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Help Me With HDD Configuration - Harpertown

Wild-Bill

Wild-Bill

macrumors 68030
Original poster
Jan 10, 2007
2,539
617
bleep
Ok,

Like many of you, my Harpertown 2.8 | 8800GT will be here in 3-5 weeks. :rolleyes: I ordered it with the stock 320 gig drive. No idea what model they're shipping with..

Anyhow, currently in the bowels of my PC reside the following SATA drives:



  • 74 gig Raptor (model FLA-0..older model)
  • 400 Gig WD SE16 (think I still have warranty left on it - not sure)
  • 500 Gig Seagate 7200.10 (bought about 8 months ago)

In addition, I have a WD 160 gig PATA drive in an external Bytecc cheapo Firewire enclosure. Been using that for backups for the Powerbook.

The PC is going to be dismantled and sold, and I was planning on keeping the drives. However, I noticed on StorageReview that 1) my Raptor is nowhere near as fast as the newer 150 gig Raptor and 2) the WD 750 gig AAKS is a pretty damn good performer.

Should I sell the Raptor and the 400 gig drive in favor of a 150 gig Raptor and a 750 gig drive? Should I just keep them all and deal with the space I'll have? (74+400+500+320 = ~1.3 TB). I think right now the 750's are a better value than the 1TB drives and, when on sale, can be had for ~.20 per gig.

I was planning on using a separate disk for Windows, for the times I plan on gaming. Either VMWare or Parallels for when I'm not.
The main use of the Mac Pro will be for Logic Studio. To that end, I have a MOTU Ultralite and a pair of KRK-ROKIT 5's. I also plan to upgrade to cut my teeth on Final Cut Express, and dabble in CS3.

The 400 gig drive is formatted NTFS and contains all my Windoze stuff, save for the OS and games which are on the Raptor. Could one just add that drive after Windows has been bootcamped?

Thanks in advance for your ideas. :D

*Edit* - wait! I think I'm also gonna need a new desk. I'm outta space. I have an older Ikea corner desk with hutch. I like the Ikea Galant series b/c you can bolt several together to get what you need. I think I'd be lost without a hutch & they don't make one for the Galant. And there's nowhere to hide wires (i.e. no backdrop-type things).
 
They have a thing you can mount to the bottom of the desk. I have two of them and route my wires there. With that, the only things coming down are the power strip cable and my subwoofer cable. (when i keep it tidy that is)

I went with the Vika line, I got a Vika Grevsta birch veneer top and some legs. It is actually pretty nice and very big.

As far as a hutch. I have never been a fan of them. Too old style for me.

What do you use the hutch for?
 
if you don't mind the noise (ur call)

use the raptor as your program drive
10,000 rpm drives kick ass as long as you can handle the noise

my mac pro is only for logic and keep my program drive as bare as possible, no nothing but program files

and use the largest drive you can to hold your audio files and logic projects

second to that put any virtual instrument sample files on a second drive to help live streaming - if you intend to do MIDI work with samples

think about you don't want your program drive ever trying to run an audio app like logic while streaming audio at the time

go with either hitachi or wd drives...i'm actually going to use all hitachi drives in my system...was going to go with WD but they don't have a TB for RAID.
 
timestamp said:
I went with the Vika line, I got a Vika Grevsta birch veneer top and some legs. It is actually pretty nice and very big.

As far as a hutch. I have never been a fan of them. Too old style for me.

What do you use the hutch for?
Click to expand...

Use the hutch to hold crap, like game & software boxes, it also has a built-in CD holder-thingy, and another shelf for my blank DVD cake boxes. Another shelf with the pen/pad holder.

I'm pretty set on a corner desk that I can expand like those Galants. I want more workspace than I have now, so I can set up my M-Audio Ozone keyboard to be to the right of me. Also I've got a Griffin stand for my Powerbook. :apple:

Right now my PC is using two 19 inch Dell 1900FP panels. I don't know if they're IPS or what. I've had them a while. I use both in DVI, but have the PB connected via VGA so I can switch to that when needed. Using an older Logitech keyboard for the PC, and a wireless Apple keyboard (white) for the PB. Definitely need more surface area. Plus, right now I have ZERO room for my KRK studio monitors. Uggh. :(

I'll check into that wire management thing Ikea sells for the desk.

Now, onto the hard drive situation in my OP. Any ideas/suggestions?? :confused::confused:
 
i'd just unload the 74 gig in favor of a 7200 rpm of sufficient capacity.

then you've got:
1. stock 320, boot drive, apps

2.400 wd for windows

3. samples

4. audio files

personally, i don't think 10k's are worth it at this point. a 7200 can handle something like a 100 tracks at 24/44.1.

i got my 2.8 last week and have the drives about the same way
1. stock 320 boot/apps/parallels

2. 500 gig sample drive
(actually in 3rd slot)

3. 500 gig audio drive
(actually in 4th slot)

works great so far.
 
GregPacker said:
Is there a logical reason why you skipped the second slot? I remember the MDD G4s split the 4 hardrives into two pairs on separate busses. Do mac pros have anything like that?
Click to expand...

further back in the case (and cabinet) that it's sitting in = less noise. (at least in theory, in reality it probably doesn't make much difference, but i figured i'd try it).
 
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