Used Mac Pro Recommendations

chasjr

I'm considering moving from my bottom-of-the-line Mac Mini model to something with a little more power. I know you've mentioned getting a used quad core Mac Mini for power, but I was curious if anyone had bought a used Mac Pro recs. I noticed it was a general rec on your Mac calculator, but there were no specifics beyond that.

If so, are the particular years I should stay away from, due to OS issues, etc... You can buy them from $400 to $2,000 on Ebay, obviously that depends mainly on year and computing power.

pcgaasbeek

If you use a dedicated computer, you could consider a hackintosh (intel pc with Mac OS X).
http://www.customac.com

Ben

All Mac Pros ever produced have been great machines that will make excellent powerful servers for SecuritySpy. Perhaps the original 2006 ones are showing their age a bit, however anything from the 2008 models onwards is worth looking at, and of course the more CPU cores the better.

quinkink

I've been using a 2008 Mac Pro 8 core with just 8GB RAM as my personal desktop also running a 16 camera SecuritySpy for years now. Never had a CPU or RAM related problem and SS CPU usage never affects my daily usage of multiple browser many tabs web browsing, lightroom, word, excel, Crashplan cloud backup, QQ etc and various other small programs. Mac Pros are great deals if you don't mind the size. Mind is extremely quiet too. I do use a SSD for boot drive though.

Highlander

I'm using a Mac Pro 1,1 Dual Core Intel Xeon and using a foscam FI9828P with Security Spy "trial" software and seems to work well. The "P" at the end of the foscam model number is for "plug and play" but don't believe it it's a pain to set up just like my other foscam. I set it up as (H.264 PTSP (video and audio)) under Format: in Video Device Settings menu

songdog

Mac Pros are a great way to go. I have been using a model 4,1 testing Security Spy and working great...even with 3-5 megapixel cameras. The Mac pro is a workhorse, and easily upgradable. four internal hard drive bays are easily swapped. Use one with a solid state drive for boot/startup drive with OSX, then additional bays for capture storage. My Mac Pro worked much better when I put in 18GB of memory and added SSD. I've seen some good deal on Craigs list/local sales also, so if that is available where you live, check into that also. Occasionally, something good on ebay also. Next, i'll be testing a mac mini or older laptop and curious what differences I see. Good Luck!

2009 Mac Pro 4,1
2.66ghz single quad core Intel Xeon processor
18GB memory
256SSD drive
3 other HDD drives
Graphics Card NVIDIA GeFOrce FT120 512mb

jtodd

The Intel Xserves can be found at pretty decent rates, too. I've been using them for years, and they are workhorses. They actually seem to perform better than some of the newer Minis for some reason - perhaps sheer number of cores compensates.

Richard

I'm using a Mac Pro 1,1 (2006) with 15GB of RAM to run SecuritySpy with two Dahua IP cameras, and it does great -- only 1.5 cores out of 8 used in Activity Monitor. This machine is also my Plex server.

I'm actually about to go the other direction -- the Mac Pro is overkill, so I'm selling it and moving SecuritySpy to a 2007 Mac Mini with 4GB RAM (Core 2 Duo). If I add a third camera I may have to lower my frame rate, but I'm not too concerned. (Feel free to email me if you are still in the market.)

hyperspd7

I'm running qty 5 - 3mp cameras at 30fps. I have a mac mini server 2011 with 8gb Ram, 2ghz intel i7 and a pair of 256gb 2.5" flash hard drives. I have 1 dedicated to OS and the 2nd dedicated to video storage. I'm getting at least 30 days recording motion only. I am using "SMC fan control" app to keep the exhaust flowing. I've learned to minimize the actual camera view window as I use spyglass for 95% of my monitoring. In this configuration the fan runs roughly 4400 rpm.

I typically see 8 cores running pretty efficiently with a total system CPU usage of 400%. I am able to do other things, but I have this server dedicated to SS. I am adding 2 more 3mp cameras to it shortly. I will update this thread once I get them online.

I'm assuming everyone here realizes that video is CPU intensive, so the key is getting a machine with as much CPU power as possible.