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Archive 2015 · Hot-rodding a Mac Mini

  
 
Chris Court
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p.1 #1 · p.1 #1 · Hot-rodding a Mac Mini


I've been using 2011 Mac Mini Server for a few years now… It's been a great little machine and has served me well as a Lightroom station as well as a general use computer. However I've started accumulating a few USB3 accessories, and of course the 2011 Mini only has USB2 ports.

So, a couple days back I picked up a second-hand 2012 Mini. I would have liked the 2.6Mhz version, but they don't seem to come up on Craigslist very often so I settled for the 2.3. Compared to my 2011 Mini Server, the processor is slightly faster (2.3 quad core Ivy Bridge i7 vs 2.0 Sandy Bridge), It has Intel graphics 4000 as opposed to 3000 (still poor, compared to a discrete graphics card, but reportedly a 25-50% improvement over the 3000) and of course those 4 USB3 ports. Aside from that, they seem pretty much identical.

Obviously the Mac Mini has somewhat limited hot-rodding potential, so to start, I've dropped 16GB of RAM into the new machine. I will also drop in the 1TB Samsung SSD from my 2011 Mini, and revert that one to its standard dual 500GB setup, in preparation for selling.

Now here's where I'm looking for opinions. I have a mount for a second internal drive on the way, which will give me a variety of possible hard drive configurations.

1) I could drop in a fast 2TB spinning drive and use this as an internal Time Machine backup.
2) I could drop in a fast 2TB spinning drive and merge with the SSD into a Fusion Drive.
3) I could get a second, matching SSD, and run them as a striped RAID for (hopefully) a solid extra performance boost.
4) I could get a more recent SSD, for instance a 512GB Samsung 850 pro (current one is Samsung 840 EVO) and use this to store my Lightroom Library and as a Photoshop scratch disk.

If anyone has any experience with eeking the last vestiges of performance out of Mac Minis, I'd like to hear your input!

C



Aug 28, 2015 at 08:12 PM
Odyssey1812
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p.1 #2 · p.1 #2 · Hot-rodding a Mac Mini


Hi Chris,

I believe I have the late 2012 Mac Mini with i7 quad core 2.6 MHz version that came with 1 TB internal HD. I maxed out the RAM at 16 HB. I used the OWC data doubler to install 2 HDs. I used the original 1 TB 5400 rpm HD as a data drive and installed a Samsung 840 SSD 500 GB for the programs & OS. Eventually I needed more storage and swapped out the 1 TB 5400 rpm HD for a 2 TB 5400 rpm HD. I couldn't find one at 7200 rpm.

1. I use an external 4 TB WD HD for my Time Machine backup, because I'm finding with sequential backups, I need 4 TB. However, if you're going to use the internal 2nd HD to just back up the OS & programs on the SSD, then you could get away using the 2nd HD as a Time Machine back-up.

2. I have no experience with fusion drives, so can't give you a first hand experience.

3. I didn't run a striped RAID, so can't help you there.

4. B&H has 2 TB Samsung 850 SSDs out now. The Evo is $747.99 and the PRO is $947.99 at current prices.

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1164289-REG/samsung_mz_75e2t0b_am_850_evo_2tb_2_5.html
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1164288-REG/samsung_mz_7ke2t0bw_850_pro_2tb_2_5.html

Good luck,
Wing.



Aug 28, 2015 at 09:04 PM
Chris Court
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p.1 #3 · p.1 #3 · Hot-rodding a Mac Mini


Hey, thanks for your thoughts, Wing.

I've done some reading on SSD RAID 0 setups, and it seems that the benefits are more to be seen in benchmark scores than in actual hands-on use. So I guess I'll scratch that plan.

Good point about optimal sizes for time machine backups. Might be better to leave that duty up to an external.

Those 2TB SSDs look tasty… they do seem to be about $50 cheaper at Amazon than at B&H though. Either way… a bit more than I want to be putting into this particular project right at this point :-)

C



Aug 28, 2015 at 10:23 PM
Ian.Dobinson
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p.1 #4 · p.1 #4 · Hot-rodding a Mac Mini


Personal opinion so take it for what it's worth .

1. Spinning drive for internal time machine . No . If the machine goes bad or is stolen then that TM backup is no good . I'd rather use the internal space for something more productive. TM using an external

2: fusion drive : fusion with your 1tb ssd is interesting but I'd want to see some speed tests . I have the stock fusion in my iMac and it's great but it does go slower than a standard SSD . If I decide to open up my iMac in the future the upgrade I will do will be a large SSD plus a large spinning drive but I'm not sure I'd fusion them .

3: stripped SSD raid : has potential but in reality what speed are you getting now and what speed should you get ?
The speed increase has to be weighed against the extra potential for failure and the headaches that would bring .

Personal choice would likely be just to drop a spinning drive in there and use that as a separate data drive .



Aug 29, 2015 at 12:45 AM
OntheRez
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p.1 #5 · p.1 #5 · Hot-rodding a Mac Mini


Chris Court wrote:
Hey, thanks for your thoughts, Wing.

I've done some reading on SSD RAID 0 setups, and it seems that the benefits are more to be seen in benchmark scores than in actual hands-on use. So I guess I'll scratch that plan.

(snip)

Those 2TB SSDs look tasty… they do seem to be about $50 cheaper at Amazon than at B&H though. Either way… a bit more than I want to be putting into this particular project right at this point :-)


Chris,
The received wisdom is that RAID 0 is not safe and I wouldn't ever use it as back up. Having said that, I keep my main working photo database on a pair of 480GB fast SSDs running RAID 0 yielding ~1TB accessing them from my main machine via Thunderbolt. I've found significant speed increase over all previous systems. (I'm running a top spec i7 iMac.) In fact I never wait for a drive read. Having said that I back up to 2 different platters: one via Thunderbolt, and the other via USB-3 The first runs under a SuperDuper script doing incremental backup every hour. The second backs up 2X a week also with a SuperDuper script. I don't do any work that someone would shoot me for if I lost images (like weddings - ugh) so the loss of a couple of days work isn't likely to be a big problem. (BTW Carbon Copy is equally as good as SD and many find the interface better.)

Definitely keep your backup on an external drive(s). You don't want it in your Mini cause in a catastrophic failure you'd need to get the backup drive out and into another case and hope you still had something. Unfortunately time and experience has taught me to think positive and prepare for the worst

I don't see much of a throughput advantage in the fusion drives, so would suggest you spend your money on SSDs for work and solid platters for back up. The Minis are neat little boxes, but Apple deliberately limited their expansion capacity - just wouldn't do to cut into iMac or MacBook Pro sales

If it were my set up, I'd stripe a couple of 256GB SSDs for system, software, catalog, swap space.and when working on a complex image say in Ps (which needs all the help it can get in my not so humble opinion). I'd then back up 2X to good affordable platters and call the whole thing rather nifty.

Robert

(BTW OWC - www.macsales.com - specializes in this stuff and have cases for backup drives with the exact dimensions and look of the Mini. I've set a couple up and they're rather neat.)



Aug 29, 2015 at 10:56 AM
Chris Court
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p.1 #6 · p.1 #6 · Hot-rodding a Mac Mini


Thanks for the suggestions, Ian and Robert.

Contrary to what I wrote in my initial post, I actually keep my main image LIBRARY on an external OWC Mercury Elite box set up with a 12TB RAID 5 array. Also have this constantly backed up to Backblaze.

It's the Lightroom CATALOG file I want to get onto the fastest possible storage. I currently have it on the SSD, along with my apps, OS etc.

The more I think about it, the more it seems to me that the main bottleneck in my current setup is probably the Library on the external RAID. I have somewhere around 5TB? of images, so putting all that on SSD's would be prohibitively expensive, but perhaps putting together a faster array running over Thunderbolt (rather than Firewire) would give me a nice boost?

C



Aug 29, 2015 at 02:04 PM
rw11
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p.1 #7 · p.1 #7 · Hot-rodding a Mac Mini


it sounds like keeping the LR Cat on an SSD has solved your disc speed problems (?)

there must be some software that can detect disc access and thru-put to see if that is the bottleneck - OSex is Eunuchs based so there ought to be a huge library of monitoring software if you can find a UNIX box expert to help you

are you sure the problem is not CPU speed or GPU use?



Aug 29, 2015 at 02:18 PM
OntheRez
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p.1 #8 · p.1 #8 · Hot-rodding a Mac Mini


Chris Court wrote:
Thanks for the suggestions, Ian and Robert.

Contrary to what I wrote in my initial post, I actually keep my main image LIBRARY on an external OWC Mercury Elite box set up with a 12TB RAID 5 array. Also have this constantly backed up to Backblaze.

It's the Lightroom CATALOG file I want to get onto the fastest possible storage. I currently have it on the SSD, along with my apps, OS etc.

The more I think about it, the more it seems to me that the main bottleneck in my current setup is probably the Library on the external RAID.
...Show more
Chris,
Sounds like you have a good setup. RAID via T-Bolt definitely improves thru put, by 5TB is a real challenge. (Is your catalog running on SSD? Mine is on an internal 512 SSD and is not a bottleneck. Or stated another way, what machine are you running and can you upgrade it to a SSD? (1TB SSDs are now available, but they sure ain't cheap NAS is one possibility though you'd need to be running very fast Ethernet - probably on at least two ports - for it not to be a bottleneck. I think if I were faced with the challenge I'd probably go to two databases with different catalogs. I suspect you don't need instant access to all 5TB. If not then splitting into current and non-active could set you up with an all SSD RAID 0 active file DB using a TB 4 bay enclosure. (Rigorously backed up.) Still not cheap, but - if you can live with a subset of your files - it should give you as fast as thru put as possible without going into exotic and quite expensive solutions. As noted there are a few UNIX tricks that could help, but you'd really have to know what you're doing, and I don't think they would provide the thru put you need.

I ran FireWire before T-Bolt and the newer (particularly spec 2) is dramatically faster. So I guess your choices are to stuff a T-box with the fastest platters you can get or split the database. You'll have to decide how your workflow would handle it best.

Robert

Wish I had the magic pill, but I believe we are at a junction in computing where are ability to collect ever increasing sized files into growing but not keeping up storage devices. We need a break through and I suspect the first response will be larger and more affordable SSDs.

Question. How did you ever get your first backup to BackBlaze? I've wanted to use their service, but at the upload speed available to me (we only have joking say we run on barbwire in this tiny town), I calculated it would take about 2.5 months to get my ~500GB uploaded.



Aug 30, 2015 at 11:04 AM
Chris Court
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p.1 #9 · p.1 #9 · Hot-rodding a Mac Mini


Yes, the catalog is on a 1TB SSD. I'm looking at Thunderbolt RAID options now for the library… anyone have experience with the OWC ThunderBay 4 that they would like to share?

Re the Backblaze backup… Patience, Grasshopper. Yes, it took a few months to get that first upload done, but once it's finished, it only backs up incrementally, so doesn't take much to stay on top of things. Once its set up, it backs up automatically, so there's nothing to forget. Kind of like an offsite Time Machine.

C



Aug 30, 2015 at 10:15 PM





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