That's a good question Willie, I too am a DP user and you probably know that DP has that great feature of V-RACKS where your VI are loaded in parallel and using sequences you can write new cues without having to reload a DP project and your whole template. That's basically what we called a static template.You can also have a static template that is loaded on slave computers.

I'm actually doing this tech work for a busy composer. He doesn't like the idea of running everything from his main computer. However I do believe depending on the needs and size of template that it is doable on one computer.(I am a composer / DP user myself and currently running everything out of one computer although smaller template but I do salivate at the idea of having everything at my finger tip)

For his rig, the main requirement was that it had to be portable. He wanted to be able to grab his laptop and 2 MAC Mini and have access to pretty much the same template on the go. Hence the 2 MAC Mini route. I heard on Motunation forum people claiming it is more efficient to run your VI thru VEPRO on the same machine rather than just loading them in DP. I am not convinced at all and will need to do further testing but in a case of slave computers VEPRO is a must.

Furthermore I'm no expert but despite the fact we can pack and use a lot of RAM these days, there is also disk access and CPU concerns. Not sure if you max out a 96GB RAM computer you might run into streaming problems or other CPU hiccups. Again depends on how much stuff you are triggering what other processing you are doing but in case of big orchestral type sequences that could be an issue perhaps. That's why many composers prefer to split the workload. They tend to go to the most traveled road and prefer to play it safe and avoid any tech problems.

Slightly OT but still on the subject of Mac Mini Server;

I've just set up my first Mini server (2012 2.3Ghz, 16GB RAM, 750GB 7200RPM HD).

So far the system is very shakey and unstable.I'm running the 64bit Server version of VEP. So i'm doing some troubleshooting, since running VEP on the main DAW was nothing but stable.

I'm wondering what settings are you guys using in Kontakt (hosted in VEP) ? Multiprocessor - should be set off ?

VEP is set with 2 Threads (out of 8) per instance. on the slave

On the main DAW, latency is on 2 buffers

Any other tips ? things I should look at ?

Quite a timely thread...

I've been running a 2012 MacMiniServer with 250G SSD and 750G SATA flawlessly since June.  Problem is I keep loading it up with more libraries.  I run VSL and Omnisphere/trillian, and occaisionally I load it up with my 8DIO Kontakt libraries.   

It was time to increase the capacity so I just today completed upgrading the lower drive bay to an OCZ Vertex 4 512G SSD, and kept the 750G SATA in the upper bay.   (First tip, just MacOSX Disc Utilities Restore instead of Carbon Copy Cloner to do the migration!)

The OCZ Vertex 4 says it supports TRIM but I'm gonna run without it enabled (based on some forum guidance).

So far it's stable - will report in if I experience any issues.

(BTW - picked up the 512G Vertex 4 during the Thanksgiving sales for US$299 from NewEgg)

Thanks for your reply Sean.

I'm using the same mac mini machine (2012 model).

Is there a reason why you run it @ 10.7.3? and not 10.8 ? I didn't know that was even possible. mine came with 10.8 preinstalled.

Hi Pivot,

 Got mine in May, it came with 10.7.3 server edition.  During the inital startup I selected to NOT run any of the server services.  I did read about  how to regress to the non-server edition of OSX but decided to give it a shot as is and regress if necessary... and all has been fine as is.

 I keep this one offline so I never update it.  I have read forum posts claiming that Apple is inhibiting 3rd-party SSD support with newer OSX versions - but I can't say that I have heard or read that from a source I trust yet.  Nevertheless, I'll leave it at 10.7.3 until I have reason to upgrade.

Sean, you wrote: "First tip, just MacOSX Disc Utilities Restore instead of Carbon Copy Cloner to do the migration!"

why so? do you have to "Time Machine" to do MacOSX Disc Utilities Restore?

so in my case, I was upgrading the original 250G SSD to a new 512G SSD.  I installed the new drive in the MacMiniServer first, then used a SATA-to-USB cable to connect the original drive externally.  Next you need to boot off the old drive, but - it has to be from the Recovery partition of the old drive, since you are going to be cloning the active boot partition and you'll need those files left unlocked to be copied. 

The reason for my comment is that I tried using CarbonCopyCloner first - everything went smoothly but when I booted up on the new drive, the OS would reset itself every 20 seconds or so.  Apps would not even launch before the reset.

Not sure why I tried CCC first - maybe because I had a copy...

Anyway, the trick is to connect up the drives as mentioned above, then hold down the Option key when you power on the MacMini.  This will bring up a grey screen and allow you to select which partition to boot from.  Choose the externally connected Recovery Partition. Once booted, you can select Disc Utiilties.  Tab across to the Restore Tab, select your Source Drive (the external USB connected old drive) and the Target Drive (the new SSD installed in the Mac Mini) and fire away.  Takes a few hours, but it seems to copy something across that CCC missed.

I've not tried Time Machine for restoring or migrating a system before - I was under the impression it just restored whatever files you had targetted for it to backup (which may not be everything you need).  For my case, I wanted the 250G partition to be cloned and migrated onto a new 500G partition to give me more space. 

Hope that helps - Merry Christmas to all ;-)

Sean

Didn't do any special settings in Kontakt. No memory server obviously and multiprocessors is set to 8 which is the default I think. The only difference I see is I have a second drive where all the samples are and 10.8.2. Also I don't have the MAC Mini server version. Both have a dozen or so instances of Kontakt and they're pretty much racked up memory wise.