Costco had a deal this morning on external 3TB Seagate HDD with USB 3.0, Firewire *and* Thunderbolt ("with adapter"). It was marked down to $99.99 (from $140 regular price). So, I picked up 3 of these puppies for a total of 9TB. See pic below..
Here is my situation: I'm in the process of moving from PC to Mac. Have already purchased 2 MBPs for the wife and daughter - but, for myself, waiting for the 2012 iMac to release. I do a lot of photography - often get paid. I use a Nikon D800 and hence, churn out, store and process tons of RAW files (each 40mb-60mb), covert many to JPGs of approx. 15mb-20mb.
So, short story, need plenty of storage - only to be accessed from time to time (1-2 times a month).
Thinking of getting a 2012 27-inch iMac with a 256GB SSD. Will get the 3.4GHz + GT680MX. Will upgrade RAM (after-market) to 16GB at least. Plan to store all my personal word / excel / pdf (all aggregating to about 30GB) on the SSD itself along with the OS, programs and apps. And all my pictures (and some video) on the Seagate external HDDs connected via Thunderbolt. Will use a second HDD for backups. And a spare 3rd external HDD 3TB HDD.
Advice needed: Is this all a good idea? Feasible? Should I consider a 1TB Fusion instead of a 256GB SSD? Am new to Mac and hence want to be reasonably certain it will all work out... Thanks in advance for your advice and suggestions.