Mac Pro April 2007 Expansion page

Home > Hardware > Mac Pro > Expansion

Good to grow.

Whether you’re editing feature films or scoring them, composing symphonies or visualizing mass spectrometry analyses, the new Mac Pro makes it easier than ever to create your personal dream machine. A powerful system that not only meets your needs today but, thanks to an ingeniously redesigned enclosure, expands easily to meet tomorrow’s challenges as well.

Up to 3TB of Internal Storage

Mac Pro now comes with four, 3Gb/s internal SATA hard drive bays, each on its own independent channel. While the standard configuration comes with a single 250GB drive, you can fill yours with up to four 750GB SATA hard drives for up to 3 terabytes of lightning fast data storage. Using Mac OS X, you can stripe two, three, or all four of those drives in a RAID 0 array to increase performance and create a massive volume for video editing; or create a RAID 1 array for instant backups — as you work — of photos or other digital media.

3 terabytes of storage gives you:

• 6 hours of uncompressed HD video¹
• 216 hours of high definition video²
• 252 hours of digital video³
• 375,000 RAW photos⁴

And thanks to the new cable-free, direct-attach installation system, you can add (or replace) hard drives quickly and easily. No more connectors or cables to contend with. Now, installing a drive is as simple as attaching a drive to a carrier, and sliding the drive into place. The side door latch has even been redesigned to lock your drives securely in the enclosure.

1. Uncompressed HD based on uncompressed 1080i 60 (8-bit)
2. HDV based on HDV 1080i 1920x1080 29.97 fps
3. DV based on NTSC DV25 standard definition 720x486 29.97 fps
4. RAW based on average digital SLR resolution of 8 megapixels

Expansive Memory

With Mac Pro, you’ll not only enjoy highly reliable and extremely fast 667MHz fully-buffered ECC memory, but you’ll find it incredibly easy to add memory to your system.

That’s because every Mac Pro comes with two memory riser cards, each with four fully-buffered DIMM slots. With a total of eight DIMM slots available, you can install up to 16GB of memory. To help dissipate heat, every Apple DIMM you purchase for your Mac Pro comes with its own preinstalled heat sink. This unique heat sink lets fans run slower — and quieter — yet keeps the memory cool enough to run at full speed.

New, Double-wide PCI Express Graphics Slot

When it comes time to add capabilities to your system — with, for example, an audio DSP solution, video capture card, data acquisition device, or Fiber Channel card — the new Mac Pro accommodates with three full-length PCI Express expansion slots. New to the Mac Pro: you can even adjust the PCI Express bandwidth on your system to meet your specific needs. What’s more, the new double-wide, 16-lane PCI Express graphics slot brings an end to sacrificing a slot in favor of better graphics. Now Mac Pro lets you have high-performance graphics, two 30-inch Cinema Displays, and all three expansion slots at the same time.

Dual Burner, Times Two

If you enjoy having one 16x SuperDrive at your disposal, think how much more productive you could be with two. Imagine backing up your data to two dual-layer DVDs at once. Or exporting Aperture projects to one DVD, while importing music from a CD into your iTunes library. With two optical drive bays available in every system, Mac Pro lets you do exactly that.