List of Macs that can run macOS 13 Ventura

Mine is less than 3TB usable space with all 4 slots filled... Unfortunately QNAP doesn't have a SHR2 equivalent.

At least I will get an idea of the usability. If it works well, I will probably get 4 x 6TB seagates for 18TB of usable space at some point. These are the most resilient drives at the moment, according to Backblaze.

Unfortunately, this will mean I also need the same amount of HD space for a backup of the NAS.

Fairly expensive, all in all.

I just read a couple of reviews and the Seagate 6TB's are noisy. As I am sitting in the same room which is also my recording studio, this is not going to work.

zipb said:

Mine is less than 3TB usable space with all 4 slots filled... Unfortunately QNAP doesn't have a SHR2 equivalent.

At least I will get an idea of the usability. If it works well, I will probably get 4 x 6TB seagates for 18TB of usable space at some point. These are the most resilient drives at the moment, according to Backblaze.

Unfortunately, this will mean I also need the same amount of HD space for a backup of the NAS.

Fairly expensive, all in all.

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guindillas said:

You have more storage at home than google!!!

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Yes, I'm a data hoarder. Lol. I decided long ago that storage was cheap enough that I can pretty much avoid "delete".

I use SHR2 for two disk redundancy so that my data is safe even if 2 out of 8 drives die at the same time. I know that's not "backup" but it's good enough for me.

zipb said:

I just read a couple of reviews and the Seagate 6TB's are noisy. As I am sitting in the same room which is also my recording studio, this is not going to work.

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I have my NAS about 8 feet away from where I sit and I've never heard it. If noise is a major concern, you can always situate your NAS in another room, assuming your studio is fully wired with Ethernet.

zipb said:

I already have the occasional 50% NAS CPU load when using a 2.5GbE connection, and I think a NAS testing site concluded that 500-600 MB/s was the max throughput for this model(TS453BT3)
I am using HD's with 2 x 250 GB SSD's as fast cache/tier. Using EXT4 filesystem.

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500 megaBYTES/second (it's important to pay attention to the difference between bits and bytes, Mb and MB, when discussing these…) is more than enough to saturate 2.5 GbE, and still benefit from an upgrade to 10 GbE.

pastrychef said:

Hmm... That's weird... The CPU in your NAS should be more powerful than the one in mine and I get very good performance... Here's what I get from an 8x3.5 HDD array with two of them being used for redundancy and no caches.

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4-wide RAID5 can read/write sequentially with the throughput of 3 drives (but the IOPS of one drive).
8-wide RAID6 (SHR2) has the throughput of 6 drives.

pastrychef said:

Also, CPU and RAM usage always remains very low...

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A ZFS user would say that if your NAS has free RAM you're wasting resources…

zipb said:

Mine is less than 3TB usable space with all 4 slots filled... Unfortunately QNAP doesn't have a SHR2 equivalent.

At least I will get an idea of the usability. If it works well, I will probably get 4 x 6TB seagates for 18TB of usable space at some point. These are the most resilient drives at the moment, according to Backblaze.

Unfortunately, this will mean I also need the same amount of HD space for a backup of the NAS.

Click to expand...

Excellent point! A parity array is not, in itself, a backup.
I suppose you're aware that RAID5 is less safe than it should be because drive capacity is growing faster than their ability to ensure data integrity.

zipb said:

Fairly expensive, all in all.

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Yes, though running multiple HDD-based NAS is still less expensive per TB than buying extra SSD capacity at Apple's price…

pastrychef said:

I have my NAS about 8 feet away from where I sit and I've never heard it. If noise is a major concern, you can always situate your NAS in another room, assuming your studio is fully wired with Ethernet.

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Spinning drives make noise. More drives means more noise—and also more cooling.
10 GbE on copper runs hot and is picky with cables, especially for (not-so) long distances. Optical cables are much better but I suspect that the studio is neither wired with fibre nor wired with Cat. 7 copper.

etorix said:

500 megaBYTES/second (it's important to pay attention to the difference between bits and bytes, Mb and MB, when discussing these…) is more than enough to saturate 2.5 GbE, and still benefit from an upgrade to 10 GbE.


4-wide RAID5 can read/write sequentially with the throughput of 3 drives (but the IOPS of one drive).
8-wide RAID6 (SHR2) has the throughput of 6 drives.


A ZFS user would say that if your NAS has free RAM you're wasting resources…


Excellent point! A parity array is not, in itself, a backup.
I suppose you're aware that RAID5 is less safe than it should be because drive capacity is growing faster than their ability to ensure data integrity.

Why RAID 5 stops working in 2009

The storage version of Y2k? No, it's a function of capacity growth and RAID 5's limitations.

www.zdnet.com

Yes, though running multiple HDD-based NAS is still less expensive per TB than buying extra SSD capacity at Apple's price…


Spinning drives make noise. More drives means more noise—and also more cooling.
10 GbE on copper runs hot and is picky with cables, especially for (not-so) long distances. Optical cables are much better but I suspect that the studio is neither wired with fibre nor wired with Cat. 7 copper.

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I'm no fan of ZFS. IMO, it's way too resource hungry for just a file system. Over the years, I've tried to get all my equipment to consume less power and run cooler. Having to go to a Xeon and 128GB of RAM just to run a NAS is counterproductive to my goals. My current NAS runs on a C2550 with a 14W TDP.

True! More drives in the array can help performance.

I started using SFP+ years ago on my MacPro5,1 and switched to 10GBase-T when Apple added native support for AQC107. In neither instance have I never come across issues with heat. Although, I should note that I do take care to monitor my equipment and try to keep them relatively cool. Also, I do use CAT6 cables for 10GBase-T.

etorix said:

500 megaBYTES/second (it's important to pay attention to the difference between bits and bytes, Mb and MB, when discussing these…) is more than enough to saturate 2.5 GbE, and still benefit from an upgrade to 10 GbE.

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That's why I am getting a second hand 10GbE card. Also, the 2.5 GbE adapter I have now eats up CPU cycles because there's no proper driver for MacOS.

etorix said:

Spinning drives make noise. More drives means more noise—and also more cooling.
10 GbE on copper runs hot and is picky with cables, especially for (not-so) long distances. Optical cables are much better but I suspect that the studio is neither wired with fibre nor wired with Cat. 7 copper.

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I will use cat 6a cable. My first private QNAP with 2 bays was on a cupboard in the living room. The Seagates that were in there made a really irritating noise when spinning up.
I carefully chose quiet drives for my next QNAP, which is sitting 7 feet from my desk on a piece of an acoustic panel.
Otherwise you could hear a low rumble in the room below(I have uninsulated wooden floors that easily resonate, unfortunately)

It looks like Apple dropped support for Skylake this year...

If Apple drops Kaby Lake next year, Coffee Lake in 2024, and Comet Lake in 2025, is it safe to assume that all Intel Mac support will be dropped by 2026?

If this plays out to be true, three more macOS versions are left with two years of security updates.

This would also mean that the MacPro7,1 which was released in 2019 would've had 6 years of full support.

The overall timing seems reasonable, but I'm unsure whether Apple will march by dropping one generation each year. Apple still sells Coffee Lake, in the Mac mini, so it would make sense to support this generation until the end.

Skylake is actually still supported… as Skylake-X/W in the iMacPro; it would also make sense to support this "Pro" model until the end. What was dropped is the HD 530 iGPU, while HD 630 got Metal3 support. With some luck for us, all CPUs with (U)HD 630 will be supported until the end.

pastrychef said:

It looks like Apple dropped support for Skylake this year...

If Apple drops Kaby Lake next year, Coffee Lake in 2024, and Comet Lake in 2025, is it safe to assume that all Intel Mac support will be dropped by 2026?

If this plays out to be true, three more macOS versions are left with two years of security updates.

This would also mean that the MacPro7,1 which was released in 2019 would've had 6 years of full support.

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The Dortania team said macOS Ventura brings many challenges.