Bit the bullet on a Mac Studio

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Level 2

459 points

Bit the bullet on a Mac Studio

I recently decided to finally upgrade my desktop monitor. I purchased an LG UltraFine 5K Thunderbolt display. Well, getting it to work with my 2013 Mac Pro was a chore. It took some time to get it to work with a Thunderbolt 2 cable going into a Tunderbolt 3 adapter. So, I opened up my Thunderbolt 3 dock and hooked it up through that. It worked fine after that, but only a 2,560 x 1,440. And, I could not control any of the settings from my computer - including the brightness which desperately needed to be turned down.

So, I bit the bullet and ordered a used 2023 Mac Studio from B&H with the M2 Max processor, 96 GB of RAM, and a 2 TB SSD. It won't ship until Monday, but as soon as it gets here and I transfer everything over, I should be able to put the monitor through its paces. I will say that the color depth was outstanding on the LG, so I am eager to see it running in full 5K resolution. Fingers crossed that the Mac Studio will make my life easier.

Mac Pro, macOS 12.7

Posted on Oct 11, 2024 5:12 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Grant Bennet-Alder

Level 10

132,745 points

Oct 12, 2024 8:16 AM in response to Wakko Warner

to run at full color at 5K data rates, your Thunderbolt cable must be shorter than 0.8 meters for Apple-engineered cables, or shorter than 0.5 meters for Brand-X ThunderBolt cables.

Substituting Thunderbolt-4 cables does NOT allow you to extend the lengths supported in the slightest.

USB-C cables have only half the data pathways, so they will not support the highest resolutions.

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Answer 2

Wakko Warner Author

Level 2

459 points

Oct 18, 2024 11:14 AM in response to BDAqua

The Mac Studio arrived Wednesday afternoon. I hooked it up and started transferring everything from my Mac Pro. Interestingly, I hooked it up the same exact way when I transferred from my 2015 Macbook Pro to the 2023 Macbook Pro. But, while the laptop transfer only took less than 2 hours, the desktop transfer had to run overnight. I truly can not explain that. The laptop only has about 100 GB less data on it, so the transfer times should have been about the same.

That being said, the new Studio runs very well, and the monitor is running at full 5K resolution. Loving the color depth on the monitor, and loving that I got the monitor brand new for $800 (vs the $1,300 retail price). The Studio didn't have much run time on the SSD (like 33 hours), so I think everything will be good. I did go ahead and add the annual Applecare+ warranty just in case. Now I just have to continue to get used to the new Control Panel, which I feel is a step backward from the old layout.

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Answer 3

tbirdvet

Level 6

14,188 points

Oct 12, 2024 4:03 PM in response to Wakko Warner

I have the same monitor and also the Studio Display. Both images are identical. You should be happy.

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Answer 4

tbirdvet

Level 6

14,188 points

Oct 19, 2024 10:44 AM in response to BobJackson66

No issue with my Mac Studio and SSD's or TB drives. Double check your cable integrity and use a different port on your Mac to test.

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Answer 5

Oct 19, 2024 10:17 AM in response to BobJackson66

Sequoia does not have a reputation for accessing drives any differently.

Any drive that will not tell Disk Utility its make&model, and a reasonable non-zero size/capacity, is not usable (for anything) in its current state.

if its power and data cabling are adequate, that drive has died.

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Answer 6

Oct 19, 2024 12:33 PM in response to BobJackson66

Two pass secure erase accomplishes NOTHING additional beyond a simple erase of the Physical device on an SSD device. It is not appropriate and not necessary for SSD devices. It just wears them out sooner for no benefit.

An SSD with TRIM enabled discards the block numbers from deleted data blocks, collects those blocks into SuperBlocks, and bulk-erases the Superblocks to be ready for new data. This happens within seconds of deleting data or erasing the entire drive.

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Answer 7

Oct 19, 2024 10:07 AM in response to Wakko Warner

I just bought a new Mac Studio M2 Ultra too a few weeks ago from Apple.

Do not upgrade to Sequoia .

I also bought the LG 5K Ultrafine monitor from B & H. Everything worked well including all of my external ssd drives. After upgrading the SSD is not recognized, and I have not been able to get it to work including formatting it as a last resort. The drive works fine on my 27" iMac 5K, but will not appear in the disk utility on the M2 Studio.

as a very last resort I will contact APPLE.

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Answer 8

Oct 19, 2024 5:03 PM in response to BDAqua

I have ordered a "OWC Express 1M2 USB4 (40Gb/s) Bus-Powered Portable External Storage Enclosure for NVMe M.2 SSD" . Pricey but if this thing doesn't work I would be surprised. Should have within a week.

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