SAS on a Mac Pro

[Karen]

Does anyone run SAS on a Mac Pro? I need a new computer and this was a suggestion because of its high performance features. I mostly run STAT procedures on very large datasets, often tens of GBs. Or is it better to stick to a really good Windows 7 PC?

[ChrisNZ]

I don't see OS X or Windows 7 on http://www.sas.com/technologies/analytics/statistics/stat/index.html#section=5

Because of the volumes you mention, get the fastest disk array you can. The performance will mostly depend on how fast your disks are, passing on those GB of data for processing. And get lots of RAM (which points to a 64 bit OS).

[Doc_Duke]

Mac's are technically not supported except by using the BootCamp software (making the machine a dual boot with XP).

I have had students find that using a Mac with Parallels works fine for SAS 9.1.3 and EGuide 4.1 as well as SAS 9.2 and EGuide 4.2. Since Parallels is an XP emulator, there is a small performance hit.

Windows 7 isn't supported yet, but does work. See
http://blogs.sas.com/sasdummy/index.php?/archives/128-SAS-9.2-and-SAS-Enterprise-Guide-4.2-on-Window...

Spending your money on the fastest disk drive you can get will generally pay off the most for big data. If you are using some of the newer compute-intensive stat tasks (mixed and the Bayesian ones come to mind), then a fast processor and lots of RAM will also help. Generally, I find the processor loafing while SAS is running big data for things like regressions or other deterministic stat tasks.