Mac Pro... not sure if want.

Wow 8-o

If you don't want it, I'd gladly take it off your hands

...

But seriously...

I know its a first world problem of a high order...

Looking on ebay, another 2GB is $30. That's not too bad for an expensive option. That gives you four, especially if it's octo-core. You should have 8 RAM slots at that. Even then, if it has 512MB Slots, it's not *too* bad I guess. don't argue with free. Eventually FB-DIMMs will come down in price once people realize there is no money made to be in them. DDR1 is finally coming back down in price since people have been replacing their machines from the DDR1 era with DDR3-based machines (especially people who don't upgrade often).

Take it, shelve it even. The machine is still worth $700+

Yeah you're right. I'll take it off their hands.

I would be more than happy to give it a wonderful, and loving home so that it does not feel abandoned!

If it was me I would snag it just to kick the tires. If you don't like it you can pass it on. I did that with a Classic II and a 6200.

Take it, I don't know what the issue is - RAM is more expensive than standard equivalents yes (but even then - you can probably kit it out with 8GB+ for less than $200), you can pick up a generic PC video card and run that for OS X, and things like HD/SSDs continue to be cheap at the moment. It will kill your existing machine.

It looks like you've already made the decision, but if you're going to get one for free, even the first generation, I would recommend taking it -- I use a similarly big machine (with similarly big power-sipping capabilities) minus a video card, and it's great. I've got sixteen gigs of ram in my machine and I run a bunch of virtual machines with it -- it's great since most of my individual "machines" don't necessarily need a whole lot of CPU horsepower on their own.

If it's a 2008 model, that's all the better because you'll have better CPU options, and it looks like the 2008 models support up to 32 gigs of ram, if you want to put a bit of money into it.

I've also heard that VMware ESXi works on the Mac Pro hardware, and the free version of vsphere5/ESXi5 allows for up to 32 gigs of ram. You could take the video card out and run it as a remote virtualization box, which can be handy to have.

And if all else fails, once you've kicked the tires, you can sell it wherever.

Hi,

I have an eight-core (2.8 GHz each) 2008 Mac Pro (bought new in March of '09), and it's perfectly fine with me.

I had a little snafu with the video card a few months ago, but I got that sorted out. Otherwise, it's a very reliable machine.

I agree with the RAM prices for the thing, though; I'd like to upgrade it to 8 GB (it's at 4 right now), but that would cost at least $150, and it's working OK as-is, so...

Good luck with your new machine!

c

I have the 2x2.8QC as well (early 2008) and it's still "wicked fast" even with 4GB RAM only, really nice daily driver running 10.8 just well, could only use +4GB more RAM wich i just haven't got around upgrading.

MacPro's are great if you need the disk space, they have four slots for HDD's (for me, it it means less USB -drives around).

Take it, you won't regret it.

If you don't have an Intel Mac, by all means go for it. I know I would! I would go for it, even if I didn't need it.

Alright so I told them I'd take it.

Now the burden is mine to repair and restore.

Desired setup;

Bay 1 : Mountain Lion (or lion as the case may be)/Tiger (for that classic mac networking charm so I can retire the quicksilver I am currently using for that)

Bay 2 : Ubuntu Linux

Bay 3 : Windows 7

Bay 4: 1 TB Datanode

I was considering an iPad Mini as a little post-mas present to myself, but maybe I'll just sink some change into making my dream computer core. I can probably retire my old macbook server too, which is encouraging.



:approve:

Hi,

Getting Tiger on the 2008 Mac Pro is tricky. It will work best if it has a stock card (ATI Radeon HD 2600XT). You will have to copy over some stuff from the iMac Graphics Update and some stuff from Leopard or Snow Leopard (mainly pertaining to the video drivers). It will only work with 10.4.11. Any less than that will result in a crash at start up.

I have a fully functional setup on mine (after much trial and error), so if you need any assistance...

I have read that if one has access to a first generation Aluminum iMac with its original Mac OS X 10.4.11 restore disks, the process of installing Tiger on a 2008 Mac Pro is much easier (it becomes a simple matter of installing it to the iMac, and cloning the install over to the Mac Pro).

c

BALLS.

I had a feeling it was going to be a hassle. Is 10.4 the last OS that supports HFV and appletalk?

I had a feeling it was going to be a hassle.

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Yeah, unfortunately it is. The earliest, supported OS is Leopard.
There's no need to give up on it right off, though. It's not too big a hassle.

c

2008 is a good system. 64-bit EFI. CPU + Video upgrades will make it a nice machine for even a few more years to come.

Hi,

Mine better last forever, because it cost quite a lot when we bought it ($5,000!) back in 2009.

With room for 32 GB of RAM (and allowance for the possibility of a CPU and video card upgrade), it should at least make it to OS 11.1 or something.

I have felt at times that perhaps it's way too much computer for me (I don't do much that a plain old MacBook couldn't do), but I bit the bullet and got it anyway because I liked the large amounts of expandability it offers over other contemporary Apple desktops (such as the iMac, which I had considered buying instead; I probably would've, but expandability was too important).

Anyway, if you got it free, there's no reason to regret it! (I wish mine were free, however it wasn't, and being able to afford it when it was new make me feel kind of proud somehow).

Enough rambling for now...

c

Mine better last forever, because it cost quite a lot when we bought it ($5,000!) back in 2009.

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What an attitude -- at $5000, it's a professional tool meant to do a job that pays. (many creative professionals can pay for their Mac Pros with the proceeds from a single job.) Apple doesn't really optimize for people who keep their equipment around a very long time because it usually makes very little sense for creative professionals (and a lot of other Mac Pro users) to keep their machines around for too long, especially if they've got a workload that makes them wait for the machine.

It's not like the early '90s where the Indigo/Indy/Indigo2 each lasted five to six years as a product and each ran the current version of IRIX for nearly a decade, which was mandatory because you could easily spend $40,000 in 1992-dollars on an Indigo.

That having been said, I have no doubt that the Mac Pro's hardware will last a very long time -- and if your needs would objectively have been met sufficiently by a plastic MacBook, then I have no doubt that (even if it doesn't always run current software) the Mac Pro will be fast enough to do what you want for the forseeable future.

Or, it could be like the TiBook I got in 2003, which was woefully insufficient for everything I wanted to do by mid-2005. Even though we're currently in kind of a software performance requirements plateau right now doesn't mean we'll always be, and you may develop some interest or professional need, which brings the Mac Pro to its knees.

I liked the large amounts of expandability it offers over other contemporary Apple desktops

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Expandability is definitely nice. Outside of hard disks, how much of it have you used? How much of it do you expect will affect what operating systems it'll ultimately be able to run? Most of the time, there's not much in the way of a graphics cutoff in a system with swappable graphics that really affects what operating systems will run. At best, you can improve the performance of a supported operating system with a newer GPU, but you'll almost certainly not be able to make an unsupported future operating system work by putting in a newer GPU.

being able to afford it when it was new make me feel kind of proud somehow

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Plenty of people our age have put that much money or more into computers. 2009 was when I got my ThinkPad, which I dumped $2500 into easily. 2011 was when I got my virtualization server, into which I've put at least $3000-4000 so far. If you've got a nice job, having the expendable income to buy too-much computer isn't very surprising at all.

I can probably retire my old macbook server too, which is encouraging.

Click to expand...

Will that machine run Tiger? If so, keeping that machine as a server for your vintage machines (presuming you can't install netatalk on something else, or find an early Mac Mini to run 10.4, or use ASIP or the built-in file sharing on an older PowerPC/OS9 Mac, or even find an old PC or virtual machine to run NT4/2kServer/Server2003) may be better than bothering with a seven year old version of Mac OS X on a machine that should be able to run 10.8 quite handily.

What an attitude -- at $5000, it's a professional tool meant to do a job that pays.

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I realize that. I, am a private individual with no job, just want it to last as long as it can because I probably can't afford another one anytime soon. That being said, I do see your point. I don't expect it to last forever, I just wish it did (admittedly, that statement wasn't very well worded).

That having been said, I have no doubt that the Mac Pro's hardware will last a very long time -- and if your needs would objectively have been met sufficiently by a plastic MacBook, then I have no doubt that (even if it doesn't always run current software) the Mac Pro will be fast enough to do what you want for the forseeable future.

Click to expand...

My point, exactly.

but you'll almost certainly not be able to make an unsupported future operating system work by putting in a newer GPU.

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No, probably not. But other things, such as the CPUs and RAM, could make a difference.

Expandability is definitely nice. Outside of hard disks, how much of it have you used?

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So far, I have upgraded the hard disks from a single 320 GB stock drive to two 1 TB drives, a 500 GB drive and a 30 GB SSD. The RAM has remained a constant 4 GB so far, but I intend to upgrade it to at least 8 GB in the near future. And as for the PCI express slots, I'd love to get a USB 3 card (or two) in there, but I haven't seen any that will work on a Mac.

Will that machine run Tiger?

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Yes, it will. I have a working copy of it installed so that I can format Zip disks in a format a classic Mac will understand (and despite being on an Intel machine, it lets me install Mac OS 9 drivers on said Zip disks. I haven't been able to do this with 10.6, 10.7 or 10.8 (maybe 10.5 could do it, but I haven't tried). I've also noticed that, even though it isn't the most modern OS in the world, it can run somewhat faster than subsequent versions could, even on the same hardware (in this case, a 2008, 8-core Mac Pro with 4 GB RAM). Fortunately, for the foreseeable future, I don't have any needs that can't be met by 10.4 (except maybe Flash video > ).
I am well aware of all the things you said in your post, and perhaps I didn't word mine very well, but basically I am in agreement with you.

c

Any free Mac is a good Mac.

Plus, the day after they give it away will be the day you think of the perfect use for it.

I, am a private individual with no job

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Did you have a job in 2009 when you bought it? Spending as much on a workstation computer when you're unemployed seems irresponsible to me, but I can't claim to know everything about what's going on.

Yes, it will.

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I'd meant the OP's "MacBook Server" -- OP mentioned decommissioning it and dual booting their Mac Pro into 10.4, but to me, hosting files to 68k/ppc Macs seems like one of the most monumentally huge wastes of a Mac Pro's time and electricity consumption, unless you're time-traveling to the '90s, have one of these and a few huge disks, and are replacing a whole pile of AWS95/AWGS9150/ANS500s with the Mac Pro.

Fortunately, for the foreseeable future, I don't have any needs that can't be met by 10.4

Click to expand...

I would probably sooner not own a computer than use 10.4 on one of my main computers. Objectively, it's fine (minus the lack of security patches since 2010 or so), but it lacks modern web browsers now (I mean, unless you really really love running a core utility like that in Rosetta) and flash is a big deal to a lot of people.

One of the reasons I often reply to people who talk about wanting G5s and Mac Pros/XServes to last forever is that despite their high cost, they're often not really designed to last a long time in a home environment, they're designed for (and are generally good at) having a normal life-cycle in a professional/datacenter environment, and then being replaced after 3-5 years. It's more of a public service announcement. (That and it's always interesting to see what people's justification was for buying so much computer.)

The problem with big computers in homes is that they become a great place to sink more and more money. (I'll be the first to tell you that my own big computer is a money pit and I would almost certainly be saving a lot of money and not losing much functionality by using something much smaller.) Often, you can sink a whole lot of money into an old big computer without ever gaining functionality. (This is more true on the Mac side of things, unfortunately, just because Apple doesn't optimize for people who are willing to spend a grand putting marginally faster processors and a boatload of ram into their old Mac Pro, rather than spending a grand on a new MacBook/air, mini, or iMac.)

It depends a lot on what you're going to do with a big machine -- Even though I could probably toss a video and sound card into it and run it as a Windows 7/8 desktop, I'm running my own big machine as a virtualization server, which means the capacity is actually used. (I'm waiting to have some expendable cash to bring it from 16 to 32 gigs of ram.) There are two issues I'm going to run into with it though:

The first is that my particular machine has eight disk bays, and I found a good deal on 2TB disks so it's crammed full of them and now I have 12TB of on-line disk capacity that needs good backups, especially since I bought and am using disks that aren't really for "enterprise" use, and may develop UREs and bad sectors quickly. A reasonably developed backup system for 12TB of disk capacity is going to cost a bomb, even if I go straight to disks (and have enough disks to hold 2-3 weeks of full backups) or eliminate the disk tier and go straight to the cheapest tape loader I can find.

The second is that eventually I'm going to either run up against the capacity of my machine, or some marginal upgrade is going to cost more than a new machine. (There are already ivy bridge corporate desktops that would probably outperform my current configuration.) It's hard to let go of several thousands of dollars of computing equipment and either make the same magnitude of investment, or acknowledge that slightly more frequent upgrades of smaller systems is easier -- both in terms of budgeting and in terms of acknowledging when it's time to be done with a system.

(Again, I know there are a lot of different circumstances, especially when Dell will sell you a machine that holds four disks and four or five PCI/PCIe slots for $399, but even on the PC side of things... those slots go unused most of the time.)

But it sounds like you knew what you were getting into and that you understand how Apple tends to do new software. And who knows, now that all vestiges of 32-bit are gone from Mountain Lion's HCL, and the oldest IGPs are gone, the system requirements may stay stable for some time.

Plus, the day after they give it away will be the day you think of the perfect use for it.

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Story of my life.

I'm no masochist, 10.4 will not be the primary OS, I'm only going to boot into it in special circumstances that require its use. Otherwise she'll be running 10.7, Windows 8 and Ubuntu.

The aim here is a triple boot system, eventually.

I'm no masochist, 10.4 will not be the primary OS, I'm only going to boot into it in special circumstances that require its use.

Click to expand...

Same here, pretty much. It's running 10.8 right now, in fact.

I, am a private individual with no job

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Did you have a job in 2009 when you bought it? Spending as much on a workstation computer when you're unemployed seems irresponsible to me, but I can't claim to know everything about what's going on.

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No, I've never really had a job (I'm too young to get a job which would easily pay for this machine, honestly). Actually, we (my mother and I) had saved up enough money to afford it, and I got it for my birthday to replace a frustratingly unstable PC I had built. We don't have a lot of money in general but we had managed to save enough at the time to make it possible.
The plan originally, actually, was to do audio recording/editing with it, although I've never really had the time (I've been very busy with school and stuff). If I ever choose to pursue it in the future, all the pieces are here now to make it easily possible (assuming it doesn't become totally obsolete first (and it probably will)).

I'm willing to live with an obsolescent computer for a few years, although security would probably be a problem (in that case, I'd probably adapt to using some form of Linux). Unfortunately, I have to admit that the 2008 Mac Pro is already bordering on obsolescent (it is the minimum requirement for 10.8, for example; I cannot rely on Apple to support it in the next release or two of OS X, although that is probably likely, at least for 10.9), so its days as a modern computer are probably numbered.

Anyway, I hope I am successfully filling any gaps in your understanding of my thoughts I'm not perfect, but I'm trying to muddle through.

c

Just a quick shot. She's working well. Thanks to the council of CC_333 I will be doing some light restoration to it.

I've christened her "Galactica".

I'm willing to live with an obsolescent computer for a few years, although security would probably be a problem (in that case, I'd probably adapt to using some form of Linux). Unfortunately, I have to admit that the 2008 Mac Pro is already bordering on obsolescent (it is the minimum requirement for 10.8, for example; I cannot rely on Apple to support it in the next release or two of OS X, although that is probably likely, at least for 10.9), so its days as a modern computer are probably numbered.

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Even a 2006 Mac Pro is still a reasonably competent Linux computer, and will be for a while. The annoying 32 bit EFI limitation matters not under Linux, as long as you don't have some philosophical problem with using the BIOS emulation stub to boot x86-64 instead of EFI, and I find that personally at least four 2.0 ghz Core Duo 2-equivalent cores is still a couple notches above the "fast enough" cutoff for a daily driver. On the flip side, of course, I haven't been using mine much after being shocked and amazed that according to the Kill-A-Watt the system draws about 200 watts while completely idle. (This is with the monitor in power save mode, system load average flat barely above zero.) That's... a lot. It certainly was enough to talk me out of having the system double as the home server, anyway.

I have on hand the RAM chips needed to max the thing out at 32GB, so I've been thinking of keeping the thing around for use as a bare-metal VMware box, but I have as of yet failed to actually come up with a good reason for *having* a giant VMware box at home.

The whole 32-bit versus 64-bit EFI thing is just stupid. Apple should have stuck with Open Firmware.

EFI isn't bad if it's implemented right. In most PCs, it sure as heck ain't, especially now with most PCs being unable to boot Linux due to insane bugs, and merely changing settings like BIOS/UEFI toggle or secure boot, unable to boot Windows. wat

Even in Itanium and the restricted (compared to other x86 boxen) Intel Macs, EFI is NOT ready for prime time for the beige box mainstream. It's in a massive teething period, and together with a new OS like Windows 8, it will leave a sour taste in the users. OpenFirmware is more mature, but completely alien to x86. It's the same scenario as the SGI Visual Workstations with ARCS. BIOS is creaky, but it works and it's been proven for years, and that's important.

That's why Apple should have stuck with Open Firmware. It can boot any OS, operates independent of the architecture, and doesn't care if you're 32-bit, 64-bit, Intel, PowerPC, ARM, or a ham sandwich. You can run 32-bit and 64-bit drivers simultaneously. None of this 32-bit only or 64-bit only crap. It's an excellent firmware, and in my opinion, superior to EFI.

EFI was developed to pander to Microsoft.

About six months ago I found a first gen MacPro for $180. I have 32GB of RAM in mine. I lucked out and got the ram in trade for some work.

I don't use it much for 2 reasons. One it pulls a lot of power. According to my PDU it pulls about 220 Watts at idle.

The other thing is that the CPUs don't have EPT support. So it causes problems with running nested hypervisors, which pretty much rules it out for my lab use.

I'm not sure I'm going to keep it. I don't find it very useful.