Mac Pro from a SAN (or NAS with iSCSI)? For reasons of security and ease of administration, we want to deploy a secure centralized storage that literally hosts the entire company in a single redundant rack. I know Windows and most Unixes can do that and wonder if there is a similar solution for Mac OS X.
Speed is not much a concern (50MB/s is ok). Therefore iSCSI over Gigabit Ethernet should be fine. However, I could not find a bootable iSCSI initiator card for the Mac yet. Is there one?
Any pointers are much appreciated,
Thanks!

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(2) Hosted drives behave like a physical local disk. You can partition and format them in any way you like, use hard links (Time Machine?), install other operating systems, anything.
(3) Redundancy and data safety is guaranteed for the entire office.
(4) Backup is centralized and more reliable.
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(6) If the iSCSI server supports encryption, your data is still safe even if one or more of your Macs (or the server altogether) got stolen.
Usually this kind of setup is run on a fibre channel network in large data centers with hundreds of disk-less server blades and one huge SAN rack full of disk drives. Using iSCSI over cheap ethernet allows small to medium size businesses to benefit from this consolitation technique without spending the $$$ for a FC solution.
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If it only worked with Macs
Thanks for pointing me to another potential solution. I will carefully check that out. I however can't yet see how it would be possible to have the (read-only) boot image load the iSCSI initiatror drivers and then "redirect" the boot process to a hosted iSCSI disk. The thing is, the OS would have to be installed on a writeable iSCSI disk in order to be maintained, updated, upgraded as usual. All that storage consolidation is pointless, if the hosted drives behave like network shares rather than true local disks.

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Katdee22 wrote:
. I bought a new Mac Pro from an Apple store 2 days ok, it was sold as factory sealed, but it's reconditioned - it has some strangers entire photo,library from 2003 to 2011 in the trash bin.
Return to Place of Purchase.
Katdee22 wrote:
I would like details of who to contact in regards this incident.
Contact AppleCare.
Apple Contact USA > http://www.apple.com/contact/

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Thank you Gregg Williams

Boilerplate text:
Reset Preferences
http://forums.adobe.com/thread/375776
1) Close the program and press Ctrl+Alt+Shift/Cmd+Option+Shift during startup (not reversible)
or
2) Move the Folder. See:
http://www.bugge.com/Family-and-friends/Illy/illy.html
--OB

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Migrating to Mac Pro from Windows intensive GIS modelling only in WinXP..

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