SeaLegs Posted March 19, 2011 Share Posted March 19, 2011 I brought home a decommissioned Xserve Raid (aching back) from my office. While laying out the network and cabling I started thinking about maybe allocating one of my old PowerMac G5 11,2 units as a dedicated head unit for serving media from the Raid. The 11,2 boxes are the only G5's with PCI Express. Then I wouldn't have to mess with my main home Mac Pro which I use for a lot of photo, video and music editing. I like the idea of streamlining a dedicated unit and sticking it in a closet. Aside from Amarra can anyone think of reasons why a G5 with PCI Express could not perform as well as a Mac Pro? I think the combination is interesting mostly from a cost perspective. You can now buy an Apple Xserve for under $300 depending on capacity. A G5 Dual Core Mac goes for around $250. The total is only $500ish for an Apple Raid media server that can be expanded to over 10TB. People are spending that on used Mac Mini's! Roon Rock with Plixir PS -> Sonore Signature Rendu SE Optical Tier II v2 Streamer -> Holo Audio Red DDC -> Abbingdon Music Research DP-777 SE DAC -> Placette Active Linestage -> Elekit TU-8900 with Audio Note upgrade and Western Electric 300B-> Audio Note AN-e Spx Signature Link to comment
SeaLegs Posted March 20, 2011 Author Share Posted March 20, 2011 I think this would have been better posted to Music Servers. Please move if you agree. Roon Rock with Plixir PS -> Sonore Signature Rendu SE Optical Tier II v2 Streamer -> Holo Audio Red DDC -> Abbingdon Music Research DP-777 SE DAC -> Placette Active Linestage -> Elekit TU-8900 with Audio Note upgrade and Western Electric 300B-> Audio Note AN-e Spx Signature Link to comment
twist222 Posted March 20, 2011 Share Posted March 20, 2011 Not sure if I fully understand your comments but I run Amarra on a G5 Powermac. Mine is the 2.3 Ghz dual core with the PCIe slots running Tiger 10.4.11. Works very well with Amarra, in fact it sounds better than my early 2010 Mac Mini running 8Gb of ram and an internal SS drive for the OS. Note this is the early 2010 Mac Mini with the external power brick. I have not tried the latter 2010 Mac Mini. The only complaint I have with the Powermac is the noise it makes when the cooling fans crank up. In fact if you look back through some of the early posts you will find a long thread on how good a dedicated G5 is for music playback. Regards Mark Link to comment
SeaLegs Posted March 20, 2011 Author Share Posted March 20, 2011 Not sure where I got it in my mind that Amarra only ran on Intel machines, but I'm glad to hear I'm wrong. I set up the G5 and Xserve Raid last evening and so far the results are promising. Roon Rock with Plixir PS -> Sonore Signature Rendu SE Optical Tier II v2 Streamer -> Holo Audio Red DDC -> Abbingdon Music Research DP-777 SE DAC -> Placette Active Linestage -> Elekit TU-8900 with Audio Note upgrade and Western Electric 300B-> Audio Note AN-e Spx Signature Link to comment
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