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amin

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Aug 17, 2003
977
9
Boston, MA
Ordered a MP today with the stock HD option. I want to buy a second and possibly third hard drive to use as a dedicated scratch disk for Photoshop. I shoot 8MP RAW files, convert them to uncompressed TIFF files in C1 (Capture One), and then work with them in Photoshop, typically working with 3-4 layers at a time with 1-2 photos open. Around 100-200GB should be okay, right? What's my least expensive decent option? What specs should I look for to tell if a HD is compatible w/ the Mac Pro? Links would definitely be appreciated.
 

kbonnel

macrumors 6502
Mar 1, 2004
471
2
In a nice place..
Hi,

I am using a WD2500KS for my second/scratch drive. Seems to work fine. If you need super fast speed, then you could go for one of the 10000 rpm drives. A lot of people use those for scratch disks, though they aren't cheap.

Kimo
 

crazycat

macrumors 65816
Dec 5, 2005
1,319
0
I was thinking of going with an external but it seems i will get 2 extra internal HD 500GB's each bringing my total to 1250GB which is well enough for me :). I do have a 1TB external LaCie that i have been using with my iMac but it seems my MacPro will be gettign it. Now what to do with the iMac which i have replaced :/
 

amin

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Aug 17, 2003
977
9
Boston, MA
Hmmm - I think I'll need yet another HD in which my Windows environment to reside. I don't want all that Windows world badness to stain my main area.
 

9Charms

macrumors regular
May 19, 2006
206
0
Vancouver, BC
Pretty well any SATA hard drive will work in a MacPro. SATA or SATA II is all the same. The hard drive can't physically even pump out 1.5 Gb/s (128MB/s), which is the SATA spec, let alone the 3 Gb/s of the SATA II spec. Even 10,000 rpm RAPTOR drives are maxed out at 84MB/s transfer speed. (I suppose if you had 4 RAPTORs in a RAID 0, that you might max out the 3 Gb/s though...)

Anyways, the stats look nice on paper, but you'll really not see the speed boost from SATA to SATA II drives. Go with your best bang for the buck. Right now it seems that either 250GB or 320GB SATA hard drives are the best $/GB.

RAID 0 is a pretty good option for speed, you'll notice that right away.
 

amin

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Aug 17, 2003
977
9
Boston, MA
Thanks all for the advice!

I decided to buy this HD (Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD3200KS 320GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - $89.99 after rebate) from NewEgg to replace the one that comes with the Mac as my boot drive/main drive. Does 16MB cache really make a difference compared to 8MB cache on these HDs?

The 250 GB drive that comes with the Mac will be used as the drive where Windows resides. Later I will pick up a couple smaller drives to arrange in RAID 0 as a PS scratch disk.
 
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