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Mac Pro HD Partition doubts

Boneheadxan

Boneheadxan

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jul 19, 2009
152
30
Hello Rumorholics,

New member here. :D
I'm getting a Mac Pro 2009 8-core, 8GB with the ATI 4870.
I have ordered a pre-installed 1TB HD.
I will primarily be running Logic/Ableton and all music related stuff.
Also planning to run Photoshop/Aperture and FCP occasionally.

Should I invest in another HD to load all this? Does the system slow down, if I install all these on the primary drive?

I also plan to partition around 300GB for Windows to run East-West Libs and games :rolleyes:

I just need to know, if running all this on the primary drive can affect performance? Cause, I hate going through the entire installation process and can't get a new HD for now. So I'd rather not install the Apps I don't need.

Cheers.
 
With the price of drives being as low as they are today (under $100 for 1TB), I would recommend using the main 1TB for the installs (I am unsure if you can even run/install those apps on a secondary drive) and then use others for scratch discs and such. I would use a 4th drive for Time Machine if you don't want to use an external, another drive can be partitioned for windows. Perhaps you save files on the partitioned drive.

With 4 bays and the option to fill them to 4TB minimal for under $400, I wouldn't hesitate in the least. I'm not saying 4TB is the max, but if you want to start smaller then I would do 1TB per bay and can add another to my second unused optical bay if I so choose.
 
Thanks Jessica.

I don't really use Time-Machine. I back up my Music projects individually.

I have two old external 3.5" drives. Is it possible to pop them into the bays?
Or do I have to check compatibility? Can't afford to screw those two drives up. :rolleyes:

Cheers.
 
Is their a way to partition a drive 3 ways? Let's say if you wanted Time Machine, Bootcamp, and just scratch media?
 
There is a small time penalty for partitioning any drives. There is also a bit of risk, that you make installation mistakes with Bootcamp Windows and end up damaging data on the other partitions. So from that point it would be wise to keep Windows on a separate drive. Also keep in mind that you can have only 3 partitions on a drive that is done with the GUID partition table. GUID is the native format for all Intel machines and is mandatory for HDs using Bootcamp. On a Bootcamp HD the Windows partition will allways be the last of a maximum of three. Bootcamp itself can only do two partitions but a third data partition can be inserted by disk utility.

There is a speed penalty for running the boot drive from only one hard disk. If you use two hard disks in RAID0 - from the native Raid controller - you should be significantly faster with your apps.

Using old HDs you have with data should not be a problem. You just have to be carefull when you use disk utility not to erase something when you are partitioning other drives.
 
Boneheadxan said:
Should I invest in another HD to load all this?
Click to expand...

Yes you should. And like Jessica suggested you should also get one for backups whether it's time machine or another.


Does the system slow down, if I install all these on the primary drive?
Click to expand...

Yes. And it may slow even more if you partition the boot drive to do what you intend.


I just need to know, if running all this on the primary drive can affect performance?
Click to expand...

Yes it can - and it positively will.

For OS X operation, from worst to best performance, the raking goes something like this:

  1. Partitioning a single drive: ~$0,
  2. All on one partition: ~$0,
  3. Separate individual drives: ~$100,
  4. 3 Drive RAID0 - everything on one partition: ~$200,
  5. Separate 3-Drive RAID0 and individual drive: ~$300,
  6. Two RAID0 arrays (hopefully both 3-Drive arrays), ~$500
    but one 2-drive and one 3-drive would have
    to do if you have a 2009 machine. as the 2009
    models only have 5 open SATA ports: ~$400),
  7. One single 6-Drive RAID0 (or 5-drive [~$400] if on a 2009 Mac): ~$500

    • It's actually undetermined by me personally which
      offers the better performance #6 or #7... but if you
      have 8GB of RAM or more then I would guess #7 is
      better.

None of these options exclude the need for a back-up - which is best positioned in all cases as an external drive (hopefully eSATA): +$100 to $300 depending on the option you implement from above.


.
 
Thanks a lot Tesselator, for the information, I will look into those.

As gugucom suggested, is it possible to pop in one of my 3.5" 320GB SATA drives into the bays? I will format it and could possibly run Windows on it.

Are there any compatiblity issues I need to check? The drive is 3 years old.

Cheers.

PS- Sorry for the n00b questions, haven't really worked with a Mac Pro before :p
 
Boneheadxan said:
Thanks a lot Tesselator, for the information, I will look into those.

As gugucom suggested, is it possible to pop in one of my 3.5" 320GB SATA drives into the bays? I will format it and could possibly run Windows on it.

Are there any compatiblity issues I need to check? The drive is 3 years old.

Cheers.

PS- Sorry for the n00b questions, haven't really worked with a Mac Pro before :p
Click to expand...

NP on the questions. We all have to learn the info first if we're going to use it.

The drive should just work if it's an SATA drive. Plug-and-play! YAY! It probably
won't be very fast though. :p I dunno the model or spec.
 
As stated the SATA 320gbs will work in your MP. You said you couldn't afford to screw those up though?

I highly recommend Time Machine and Carbon Copy Cloner or Super Duper as a secondary backup to Time Machine.
 
I'm all good to go then. :cool:

Thanks a lot guys. I will be lurking around the forums. :D

Cheers.
 
Although Off-Topic, what or how much does Migration Assistant help transfer? I have a 2006 MBP and I might need certain apps and my music projects transferred intact.

So, is it recommended I run it? Or should I just copy manually.

Does it transfer Apps like Logic or something?

Cheers.
 
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