Re: Hardware Recommendations





I apologize in advance if this is the wrong place to post. If so,
please
redirect. Thanks!

Finally broke down and ordered a MacPro and a 23 monitor with FC 2
Studio. Yes, I know Mac's are way over-priced etc. But, all my
friends are Mac people and I have some experience with this system.
So, that is why I went that route.

With the ability to use Windows on a Mac now.. there are fewer reasons
not to make a Mac a home computer.

I thought of running XP off this computer, but bitter memories of
windows simulated software in the 90's keeps me on a dual path. I know
they are not the same animal, but that was a total nightmare. Plus, I
ran into a problem trying use a PC Excel spread*** file to a Mac a
couple months ago. I'm not going there again.

It isn't simulated. Its just Windows running on mac hardware. I don't run
OSX on any of my macs but very rarely. They're all XP machines.


Does XP come already installed? How about Anti-virus software.... does
that mess things up at all?
Can you use Windows MS Office and IE rather than Firefox? If so, any
conflicts?

Do you save your PC files on a separate drive from your Mac stuff?



There are several of us on this NG who have Mac Pro's in our workflow.
The clencher for me though was that the MacPro wasn't that much more price
wise for what I would have spent building another WinTel box, not to
mention the time factor.

When booted into Leopard, the Windows XP drive is seen by the Mac, but as
read only. This is because I chose NTFS formatted. Had I gone with the
less robust FAT32 format, then I could read & write to it. Oddly enough
though other shared drives that are also NTFS but network connected have
full permissions for read & write. The audio work for a documentary I've
been involved with is being done seperately on Final Cut Pro systems then
brought to me on external drives. The external Firewire drives are Mac
formatted so I simply boot to Leopard then copy those files to a shared,
networked XP drive.

I will need to read up on setting this computer up if I plan to use both
systems. This seems pretty complicated, but only because I'm not familiar
with the setup. Most likely I'll be posting back here when the computer
comes in or will find someone I know who can help me out.


Drives that are software striped via XP aren't seen by Mac. If you add
hardware RAID though, both OS's should be able to see them. I don't have
that at present but there's probably a few knowledgable folk here that can
give you the particulars.

Do you need a RAID card to set up the drives with that configuration? I only
mention that because I thought it was an option to buy one on the web site.

Didn't know what striped meant. Someone else mentioned it earlier. Thanks
for clarifying.

Other than the above, it's a true XP system; i.e. NOT emulated so install
any standard Windows software as yu normally would. The Mac box is part
of my small network rendering farm for my 3D work. Down the road, I'll
probably add more Mac Pro's as each node renders 2-3X faster than the AMD
nodes.

Good luck. Jump on in, the water's fine.


Thanks!


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