MaX Saxe Design

Mac Pro 2015 vs. Mac Pro 2016

MaX Falstein -

Mac Pro in 2015 - Is it real?


Simple answer, yes! Is it going to happen at the start of 2015? Probably not. How about 2Q2015 or 3Q2015?


Far More Likely!

Apple Inc. has been working very hard on their desktop workstation monster in a mini package. They have intentions of bringing the power of the Mac Pro to the Mac mini case in the future, but the main powerhouse workstation remains the 2013 Mac Pro.

Apple Inc. was criticised for making 2013 Mac Pro unusable to professionals with lots of files, but this is only the case if you are professionals with lots of local disks that you wish to keep safe inside the workstation case.

Apple Inc. was attempting to minimise the local storage and suggest a replacement with a NAS or SAN system. Network storage is easier to share and work on from a large pool of professionals, but it has lots of advantages when it comes to home & home office use too; mainly is efficiency and backups. You can access your data from any device, without turning on the Mac Pro - you will be able to edit files from your MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, iPad Air or iPhone 6. RAID is enabled on many of the network storage systems that run out of the box, but it is not necessarily the only option. JBOD can be used for a home built systems where you use a mix of drives.

Why did Apple Inc. make this choice?
Apple Inc. decided that size was a top priority. That naturally leans towards loss of storage amongst other components within the computer. Apple Inc. took this challenge and decided that a maximum amount of one terabyte storage capacity was the right choice for the device they were intending to release, but decided that it needed to be fast, very fast.

SSD over SATA III - not fast enough!
SSD over SAS 6 Gbps - not fast enough! (Same data transfer speed as SATA (maximum of 6 Gbps)
PCIe Flash Storage - 1.2 Gbps - that is fast!

One Terabyte of PCIe Flash Storage
Is it right for you?
It may not be, but it is ideal for the majority of professional workstation users - all that was required was a company as bold as Apple Inc. to start a trend of taking things into iCloud, private clouds, NAS systems & SAN systems.

Did Apple Inc. chose correctly?
In my opinion, I would have to agree with Apple's decision; I run very few of my systems locally. Everything is backed up to numerous NAS systems and SAN systems within my custom build OS X and Linux architecture. VMware vCloud, vSphere, ESXi & Workstation come together to deliver unparalleled flexibility in my environment allowing me to work more efficiently with my secure and duplicated data.

What would I have done to add to the choice Apple Inc. came to?

MORE STORAGE
I would like more than just One Terabyte of onboard PCIe SSD storage.
The only way I could get around this is to build a PCIe SSD storage server (would end up with a few) with eight PCIe cards with four two Terabyte SSD modules totalling 64 TB of PCIe SSD storage. I would access this storage over Fibre Channel (OM4 @ 16 Gbps) via Thunderbolt expansion chassis to FC and a PCIe FC card in the server.

There are a few ways of doing the above with consumer grade mainboards; however, in my opinion, server/workstation mainboards are the correct routes to go, due to the optimisation for storage area networks (SANs).

I currently a few SANs:

  • Two 16 drive SANs - fully populated with 4 TB HDDs
  • Two 8 drive SANs - fully populated with 1 TB SSDs
  • Two 12 drive SANs - fully populated with eight 10K HDDs & four 1 TB SSDs
Alpha

The 2015 Mac Pro is a problem solver in Official Form.
Apple Inc. has been developing a portfolio of new systems designed to be the very best of computing.
The best of computing:

  • Hardware
    • 3G/4G/5G module(s)
    • CPU
    • Display
    • GPU
    • SoC
    • Solar Panel displays
  • Kernel
    • Linux
    • XNU
    • Mach Kernel
    • NextSTEP Kernel
  • Operating System
    • iOS
      • 8
      • 9
    • OS X
      • 10.10 Yosemite
      • 10.11 < Insert Codename @ Later Date >
  • Software
    • Apps - available via App Store for iOS & Mac
    • Apple Programs - for iOS & Mac - App Store & preinstalled
    • IBM Business Suite - the link between Apple Inc. & IBM in which IBM will build suites of Business grade applications for iOS platforms to work with current & future business applications for Mac OS X

The above list is the systems to which Apple Inc. is strongly developing; whilst being a system breakdown of a lot (not everything) of what Apple Inc. is working on to enable them to bring the best technology to the market over the next few years.