Homelab: Mac Pro 2013 32GB
Did I mention that I have recently purchased the iconic Mac Pro 2013 desktop for virtualisation and macOS experiments in my homelab?
Mac Pro 2013 - macOS Sonoma
Yes, the year is 2024 and Mac Pro 2013 is now more than 10 years old, but many models are still in perfect working order and pack quite a punch for something this old.
Typical Mac Pro 2013 Hardware Specs
Here are the key hardware specifications for the Mac Pro 2013 model:
- CPU: 3.5 GHz 6-Core Intel Xeon E5 (upgradable to 12-core)
- RAM: 32GB 1866 MHz DDR3 ECC (upgradable to 64GB or 128GB)
- Storage: 512GB PCIe-based flash storage
- Graphics: Dual AMD FirePro D500 GPUs with 3GB GDDR5 VRAM each
- Ports:
- 6 Thunderbolt 2 ports
- 4 USB 3.0 ports
- 2 Gigabit Ethernet ports
- 1 HDMI 1.4 port
- Wireless: 802.11ac Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0
- Dimensions: 9.9 inches tall, 6.6 inches in diameter
- Weight: 11 pounds (5 kg)
The model I got comes with 6-core Xeon CPU and 32GB RAM and 512GB SSD. I think it has 6 thunderbolt connections and 4 USB ones, not to mention two Gigabit network interfaces and HDMI. It’s an old system so HDMI only supports 30Mhz for 4K, but thunderbolt connection should support 60Mhz.
If I really want to, I can upgrade it to 64GB RAM or even a much better 12-core CPU - both upgrades seem to be overkill but also sound like quite fun projects (and spares for such an old system are really cheap these days).
As always, initial post-config is done using Ansible and homebrew.
