Who needs an M2 Mac Pro when you can have THIS?

Huge thanks to Synology for sponsoring portions of today's video, check them out: More info on the DS1522+: sy.to/ik03j More info on Synology for creators: sy.to/bxheb
With an Apple Silicon Mac Pro an inevitability, I have to wonder: who actually needs it? Do you need to spend 10 grand on a Mac to function as the centerpiece of your ULTIMATE Apple Silicon setup for creative professionals? Today I set out to find out! By gathering all the tools I use to be productive with my M1 Ultra Mac Studio, we can dive into what makes the Mac tick, and how it can work best for YOU!
Links to everything I use and talked about today!
Storage:
Synology DS1522+: amzn.to/3T64BAz
Ironwolf 4tb NAS drive: howl.me/chStec...
Samsung T7 1tb: howl.me/chSs79...
Samsung T7 2tb: howl.me/chSs8k...
Samsung Duo USB-A/C flashdrive: howl.me/chSs9O...
Samsung 980 Pro NVMe: howl.me/chSs9e...
OWC Thunderbay: amzn.to/3QGzeuQ
Studio Display alternatives:
LG C1 OLED TV: howl.me/chSWWY...
Samsung Odyssey Ark: howl.me/chUdEm...
32” UR59C Curved 4K UHD Monitor: howl.me/chTLmD...
27" S80UA UHD High Resolution Monitor: howl.me/chTLqb...
49" S95UA Series: howl.me/chTLr0...
LG Ultrafine 32”: howl.me/chTLwM...
General Mac accoutrements:
USB C HUB: howl.me/chStbo...
Logitech Z265 speakers: howl.me/chStpf...
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Gear:
iFixit Pro Toolkit: amzn.to/3bYIzdM
Panasonic Lumix GH5: amzn.to/3b3oMtj
Leica 12-60MM Lens: amzn.to/3hQ5URf
Sennheiser MKH 416: amzn.to/31zGwt2
Zoom H6: amzn.to/2ECYSk6
Sennheiser MKE 440: amzn.to/2JRwIRU
Edelkrone SliderOne V2: amzn.to/33mTZmt
Amazon Links are affiliate codes and generate small commission to support the channel

[@lukemiani]

Using a Mac Studio with a 20TB NAS connected to a 4K OLED TV >>>>>

[@andrupka8749]

Hey Luke, hope you are having a great day. Love your vids.

[@myrealusername2193]

I don’t even know what you use 20TB for. I have 5TB of random drives that I use and I’ve maybe used half with all my movies, games and backups.

[@madmixy3870]

@@myrealusername2193 if you do video work 20tb can be used pretty fast with 4K 10bit files

[@a4e69636b]

I think you have a good point. Why bother with a MacPro when the Studio is small powerful and does pretty much everything a MacPro can. The only thing the MacPro has over the Studio are PCI-e slots for possible GPU upgrades.

[@myrealusername2193]

@@madmixy3870 true, I remember editing a 7 minute 1080p video and depending on the format it estimated a 70gb file lol

[@fluffycritter]

With the Synology, the NVMe slots are intended for adding a Fusion Drive-style cache in front of the hard drives. On my DS920+ I have four HDDs and the NVMe caches and as a result I have essentially SSD access speeds for a pretty large SHR volume. It’s the best of both worlds for me.

[@CertifiedSlamboy]

This is excellent, I'm gonna look into this for mine. Thanks.

[@MasterAlfred3000]

Finally someone realizing the greatness of TVs as computer monitors, have been doing this for a while. And it's great

[@NicholasMcClure]

I actually use a Samsung 4k OLED as my video editing monitor (rest of my graphic design work I use the built in screen on my MacBook Pro 16"). The TV is brilliant. I have it pretty well calibrated, have never had any issues with color accuracy, and sharpness. It's "only" 60Hz but that's fine for me. Great lower cost solution.

[@genethebean7597]

Just keep in mind that virtually all thunderbolt ports will have 3 to 4 times the bandwidth of 10Gbe, around 32-40Gb. So in the case where you are doing direct-attach storage and utilizing NVMe drives, it's best to use a thunderbolt solution, since 10Gb is a bottleneck. However, for any SATA III devices this would work just fine, especially if you're accessing it from a smartphone or laptop that doesn't have the performance required to push packets at that speed.

[@guccidaniels]

dude why don't you do youtube videos on this i would watch this stuff and i'm sure many other would too.

[@aarrondias9950]

@@guccidaniels there's lots of videos about this

[@modalities]

I like this video very much because it's practical and shows others how you do it.

[@AmyDangRabbit]

I’m upgrading to a studio from an old mid-2010 Mac Pro that been upgraded in every way over the years. Storage was my biggest concern and I just bought a ThunderBay 4 Mini a few days ago. I don’t think I’ll have the sleep problems you experience since I’m mostly doing photography, not video, but good to know there’s an alternative, albeit pricier.

[@computernerdinside]

There's solutions to the sleep issue too, I'm sure.

[@brunojesus5444]

Be careful with Raid 0, if one disk in the array fails you will loose everything.

[@colemanhoyt5437]

Are there any raid arrangements that are redundant but also improve performance

[@Adhgnis]

@@colemanhoyt5437 raid 10 is the best for redundancy but also costs more because requires 4 disks or more..

[@davidbelecci6970]

Raid 0 should NEVER be chosen for any important / non replaceable data. For a drive with only program data (like a game drive) it’s fine. Or if you run daily backups to a safe location… maybe. But than what is the chance of failure when you restore the backup to a new array. A raid with 5 drives has a x5 chance of total data loss than 1 drive with that capacity etc. Always choose a redundancy Raid format like ZFS SHR etc. You can combine raid types as wel. These modern types still give good performance improvements, read is usually better than write.

[@brunojesus5444]

If you are talking about write performance, that will usually be always slower in any raid setup with mirroring, but on the upside the read should be a bit faster.

[@LarryGanz]

I think in this case he chose the RAID0 because they were SSD that are less likely to fail, and it's not used for archiving footage so redundancy was less important than speed. But he still got 21.8TB of archival storage with redundancy on the 3 hard drive SHR storage pool. I have a 4TB RAID0 external drive with a pair of Crucial 2TB SSD, but it's mostly used to move music and movies around with my laptop, files which are already backed up off site and on 3 different NAS around the house. I used to use it to archive Xbox Series X downloads, and switched to a 4TB portable HD for that. Also, for those who don't know, a NAS with redundancy is not a backup just because it's protected from loss if you lose a drive - a backup is data storage that is offline and offsite, to restore data should the NAS die or something worse.

[@WarriorsPhoto]

It's these kinds of videos that made me love your channel Luke. Keep them coming.

[@cgi2173]

Living on the edge there Luke. 48tb on RAID 0. 🤣🤣🤣🤣

[@alljustatoms]

The GH5 can also be connected to the Mac via USB-C to get your video feed from the camera.

[@thelorax9622]

I also have a base Mac Studio, which I got for hopeful longevity, plus the extra ports. Attached to this I have drives I have collected over the years - 5Tb spinning drive, 250Gb SSD for desktop pictures, 2Tb SSD for work storage, 1Tb Time Machine drive, 8Tb OWC NAS for backup. 32" and 27" 4k monitors complete it - it replaced a 2014 5k iMac - the extra ports end the constant swapping of plugs, as the monitors also have ports for temporary things like charging your phone or USB sticks.

[@squanchy474]

There’s no doubt that the Mac Studio is sufficient for some people, otherwise apple would not have released it. But there’s no doubt that the Mac pro is a requirement for some others. Like you said, more storage and ram options, literally double the cpu performance, more IO options. I will be asking my work for a new Mac Pro when it’s announced.

[@trisjor]

Not to mention PCIe lanes and slots

[@computernerdinside]

Would be neat to see Apple Silicon with PCIe, huh? If they d bring a Mac Pro out with AS, they AT LEAST better have some better storage options or user upgradability. Otherwise it would be hardly any more useful than the Studio. That said, the Studio is very capable.

[@ronitsaraf]

14:40 made me emotional. You will definitely get 1 million subs soon.

[@heyheyhey520]

Love the bits. Synology seems to work pretty well with Mac and final cut!

[@Thechiron]

I think Apple Silicon has made the whole idea of the Mac Pro redundant, the Mac Pro is the big machine with fans and massive power supplies, no longer needed, when talking about modularity with ARM is a bit complicated mainly cause there's no ARM based GPU expansion cards, and that's what you'll basically need a modular design for, adding more memory and storage is the main attraction of the next Mac Pro, the way i see it, the new Mac Pro would be a new version of the trash can Mac Pro of 2013.

[@TheStopwatchGod]

It is still possible to add PCIe expansion to Apple Silicon. It supports PCIe 4.0, and you can connect things like audio cards, networking cards, storage, basically anything that's not graphics cards. All we need is for Apple to give us that ability. Since 8 PCIe slots isn't needed for graphics, the new Mac Pro can still be smaller, wither or not it still has PCIe slots.

[@mr.techie8565]

But they hinted about it in the Mac Studio Keynote, so it's still going to happen.

[@martindione386]

what nobody understands about the MacPro, is that since the last cheesegrater model, it became a heavy duty workstation for the higher 1% pro users, is for feature movies VFX/postproduction, professional sound recording, statistical analysis, that sort of workflows. Is not a computer for KZbinrs or Graphic Designers anymore, that's why Dave2D, MKBHD, MaxTech, etc, have not been impressed with it, they don't have enough workload for that equipment.

[@badaoe3stratsonly130]

I kind of have to disagree with you. Only because M2 apple silicon is basically an overclocked version of the m1. It runs hotter and faster than M1. Hence the thermal throttling on the m2 macbook airs. If apple follows this trend of going with an new arm die. And then over clocking that same die the next gen to squeeze out extra performance before they move onto an new die design. Then I would say there is definitely a place for Mac Pro's. Even if they only arrive every other generation. To slap powerful fans onto the hotter running overclocked version of an die. And squeeze out the maximum performance from that generation of die. To be honest, with the increasing usability of programs like Kubernetes. And the rise of cloud computing and render farms. There is a new solution out there for pro users that want modularity using arm components. Apple could just create "head less" GPU focused modular computing add ons. Imagine an apple silicon based single board computer devoted to just rendering. That can be plugged into your computer like an traditional graphics card. But can then be utilized whenever the main computer is working on heavy duty tasks. The same way that big studios use multiple computers to crank out big renders. Apple could call it the "I Link" or the "Mac Mothership" system. There would be some efficiency loss in band with since the computer would have to talk to the graphics core sub computers. But for larger applications the system would let apple brute force their way back into the professional ultra heavy market.

[@TheMetalMag]

right now I'm not ready nor need to get more than my mac mini M1. Pro's will get pro gear, do what you can with what you have, glad you have found a new toy to work with

[@patrykwisniewski3418]

I feel like the mac pro should be fully upgradeable or just left away. But as we see with current apple silicon it's unlikely.

[@Gael_AG]

Also instead of redundancy you cans also use a service like Backblaze instead which is cheap and does the backup for you

[@dwainalfred4151]

Could you build your own NAS geared towards editing ? I am interested to see you do this.

[@gerardowmby7156]

I wish I knew what you are talking about so I could hook up the same system. Also, you have a natural cadence in your voice in contrast to the sing-song script readers all over youtube. I just subscribed for more.

[@fernandovecchio1649]

Everything will depend in the starting point and what can you or can't upgrade

[@GrahamGphotoParker]

Hi Luke. I have a 2015 5K iMac that I want to turn into a screen like you have.Have you any links info on where I need to go to get the correct parts to do the transformation. Cheers

[@BreakMan630]

There you go (not her video from this guy) kzbin.info/www/bejne/Zoe7gqhmm6aWbtU

[@gregstillman5197]

Try this: kzbin.info/www/bejne/Zoe7gqhmm6aWbtU

[@ifiwantyoutofeel]

You can use it as a normal screen 😳🤔 how

[@jamesmacleod8388]

@@ifiwantyoutofeel yank out the computer, add a screen controller from AliExpress. That is a bit of a simplification, but is the basic steps. I suggest looking for the vid he did it in as will have all the info

[@danielbass09]

Pretty sure you can just connect the thunderbolt cable and then use it!

[@daidolife]

I would love to see how you set up NAS to network for connect remotely. I can't find any guide on internet that straight to the point and easier to understand.

[@jeffbillings]

Hi Luke, Perhaps give the ThunderBay another shot without SoftRaid, and use Disk Utility to make the RAID0. I think you might be surprised about the plug-and-play native portability of this configuration! (Especially after mentioning having plenty of overhead in the MacStudio) Mine never goes to sleep but I’m not sure if it’s this method or cause I’m using (refurb) enterprise drives…

[@VidTechwRick]

DRK mode "Every" Sunday night...hysterical! 😂

[@ken1w]

Most people don’t need the upcoming Mac Pro, or even the current Mac Studio. But it’s fun hearing about them and how they’re used. I think the M1 Max/Ultra Mac Studio has more time at the top. The next Mac Pro may be announced Oct-Nov (at the Mac/iPad event) in time to meet the two-year Apple Silicon transition timeline, but it will more likely ship some time in 2023. If it’s ready for release sooner (in 2022), it would have been announce at WWDC like the previous two Mac Pro models and the iMac Pro. Instead, Apple showed lower-end M2 MacBooks. I use an M1 MacBook Pro (16GB/1TB) with regular external hard drive for backup, and it’s more than enough for my modest needs. Performance and battery life are incredible compared to my old Intel MacBook Air, and I use it completely disconnected most of the time (like using an iPad).

[@ultraviolettp3446]

Another great video by you. Thank you for showing us what you use to make your channel work. I find you to be the most reasonable and logical Fruitfly (Fruit company fanboi) out there. While I have not been persuaded to join the Fruit side, you make compelling arguments without being breathlessly illogical and a sellout. Because of you I bought 2, mid 2012 13 inch Macbook pros and they are wonderful machines and the construction quality cannot be beat even if the Fruit OS operating system is assbackwards and rarely does things easier than a Windows machine. Keep up the great work and I look forward to more of your videos!

[@infinaneek]

For many, Desktops can’t replace towers simply because they don’t have the internal I/O. Pcie is a must for some people; Stacks of internal drives As you mentioned Pro pcie cards, Extra expandability. I would love an m2 max pro tower. I could have many less peripherals and better performance. I use the blackmagic TB multidock.

[@zarcha]

I use two setups, I use a Macbook Pro 14" with 512gb ssd and a Mac Pro 2013 with 512gb ssd. Both are supported by a Dell R720xd NAS with 40TB of hdd's (10x4tb NAS drives with 2x128gb boot drives) in ZFS2 so I can afford to loose 2 drives before I loose data. I use the NAS for everything rather than keep data on my computers so i can move around to new computers often. If you care about keeping your data you really shouldnt use Raid0 since a single drive loss means you loose it all.

[@FourPeaksFilms]

I went from using a 16 core MacPro with 64gb video ram to a MacStudio (maxed out). It runs better than my MacPro did, outside of probably stressing it a bit more. But nothing effects my day to day. The MacStudio is currently running a 55 inch Alienware @ 120 hert, 2 55 in samsungs and a Wacom Cisntique 24 inch. I also have 2 Sony FX3's coming into it, both via Elgato video cards. This setup doesn't flinch running live streams all day, or video editing while running live streams. A true beast. With that said, I cant wait for a new MacPro. It is what it is!

[@lurid8798]

Are you a millionaire??

[@FourPeaksFilms]

@@lurid8798 no, but I work in online TV production. So it’s where all my money goes.

[@LeeStewart]

I have a quad-core Intel 4K iMac in my living room and an M1 Mac mini with a 4K LG display in the bedroom. I also have an M1 MacBook Pro. I wouldn't want to combine the first two as my setup suits me. You could argue that Mission Control allows you have to multiple desktops on one screen.

[@JonathanHarris88]

Devs are a massive market that no one talks about. Video editors are not the only creative professionals that use macs!

[@bryans8656]

You've got a sweet setup. Mine is much more modest but meets my needs (and my budget!): Base M1 Studio Max, 27" 2K ASUS ProArt Display, and 4TB of external storage.

[@milkedition]

With these new Macs you can basically buy what you can afford and you’ll be fine. A base model Mac Mini will do everything shown in this video. Upgrade to 16GB of RAM and it will do it all very smoothly. Or pay double, treble, quadruple, whatever you want, and get diminishing returns on improved performance. Personally, I think the sweet spot is the M1 Pro with 16GB of RAM. Maybe even an M2 with 16GB of RAM.

[@roguewavecreative]

You are pretty much spot on. I had the m1 mba and could basically do anything. Had an opportu ity to get a good deal,on the m1 pro 16” mbp as I am traveling afain and that can pretty much do anything with 16gb mem. The new chips make it possible to do mostly anything even with the base models because as the hardware catches up and uses more of the pro res and nueral engine the ram size although important for a small amount of tasks the isea especially once the software catches up the thought of 16 is really 32 and so on is not a idea that is made as a guess for clicks.

[@minimalfun]

Why do you need more speed? 3D work! For 3D simulation and rendering, it is still slow, believe it or not.

[@Xankill3r]

Yup! And at the top end of it 128GB of RAM may not be enough. There's a reason the old Xeon Mac Pros supported upto 1.5 TB of RAM and multiple GPUs.

[@minimalfun]

@@Xankill3r Not only RAM, but the GPU speed is nowhere near 3090, which is critical if you are doing GPU rendering with Redshift or other renderers and again for GPU based simulations its not even close, I use Cinema 4D, Realflow and TurbulenceFD, all of which use GPU for simulations and as a Mac lover who bought his G4 in 2001, frankly, Mac is not good enough yet.

[@dougtheriault9854]

Thanks for showing us your studio Luke! My favorite video of yours so far!

[@adinnugroho6544]

The DIY Display from Older iMac was nice, but yeah will be better if it was added Speakers

[@dcmsr5141]

I’m not a content creator or KZbin influencer, but this is why I subscribe. The video is incomplete such that you never told us the name of your build, Frankenstein, Miss Piggy or what or how should we address this creation?? LOL😂🤣

[@jfmezei]

I have a very quiet trash can. But because it lacks disk storage, I need 2 OWC storage boxes, one with spinning disks and one with SSDs. The one with SSD came with el cheapo fan that didn't last a year so replaced fan (OWC doesn't sell parts) with noisy one. So instead of one computer, I have 3 boxes with lost of wires. A Mac Pro should be a bigger box with internal expansion without having to duplicate power supply and ventilation in a collection of separate unweildy boxes. And this also means supporting standard NMVE SSDs without the dreaded proporietary encryption from secure enclare. Real disks you can swap and read from another computer. The CPUs of M2 are fine. What is limiting is lack of external RAM for expansion so you need to buy a fully decked out machine from the get go. My trash can started with the standard CPU and memory, but I have since upgraded it to 10 core Intel Xeon thatw as compatible and boosted ram to 64GB. A number need PCI-E port for a raid card. Though I get that many are happy with thunderbolt or ethernet to storage. But as I am thunderbolt 2 on the trash can, I have to carefully plan capacity to ensure displayts are on one of the 3 buses, and the spinning drives on the other and SSD drives on the other. And it takes a lot of digging to find the doc that expla9ns the trash can has 3 buses and which of the plugs are connected to which bus. (I have thunderbolt 3 to 2 converters from Apple to plug in displays and disks to it) and of course each t3 device has its own converter in order to maximise throughput so each device ends up with full T2 trhoughput insteadf of sharing). My 2009 Mac Pro was far nicer till it died because it was all in one box and I didn't have to worry about compatibility or throughoput on how you plugged things in. Note: Video rendering likes to have at least 1.5 to 2GB per process runnig on a core, so having a gazillion cores but insufficient RAM means not all cores are used, hence law of diminishing returns when you add more cores but not more RAM.

[@vivianveradavis161]

Luke, you are one of the best, have followed you for years. You tell it like it is. I finally have my late 2006 (bought it new back then while still using a PC), Intel iMac on a side table for access to a few things I cannot transfer to my new M1, 16gb, 1T Mini. I also have on the side a newly purchased Intel, 32gb, 1T used, perfect condition, Mini for comparison. WHY? because I can, I guess is the answer. There is no question in my mind, after starting with computer mainframes at university in 1976, DOS, that the M1 Mini is the world's best computer buy, BY FAR. I am sure I will use only a fraction of 1% of its power. I'm a retired real estate entrepreneur, not a computer geek or professional, just have an ordinary brain that can identify, sort out, things to find the best in any given field. Continued good luck to you my brilliant, tell it like it is friend.

[@leaphardotnet]

meanwhile lots of videos pop on youtube about pros who sell their mac studio for a pc because of the lack of possibility of evolution, can't expend your ssd, add a gpu or ram, witch is critical in a pro workflow...

[@jorgerufman]

Hi Luke, great video, BUT, I had an old i3 pc, upgraded the RAM to 16GB, added two 8TB drives and installed TrueNas. I could add a 10GB network card, but I did not, the whole thing cost me about 200$(the PC was an old one) And now all the Macs at home have time machine backups. If you want, I can fill you in the details.

[@1EyeInTheSky]

If you need more ports there is the Trebleet Super Thunderbolt 3 dock. You get a matching design so you can stack it and you can daisy chain up to 6 more docks. I have one in the wish list myself.

[@Gael_AG]

I guess you could even improve your installation using NDI for your video production

[@marcopervo]

If you are recording in 4K Pro Res/H.264/H.265 compressed codecs, the Max or Ultra are plenty (especially with Resolve). If you are stacking multiple tracks of RAW video on a timeline, comparing reviews focusing on Mac Pro M2 timeline performance with those formats before going with the Studio is not a bad idea unless you need something now.

[@joshuazhang4237]

Damn, Luke just found out to use a TV as a monitor 😂

[@chidorirasenganz]

Yeah he just rediscovered a bad idea

[@jaimeduncan6167]

Nice. 10gbe is making NAS a viable alternative. You did not mention Synologie's NAS backup cloud. It has me intrigued.

[@JoeTourist]

I got around the drive array sleeping when using Thunderbolt by running the Amphetamine app. No more problems with sleepy drives!

[@BenjaminHyink]

Try building about 20 of those storage drives and you will have a petabyte of storage like LTT

[@mitchellsmith4601]

You really should have gone with one of the QNAP Thunderbolt NAS units. Synology doesn’t have anything comparable. And I use both Synology and QNAP NAS units.

[@valismind]

I think the video asking WHO needs it is clever, I could see an M2 Mac Pro being used for render farms, or for production companies. But for an individual, the Mac Studio is more than plenty. I think the M1 Ultra is very very hard to fully utilize as an individual.

[@brandonspies]

I own the Synology DS1621+. It's an AMAZING BEAST!!! I used to use a Drobo 5D and it's light years ahead of my Drobo! Luke stores and edits off the Synology, but I am using mine differently. I mainly use mine for backups for myself and my entire family, as well as a family share drive \ cloud replacement and I'm still experimenting but you can run multiple virtual machines oft this thing as well. If Apple keeps continuing with lack of support for x86 operating systems eventually this may be the route I go for all my virtualization needs instead of running them directly on the Mac Pro. Besides the same VMs can be accessed remotely from multiple computers and lower the overall overhead in hardware needs for the computer in which I access the data as the work is being offloaded to the NAS. And the 10G ethernet can be a bit of overkill but for today, I link aggregate 2 pair of the 4 ethernet ports on my switch. It's still crazy fast if your switch supports it!

[@TimmuJapan]

It is interesting to hear about the gear that you use to make your videos! As that probably changes over the years, annual video like this is cool. 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

[@jamesfiegel9675]

Excellent suggestion using a TV as a monitor....i still use a 2012 Mac Mini with a SSD and 16 gigs of ram update with a 32" TV -Monitor and it is fine for my purposes. And a lot lot cheaper than a dedicated Monitor that size :)

[@bwilesuk]

Also I like seeing you at the desk more.

[@KamiKitsuneVA]

My Mac Studio is a Max model with 32gb ram and 500gb and it does everything I want it to. I wish I knew how to use FCP so I could have a better optimized editing environment, but Premiere Pro still works smoothly compared to my last MacBook Pro 13" M1

[@SirTools]

Going to dig out my old 4k , 55inch TV for my studio now :)

[@bwilesuk]

Bonus points for multiple jump cut setup on the table

[@jaimeduncan6167]

Is not that the NAS is more responsive than thunderbolt, is that the OWC products are very basic (with the exception of the jellyfish stuff) so you don't get high performance and it's unstable etc. On the other hand they are inexpensive easy to open and maintain. The fans are pretty noisy but easy to change. If one buys a Promise Pegasus the experience will be different one will get. 2GB/s in particular with SSDs, you can control the sleep time etc.

[@brandonspies]

Everyone knocks the initial price tag of the 2019 Mac Pro, but that cheap m.2 adapter card and choose your adventure of speed, price, and brand of m.2 storage was nice when the internal SSD started getting a bit full. Something that can't be done when the Mac Studio gets full. And the original onboard storage makes a great segregated place for bootcamp storage. Oh wait bootcamp... something else that Mac Studio can't do. Along with adding additional USB3 ports for $20 bucks. As a 5,1 and not 7,1 Mac Pro owner I'm interested in the 8,1 when it comes out. But like the 6,1 trash can Mac Pro, I have no problems skipping it, if it doesn't meet my needs or is clearly capped by design limitations. As a Network Engineer that uses virtualization to simulate certain types of network traffic with different network configs, if they don't figure out x86 emulation or work out a deal with Microsoft to get Windows on ARM working with proper x86 backward compatibility. I'll be using this 7,1 Mac Pro and 16,1 MacBook Pro a long time!

[@friedpicklezzz]

The only benefit of a Mac Pro at this stage is upgradability/modularity. With Apple Silicon, this will be limited to SSD and perhaps some internal slots for specialised cards - but is that still even a thing if you can solve that with Thunderbolt? If not, they should just add the Mac Studio Extreme (or whatever name) to double the M2 Ultra and be done with it. Perhaps they should go for UHS‑II + CFast slots. Focus on repairability.

[@pcar928fan]

Great video. Enjoyed the tour of your set up! Very cool!

[@poorfesor]

Since I am a watcher not a cheater I have been using a TV as a monitor for 11 years. Currently us a Vizio 70 inch on an old 2009 Mac Pro with a SoftRaid Pro 5 drive raid to store old TV shows. I actually have to set my display options to 1080p in order to see the small print however the 4k display is definitely sharper than the older 1080p models.

[@chejoseofficialTV]

awesome video! Been struggeling with the decsion to buy a new M2 Mac Book 14 Inch, wait for the new Mac Pro, or get an M1 Mac Studio!

[@troyladoux1953]

I plan to build my own base jchristina's Digital Fort Knox. Thanks for posting this.

[@pjbuma13]

Honestly I’d upgrade from those Logitech speakers. While they may be louder I am fairly certain their sound quality is average at best. For less than $300 you could get a pair of JBL 305p. I promise you will notice the difference with these.

[@michaelwobrien]

Fantastic advice. But… how do you backup this massive NAS? Do you have an equally massive time machine drive?

[@Piketom1]

The Mac Studio is a surprisingly good value if you don't go crazy with options and are smart about choosing your peripherals. The fact that there is no single core performance difference between the 14" MacBook pro and the Mac Studio says a lot about both the power efficiency and the performance limitations of the SOC. I still have a very hard time understand who should buy the Mac Studio and would have an even harder time understanding who should buy an Apple Silicon Mac Pro. A MacBook pro would not have as many ports as the studio but because it's a laptop, it is so versatile. I really think that 99% of people who need a high end Mac should get an M1 Max Macbook pro.

[@pccpwsv3760]

I’m currently on a 2013 hackintosh I built and I’ve long been a hackintosh power user. I have actual apple stuff like phones, tv, 2017 MacBook, IPads. I’m ready to simplify the computer situation and think I’m going to settle on a mbp, I want to get on apple silicon. About to pull the trigger on 14” m1 pro but then I started thinking we might be about to get a refresh. Think I should wait a month and see if m2 pros are out ? I have a real mental debate about whether to get the single mbp or get a studio + m2 air. I do want some mobility options but kinda feel like studio is overkill for me. I do music but it’s really just tracking a finished product.

[@mitchellsmith4601]

SHR is nice, but single-drive redundancy on 12 TB drives isn’t enough; it’s likely you’ll have another drive failure during a rebuild, losing everything. You want dual-drive SHR at a minimum.

[@RichardRiegel]

Actually, the AMZN link of the NAS in description not match with yours in video. It has not that expansion dock for LAN..

[@freefoodsss]

Thanks. Can you show your camera/ microphone connection a little more?

[@Patrick_AUBRY]

TVs as monitors? The 80s are back! 😱😁

[@ntandoyenkosidlodlo7483]

😃Very nice setup and practical scaling option on a budget. Thanks.

[@graphicsguild7855]

Why not turn off sleep on your original external HDD storage? I understand how a NAS can be useful of course.

[@bwilesuk]

I mean, I spent a year using an M1 MBA as a hub as a proof of concept. Just add a usb dongle and I could do almost anything.

[@joserascon6664]

Need help .. looking to buy first MacBook. Not sure to go with a 2015 MacBook Pro or a 2017 MacBook Air. What you guys suggest?

[@vicfirth1]

But when you work in pro audio is different. The max studio is great but does have limitations for long term use.

[@pdr770]

And The Speakers Will be in side with 10-12 Speakers Tim in new 40 inch TV Screen for Final Cut Screen.

[@Xankill3r]

I don't think anyone who can make do with a Mac Studio will need a Mac Pro. That said at least some folks who were using Mac Pros had very specific needs. Lots of expansion cards for very specific hardware, tons of RAM, etc. I mean even the old Xeons went up to 1.5 TB of RAM. That's 1.5 TERA-EFFING-BYTES of RAM! And modularity was a big part of that setup. With so much hardware in one box failure rates *will* go up - so you need to be able to swap in and out components when needed. That last bit is also why I'm a bit skeptical that Apple will actually make a proper M2 Mac Pro.

[@isaquedasilva9456]

In my opinion, the Mac Pro still makes perfect sense, and not because of performance, which Apple has already proven its chips are capable of. What I predict they will do, and which will be further proof of how far they can go with their scalable architecture, is bring modularity and flexibility to the Mac Pro, thus leaving the Mac Pro for ultra high-end professionals who need all the features, updates and more, and Mac Studio for those who need a lot of performance but don't need the capabilities offered by Mac Pro. For that I see the creation of a new family of chips that will possibly take the essence of the M series chips, such as performance per watt and the customized technologies, and take the Workstation class, bringing first a larger memory interface, being able to support up to 1.5TB of memory or more, user upgrades similar to current Mac Pro and expansions via PCI Express slots and much more.

[@MikeDold]

While very few, there are still customers who need the PCI slots, I feel like the Mac Pro has to exist just to fill that hole. The current lineup works for like 99% of the customer base. But I think Apple is still gonna need to always have a machine that’s completely modular and upgradable for the few that need it. An Apple silicon Mac Pro will be an awesome machine that I’ll probably never get.

[@ForeverDownByLaw]

Well, for this professional, for 3d modeling and rendering, the Studio is not enough and I needed a Mac Pro. Instead, I had to buy a PC to accompany my Macs because of its superior performance (Blender), and upgradability. Mac Studio Ultra - BMW test - 33 seconds, my Ryzen 9/RTX 3080ti - 8 seconds. Mac Studio Ultra - 4,000.00, my new Corsair - 2700.00. After waiting for an announcement at numerous WWDC's, I was forced to make this purchase to accommodate my business. Not all of us are making our living creating video and Apple is ignoring us at the present time. Frankly, as a Mac user (and shareholder) for over 30 years, I find this unacceptable. We need a Mac Pro with expandable storage and ram, Nvidia GeForce GPU performance (preferably upgradable) and a price that is competitive. Back in the "cheese grater" era, this Mac existed. Over the last 20 years Apple has slowly but surely backed away from the creatives that made them what they are today and have become a consumer products company. It saddens me.

[@williamburkholder769]

NO, you don't need a Mac Pro for what you do. You're a one man band, not a Hollywood edit suite with a heavy collaborative staff environment and 24-hour editing of multiple projects happening all the time. You have more than enough tools to run your channel efficiently and effectively. It looks like a lot of fun, actually!

[@josephchiang6705]

What kind of drives will be in the new Mac Pro? Will I be able to use repurpose my current SATA drives from the 2019 Mac Pro and NAS?

[@brayan8346]

Do you like the Magic Mouse? I use it for a while but ended up upgrading because it wasn’t fast enough for me. I carry it in my backpack not.

[@earFront]

Please talk about multiple audio inputs with the macs....... thank you.

[@cessers]

Luke, which 10GB ethernet router/switch do you recommend?

[@markhollis5850]

Oh, Luke… The Trashcan Mac Pro did work. But Avid Media Composers did not work with it and Avid could not sell a professional Mac in one box until the 2019. Anyone who had a 2012 Mac Pro and ran Avid’s ProTools kept their classic Mac Pro until 2019. Now, you did mention PCIe cards and how they do not work with the Studio but here is another little secret: There are codecs that Apple did not make their SOC work with. And these codecs could be supported with PCIe cards. Codecs like Avid’s DNxHD, Canon’s codec, RED-RAW and more. And I do get it, the GPU on Apple’s M1 and M2 systems can help there. But they are not like the codec hardware built into the M1 and M2. So this is where a dedicated PCIe card can transform workflows. You also make a snarky comment about the facilities that spend big money on hardware. Frankly, software costs more than a Mac Studio. Especially for filmmaking. I have built and managed facilities. And a facility will earn back a $50,000 investment in three months. Be aware that there are those of us who are watching what you are offering on this channel.

[@joecursio4160]

I’m curious about your 2 terabytes of final cut libraries per month. Are you keeping all of your renders, only the renders you use for exporting, or none at all?

[@danschulz8255]

I have so many questions, but will try to focus. First, but not most importantly, will the upcoming Mac Pro have allocation for expandable internal storage? What about pci slots? That could either obsolesce the nas/external storage workaround, or move the nas to a backup/ archive solution. Second, I also use a thunderbay, and while responsivenesses is an issue, it seems unchecking “put hard drives to sleep when possible “ in energy settings can help your issue. Maybe either using ssds in the Thunderbay could help, or compare the nas against the Thunderbay flex could be an interesting comparison. A nas makes sense in a multi-user workflow, but I don’t see practical advantages over das in a single user environment, can you elaborate more than what seems basically comparing seek times on ssd caching vs hard drives? What happens when trying to edit multicam 4k on the nas?

[@samgod]

Luke said he accesses his NAS wirelessly with his MacBook Pros as well.

[@ryanzmuda3167]

No progress on a drive swap. What about adding to the other slot

[@aileenban-as1343]

Hello sir luke for you what is the best for DJ running serato pre MacBook pro mid 2012 or MacBook pro 2015?? Which is better for you hopefully you can answer my question sir

[@MysTarey]

Could u do a video of pros / cons of using tv’s as displays?

[@jim7953]

Holy molly that was alot on this video 👍Luke I need your opinion I still have my 21.5 imac it just recently Doesn't boot up, it turn on then it shut off, is it my hard drive or something else. How can I fix this please respond I would appreciate 🙏

[@himynameisryan]

You asked if the Mac Pro is necessary for most people. No, it’s not. That’s the point lol It’s for a very specific subset of users, look at the Skywalker studio behind the mac video where they use mac pros, despite the fact apple silicon exists

[@pdr770]

Killer idea a TV Screen for Mac 8K with out Hinge in Doen and Good for Final cut and Logic pro 40 inch for 8K tim next year. With best Speakers wnd Screen Ratio you earn a 1,000,000$. And it's Sexy Design.

[@popokatapetl6995]

Mac mini with 3nm and 16/1tb and smaller form factor for the next ten years. Please provide it to us

[@AeSkone]

Well, 3D Luke, 3D, there is where ne Mac needs to catch up and not for 15-18k , it needs to be there at 2k , at 4K, at 6k of dollars, euros and so on. The thing is, even a mobile 3060 smokes the Ultra GPU in everything, so yeah, CPU wise? Nope there almost always for content creation the Max CPU is enough, thanks to decoders, thanks to bandwidth and so on. So basically everyone who wants to do 3D in addition to the rest, well, you can buy another 8K workstation and have a studio plus this 8K workstation or you just go windows. But for everyone that wants 1 Mac for everything, well, those need a Mac Pro currently. And still a 3060 mobile will smoke it possibly. So yeah, you don’t need it actually.