Real-world fast

The Apple^® Mac^® Pro is a superbly-engineered computer, but the stock configurations fall well short of their potential. DIGLLOYD developed the MPG Pro Workstation to take into account the real world performance and reliability needs of photographic professionals, based on our groundbreaking research and our own suite of software tools. Performance is also superb for graphics and video and sound users.

You can work it all out by yourself after hours of reading and tinkering, since Mac Performance Guide tells you how. But why not let OWC configure and pre-test a system for you? Order a system now.

Proven hardware

Here at DIGLLOYD's Mac Performance Guide, we have satisfied ourselves of the fast and reliable operation of the Apple Mac Pro and the additional hardware recommended for it, as can be readily seen by reading the articles on this site. We've made our best effort to guide you to what works reliably and fast, based on our own testing, and the equipment we use ourselves. Please see the reviews on this site to satisfy yourself in that regard.

Here's how our research applies to the MPG Pro Workstation that OWC will build you:

Memory — based on Mac Performance Guide research, we specify the right amount of memory to facilitate use with multiple demanding applications like Adobe^® Photoshop^® and Lightroom^®. We specify top-quality, cost-effective RAM modules.
Fast hard drives — we specify quiet, reliable, fast, state-of-the-art hard drives, with ample space for your data (4TB, 6TB or 8TB internally).
Solid state drives — the boot drive we specify is a reliable and ultra-fast enterprise-grade solid state drive (SSD) that makes your applications launch almost instantly as well as providing a very fast scratch volume.
RAID — we specify RAID-0 appropriately to deliver fast read/write performance so your loading, saving and copying of files is super-efficient, saving you time. With some systems, we also specify RAID-1 mirroring to provide extra protection against drive failure.

Pre-configured for performance and backup

drive icons for boot, scratch, backup and master

Instead of a rat's nest of external hard drives, you get clean dedicated storage:
Boot, Master, Scratch (optional), & Time Machine.
No guesswork, no mess, easy to understand.

Every MPG Pro Workstation is extensively configured by OWC to DIGLLOYD specifications. You can also customize your configuration for increased performance, fault-tolerance, or both.

Here are the highlights:

Mac OS X Snow Leopard in 64-bit mode — OWC installs system software, skipping unnecessary fonts, translations or other overhead, configured for 64-bit operation. All system software updates are also applied.
Preferences set the right way — system preferences are set the way they ought to be, the way that makes the most sense for your system.
Hourly backups with Time Machine — Apple's Time Machine is configured with its own dedicated backup volume to protect you from drive failure, human errors and software errors. Time Machine automatically creates hourly, daily and weekly backups of your data. [1]
High performance external backup — An eSATA card is included that provides high read/write performance with eSATA external drives, specifically so that you can efficiently make external backups of your data (although the eSATA interface is also handy for other purposes).
Dedicated Boot volume — your "boot" drive contains the system and applications, safely separated from the bulk of your data. This separation facilitates efficient backups, high performance, and future system enhancements.
Dedicated Master volume — there's no guessing about what goes where, or what to backup: on the MPG Pro Workstation your important data goes on a dedicated, lightning-fast Master volume, separate from your system and applications. You get high performance, efficient backups, with all your stuff in one place. (Please note that some of your data such as mail and contacts might reside on the boot drive and if so, the boot drive should also be backed up).
Fast scratch space — applications like Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Lightroom and similar programs can run at top speed for their previews and caches by using the same fast SSD for the boot drive (larger SSD recommended if previews and caches are expected to be larger). A RAID-0 stripe of hard drives can be created if desired (upon request), but the SSD is recommended for most users.
Smart expansion — all systems can migrate to more powerful configurations by adding to what you already have.

Stress Testing

After your workstation is configured by OWC, it is stress-tested under conditions well in excess of most normal use, using diglloydTools. The CPU(s), memory, hard drives and cooling system are run at peak load for eight hours, exposing nearly any reliability issue or faulty component. Your system must pass the stress test, or it doesn't ship.

All CPU cores are run at peak load, accessing all memory continuously, placing a high heat load on the CPUs, memory, and cooling systems. This procedure ferrets out marginal components. (very, very few users can ever use the machine that hard on their own.)
Drives are filled to near-capacity to force bad blocks to be mapped out ahead of time, and for glitches to reveal themselves. The drives are then erased to empty after testing, ready for your use.
Hard drives and RAID setup are tested to verify that they deliver the expected level of performance.
Any additional external drives are similarly tested.

Nothing is perfect, hardware can and does fail with use, power spikes, etc., but here at DIGLLOYD, we feel these measures are a solid, pragmatic step to reduce initial hardware problems to a minimum. [2]

[1] DIGLLOYD assumes no liability, either express or implied, for the performance, reliability, safety, integrity and backup of your system or data. You are responsible at all times for verifying that Time Machine is operating properly and backing up all your data. Time Machine might not backup certain files that are kept open in programs while you are working on them. Time Machine might not backup data found on external drives, and you must account for that separately. We make extensive efforts to ensure that your system is configured the best way feasible, but you bear the entire responsibility for verifying appropriate measures are in place for backup, including not just Time Machine, but multiple external backups stored away from your system.

[2] Your warranty and agreement are entirely with the supplier(s) of the system and software, NOT with DIGLLOYD.

DIGLLOYD and MPG Pro Workstation are trademarks of DIGLLOYD, Inc. Apple®, Mac®, Spotlight® and Time Machine® are registered trademarks of Apple, Inc. in the United States and other countries. Adobe®, Photoshop® and Lightroom® are registered trademarks of Adobe Systems Incorporated.