On Jan 3, 2014, at 1:22 PM, steve harley <[email protected]> wrote:
> on 2014-01-03 10:14 Dinse, Gregg (NIH/NIEHS) [V] wrote >> Can I use both ethernet ports on my Mac Pro to make local network backups >> faster, or at least to keep local network backups from slowing down internet >> use? > [...] >> 1. connnect LaCie disk array to Mac Mini via thunderbolt >> >> 2. connect Mac Mini to gigabit router via ethernet >> >> 3. connect Mac Pro to gigabit router via ethernet > > i don't know the config procedure, but i'm pretty sure you could use both > ports if you configure the Mac Pro to route between them (Mini on a subnet?); > however i'd be surprised if your backups will saturate your network to the > point it disrupts internet use; i understand the LaCie 5big is quite fast, > but will the source drive also be so fast? and what type of backups are you > doing (e.g. Time Machine seems to have a lot of CPU overhead) > > also, given its speed, i would recommend using the LaCie 5big for primary > storage rather than for backup Hi Steve, Thanks for your response. This may be a case of me looking for a solution to a non-existent problem! It's not like my backups take a really long time, and typically my internet speed is just fine. It's probably more a case of me being curious about why there are 2 ethernet ports on the Mac Pro and whether I could make use of the second port if there was a simple and beneficial way to do so. As you say, the LaCie 5big should be fairly fast, but unfortunately I have no direct way to connect it to my Mac Pro, which is my main computer. I tried connecting it indirectly, through my Mac Mini as described above, and it seemed to work reasonably well, though gigabit ethernet is presumably much slower than a direct thunderbolt connection. I thought that if there was some easy way to improve the ethernet speed, why not do it. You recommended using the LaCie 5big for primary storage rather than for backups, but I figured that definitely would slow things down (having my primary storage accessed via ethernet). Of course, I'm a novice at this stuff, so maybe that is a false assumption. I added a PCIe card that allows SATA-III; I attached a 512-GB SSD to it; and I plan to use that for the OS and many of my user files. This upgrade to SATA-III and SSD should make things much faster than using a HDD on the native SATA-II bus, which is what I've always done before. Then I plan to use 2 or 3 HDDs (in the internal drive bays of the Mac Pro) to form a RAID 0 array, on which I will keep most of what I usually have in the Movies and Music subdirectories (e.g., HD camcorder videos, HD EyeTV recordings, and the iTunes library). I figured this RAID 0 array would be much faster than using the LaCie 5big via ethernet, but please let me know if you think I'm wrong. One obvious question is why I bought the thunderbolt 5big rather than a NAS. I guess the answer is that I was originally thinking I might get a new Mac Pro, for which a thunderbolt disk array would make a lot of sense. LaCie finally had a reconditioned 5big in their outlet store for about half price, so I grabbed it. Then I ended up buying a loaded 2012 Mac Pro rather than waiting months for a new Mac Pro. Thanks, Gregg _______________________________________________ MacOSX-talk mailing list [email protected] http://www.omnigroup.com/mailman/listinfo/macosx-talk
