New Apple iMAC! Discuss...

[Desmond Ford]

To make the current iMac really sing for R3D and other demanding workflows, you need some good external storage. These new models will be no different.

I've heard this statement often and it always confuses me...

What if you're using internal SSD storage? I have the RMBP with 512GB SSD. If I'm color grading or editing from that, shouldn't it be faster than if I had it on an external HDD or even external SSD?

Some people have said that external storage is faster because it's less processor intensive, but how is that possible?


dezzy

 

[L. Langer]

External storage allows for greater bandwidth and low CPU usage because dedicated hardware inside the storage setup does the work instead of relying on the CPU as the software does. However, not all external storage solutions are created equal and many will offer the same or worse performance as the case may be as plain old internal drives, which is why the stuff that really performs well costs an arm and a leg.

 

[Cid J Salcido Uyarra]

I'm looking at the 21'' with 650M 512MB GPU, I was hoping the 21'' and low-end27'' were gonna go 1GB and the 27'' Mac Daddy 2GB.

Reason for the 21'' is portability I can plop it in my Delta Flyer Pelican case. OWC Helios with a Sonnet 4-Port eSATA and I should be pretty good to go allot better than my current OG 2008 Unibody PCIe 15'' C2D lol

If I can run Resolve for .Cine files convert at around realtime then I should be good to go for now until the Mac pro drops.

Hopefully the 21'' are faster than the rMBP cant wait for the tear downs and benchmarks....soon

 

[paul schefz]

External storage allows for greater bandwidth and low CPU usage because dedicated hardware inside the storage setup does the work instead of relying on the CPU as the software does. However, not all external storage solutions are created equal and many will offer the same or worse performance as the case may be as plain old internal drives, which is why the stuff that really performs well costs an arm and a leg.

this is why thunderbolt is so great....external single ssd r/w of 400mb/sec and up are a reality and the pegasus raids are HD based and i get r/w 500mb/sec-600mb/sec in a raid 5....there really is no more need for expensive pci controllers....and the best thing is that you can use it on your iMac, mbp, air,....plug and play....

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

@Desmond - Yes, the internal SSD is fast. Unfortunately, it's not very big and it's also being used for your OS and applications. I don't know about you, but after I get my OS and apps installed on a system, I've already used up 200GB or more of space, more or less. The remaining 280GB or so of usable space isn't big enough for me to do much with unless I'm in a pinch on a small project. External storage is not less processor intensive, nor is it more processor intensive. At least not intrinsically so. It's just storage. USB3 does have a fair amount of overhead and more latency than we would like, so on these systems the Thunderbolt port is definitely the way to go for fast storage. Running internal RAID storage, which doesn't apply here to a MBP anyway, can be more resource intensive, depending on what you have it do. RAID-0 striping and RAID-1 mirroring are all that are offered by default on OSX and don't take any additional overhead to note, they're actually supported at the hardware level on the PowerMac and Mac Pro systems.

What about speed though? You have to go with a RAID, plain and simple. Single external drives are slow, SSDs can be faster, but not always so and they are relatively expensive and don't offer much capacity for the money. The Promise Pegasus Thunderbolt RAIDs were some of the very first Thunderbolt storage units released and are still one of the best options out there. A Pegasus R6 model with 6x2TB HDDs can be delivered with thunderbolt cable for under $2500 from a lot of reputable dealers and configured as RAID-5 gives you a decent level of security and performance. You get 10TB of usable space in that configuration and sustained speeds over 600MB/s. They have 4 and 6 drive units in configurations from 4TB to 18TB.


Blair is right on about the shift we're seeing. We don't need the massive workstations to do most tasks anymore. They are on the way out. Sure, some things still do need them -- complex rendering and real-time simulations for the most part, but the new iMac that's about to be released will run circles around a 2009 Mac Pro for moderate tasks. It will even smoke a 2010 (current) Mac Pro for less intensive tasks or operations that are more memory-intensive than computationally-intensive as it has superior memory and internal bus bandwidth. Where the system falls short is computationally, both in terms of using the low-power [mobile] CPUs vs. the power-hungry Xeon chips and the number of cores to get the job done. The industry is in a state of conflict right now. Not just flux, but there is real conflict here. Small systems like ultrabooks, tablets and even smartphones, have all the CPU power that the majority of people need to do all the common tasks like watch videos, check email, surf the web, play games, etc.. And they continue to get more powerful with each iteration, actually the tablets and smartphones have been increasing in power at a rate not seen in the desktop computer world since the early days of the Pentium CPU and the AMD vs. Intel rivalry.

The new iMac is thin and beautiful and more computer than most any person needs when considering what most people do with the software that is available, even those doing serious media tasks. Unfortunately the rub is that we're on the bleeding edge with R3D and it takes more power than a system like that can put out right now. Eventually that will not be an issue, but we're a few years off still. Sure, we can work in lower decode resolutions, work with proxies and other work-around methods and it does just fine. I think the reality of it is that when Apple releases the next Mac Pro in the coming 3 to 6 months, people are in for a shock. I think it's going to be smaller, sleeker, a bit more modular, but the days of the big, expandable tower are probably gone as far as Apple is concerned and the rest of the PC industry is starting to look that direction as well.

Too many people in the R3D world approach the workflow with the wrong expectations or just the wrong general approach to it all. Of all the people I've assisted with workflows, the biggest issue or bottleneck I see is under-spec'd storage. Trying to edit off external G-Drives or FW800 units or whatever.

 

[Nick Pasquariello]

Jeff, the only issue I have with everything trending towards laptops for all work, is lack of PCI expansion. Is Thunderbolt expandable in such a way that it could make up for most of the loss of PCI slots? Right now it's limited to the equivalent of 1 4x slot, which is pretty poor . . . for external viewing of 4K or eventually 8K material, I'm thinking some external hardware will be needed for hooking up an SDI cable. But on current Thunderbolt speeds...

 

[L. Langer]

It will be a few more years before Thunderbolt becomes what you want. The speed will double in 2014 but there isn't any significant changes on deck until 2015-2016 most likely and by that time, 4K will have a significant market share in the PC world.

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Nick, totally agree on the loss of expandability with the current trend. That is indeed the biggest compromise that comes with downsizing of systems technology. And it's not just Apple that's changing in this regard, the PC industry is as well, it's just not as obvious on the surface of it all. And as much as it is a strength, it is also a weakness in how the common PC motherboard makers and even Microsoft themselves with Windows continue to embrace legacy hardware and software. In some ways, I think Apple is pushing too hard into the future, trying to force the change that they want to happen, some of it is good, but some of it may not ultimately be what the industry wants.

The thing is, the high-end market is shrinking. Those of us who need systems to fit certain high-end needs do have solutions, but there's just not a big market for it. Within the next 2 or 3 major revisions, desktop systems like the iMac are going to be tossing about 5K and 6K R3D files as if they're 720p. The last market to really need huge processing beyond that sort of ability comes back to huge rendering and visualization / simulation tasks. Those are all going the way of the cluster. Of course, other things will come along that may require more processing power, but we have to look at what is going on here in terms of what the vast majority of users actually need. Video, even 4K+ stuff, is on the cusp of becoming a menial chore for our systems. Think of multi-channel digital audio in the mid '80s. Expensive audio processing cards on the market, sound files took up tons of storage. Sure, there were compression algorithms, but to get lossless or near lossless compression, the CPU requirements were massive for what was available at that time. Not a whole lot of difference here.

Anyway, the problem we're experiencing right now with R3D workflow is that it has a set of demands which place it squarely in a computational no-man's-land. It's the type of task that really needs to be easily handled on common desktop class machines and mobile systems in the field. Unfortunately we're just not quite there yet. We will get newer Ivy Bridge based Xeon CPUs with a 22nm manufacture process in the next few months. Actually about 4 months away at this point it seems. Apple has said they will release a new Mac Pro next year and it will presumably come along with these new CPUs. 4K is about to explode and computers will have to play catch-up for a bit, just as it happened with HD. And this time around the industry will catch up much faster.

FWIW, Sony's new XXXX XX XXXXXX XXXXX XXXXXXXX XXXX XXXX XXX XXXX requires about the same amount of CPU power to decode its footage as does 4KHD 12bit R3D RAW from the RED One. Sony Vegas software handles it just fine. And handles those R3D files just as well.


Had to edit the above. Probably not safe to say yet.

 

[Will Keir]

Unfortunately, this is the same I've heard.

Unfortunatley I don´t think they will ever make a 17" MBP again.

 

[Nick Pasquariello]

Jeff, you need a blog, or a podcast, or something. It's seriously to the point that if I see you were the one to last post in a thread, I just skip down to your post.

 

[Zack Birlew]

The switch to an nVidia GPU was a biggie. Many creative programs simply run better with CUDA-based GPUs and, for me, that means that the new iMac could work for both video and 3D animation purposes. Naturally I've already started to put together a new workstation for myself so I'll have to skip out on the new iMacs for now. Apple is moving in the right direction but they've still got some problems, namely this insistence on Intel HD graphics in all but their high end computers. The thin display is a very nice touch as well and once they figure out how to go big with Retina displays then they'll really have something amazing to talk about.

 

[Blair S. Paulsen]

(snip)
Anyway, the problem we're experiencing right now with R3D workflow is that it has a set of demands which place it squarely in a computational no-man's-land. It's the type of task that really needs to be easily handled on common desktop class machines and mobile systems in the field. Unfortunately we're just not quite there yet. (snip)

This is the crux of the biscuit. Partially due to gamers and mostly to media content creators including still photographers, we have had a decade of "commodity" computer hardware development that had a serious performance imperative. IMO, now that 99% of the daily tasks of 95% of users can be easily accomplished on lower end systems; mass market economics will no longer provide folks like us with such great bang for the buck. Case in point, gamer targeted graphics boards that sell for under $500 and can turbocharge Resolve.

Don't get me wrong, mass market computers will continue to get faster and in a few years you'll be able to run circles around a Z820 with an under $1,000 PC. That said, most of the R&D will follow the money into the exploding market for higher performance mobile applications. Intel and others will still develop powerful processors that will be terrific for our industry, but without the economies of scale we will have to dig a bit deeper in our pockets to enjoy them ;-) The wild card is utilization of GPU resources well beyond current topologies. Fun times.

Cheers - #19

 

[Jeffrey T. Morgan]

Anyone know any inside info if Adobe will be officially supporting the MBP Retina GPU for Mercury Playback Engine? I am sure apple is dragging their feet on this, if possible, but I am really anxious to get premiere up to it's full potential asap.

And I know about the Hack, I got it running, but had lots of crashes until I deactivated it.

 

[Robino_J]

Anyone know any inside info if Adobe will be officially supporting the MBP Retina GPU for Mercury Playback Engine? I am sure apple is dragging their feet on this, if possible, but I am really anxious to get premiere up to it's full potential asap.

And I know about the Hack, I got it running, but had lots of crashes until I deactivated it.

It's been working for a while now.. update your Premiere and you'll be fine if you haven't already.

 

[Jeffrey T. Morgan]

It's been working for a while now.. update your Premiere and you'll be fine if you haven't already.

!!! I will check asap!

 

[Elliott Balsley]

RAID-0 striping and RAID-1 mirroring are all that are offered by default on OSX and don't take any additional overhead to note, they're actually supported at the hardware level on the PowerMac and Mac Pro systems.

Jeff, can you explain what you mean by this? Aside from PCI cards, I didn't think there was any hardware RAID support in Mac Pros. I'm currently running a 2-drive RAID 0 inside my 5,1 Mac Pro with decent results, but I thought it was software RAID, since it's created using Disk Utility.

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

RAID-0 and RAID-1 functionality is set up via software. But the onboard SATA host in the Mac Pro has circuitry to offload striping and mirroring operations from the CPUs. It's transparent via the storage system drivers, you don't notice it or have any control over it either way. Even if it were not there, you wouldn't notice as both operations incur almost zero operational overhead as it is. If you set up RAID 0 or 1 on drives not hosted on the primary onboard SATA controller, then this benefit is lost, but like I said, you won't really notice. The primary SATA host integrated into the i5520 chipset used in the 2009 thru current Mac Pro has RAID 0 and RAID 1 functionality standard. Intel also offers the i5520cx extended chipset, which Apple does not use, that also offers RAID-5 support and the ability to connect to a secondary i5520 chipset for PCIe cascade operation to provide more PCIe lanes / slots, among other things. That's another discussion though... The Intel C6xx chipsets used for the new E5 series Xeons, which Apple has not adopted, but they may adopt this chipset with the new Mac Pro next year, offers hardware support for RAID 0, 1, 0+1, and 5 for its primary SATA host.

 

[Kemalettin Sert]

first i hate mac..seriously
OSX is the worst OS ever imho but i should buy one in soon for work.When i go set with Windows laptop everyone is complaining about how simple is that? You use windows hahaha type of comments and i hate this you cant change people minds.
So im looking for new line of retina macbooks 15' 2.3Ghz 16GB mem. starts from 2100$ my question is 250GB SSD vs 500GB price difference was like 500$ lol is it joke? i can understand Red is selling cheap toshiba ssd's 5X price they were smart enough to change firmware and add different input on it.
But what the heck apple? is it golden ssd? im thinking about buy 256GB one and add 750Gb custom one in it.
is it possible? im waiting for this info now before i confirm my order on macbook

 

[paul schefz]

first i hate mac..seriously
OSX is the worst OS ever imho but i should buy one in soon for work.When i go set with Windows laptop everyone is complaining about how simple is that? You use windows hahaha type of comments and i hate this you cant change people minds.
So im looking for new line of retina macbooks 15' 2.3Ghz 16GB mem. starts from 2100$ my question is 250GB SSD vs 500GB price difference was like 500$ lol is it joke? i can understand Red is selling cheap toshiba ssd's 5X price they were smart enough to change firmware and add different input on it.
But what the heck apple? is it golden ssd? im thinking about buy 256GB one and add 750Gb custom one in it.
is it possible? im waiting for this info now before i confirm my order on macbook

you have to order the new mbps the way you want them....the drives are not upgradeable/user replaceable....even memory isn't anymore....so make sure you order what you need...
i haven't used my internal drive much since thunderbolt came out, you can get faster (even portable) arrays externally....even if you get the internal 750gb, you still won't really work on it....and the 254 plenty big enough for apps.....i would also go for the fastest cpu....

 

[Kemalettin Sert]

you have to order the new mbps the way you want them....the drives are not upgradeable/user replaceable....even memory isn't anymore....so make sure you order what you need...
i haven't used my internal drive much since thunderbolt came out, you can get faster (even portable) arrays externally....even if you get the internal 750gb, you still won't really work on it....and the 254 plenty big enough for apps.....i would also go for the fastest cpu....

damn..its so bad!!
Do you think 256GB is enough? because im gonna do copy/paste on Red's SSDs on this macbook and all i need iz space..
And why faster Cpu? does it really matters on R3D. Playback
16GB RAM+Good GPU+2.3hz i7 and SSD sounds like no need Redrocket..