New Mac Pro HD Arrangement

[zdobson]

My new Mac Pro is arriving in a couple days and I need help with hard drive configuration. I've only had a notebook prior to this, so I don't know what I need. I ordered the standard config MP. I will be using it for pro photo editing and occasionally making high-def photo slide shows on DVD. Also, I'll be adding RAM for a total of 6GB.
Software used: Photoshop CS3, Illustrator, InDesign, Bridge, Dreamweaver, Flash, iDVD

Questions:
1) Do I need a scratch disk even though CS3 uses RAM above 4GB for scratch? If so, what size/speed?

2) Is Time Machine worth using considering I archive my photos on external HD & DVD? If so, what HD should I get for it?

3) Are there any other uses for the internal drives I should consider?

I only want to spend what I really need to improve performance. I'm not interested in filling all 4 bays just because they're there. Thanks for your help!

 

[yeroen]

My new Mac Pro is arriving in a couple days and I need help with hard drive configuration. I've only had a notebook prior to this, so I don't know what I need. I ordered the standard config MP. I will be using it for pro photo editing and occasionally making high-def photo slide shows on DVD. Also, I'll be adding RAM for a total of 6GB.
Software used: Photoshop CS3, Illustrator, InDesign, Bridge, Dreamweaver, Flash, iDVD

Questions:
1) Do I need a scratch disk even though CS3 uses RAM above 4GB for scratch? If so, what size/speed?

2) Is Time Machine worth using considering I archive my photos on external HD & DVD? If so, what HD should I get for it?

3) Are there any other uses for the internal drives I should consider?

I only want to spend what I really need to improve performance. I'm not interested in filling all 4 bays just because they're there. Thanks for your help!

1) Do you anticipate editing images whose total size with their layers and edit histories exceeds 4GB? Or will you exceed this limit with multiple open files? If not, a dedicated scratch disk really isn't necessary given the amount of RAM you're installing.

2) Possibly. Time Machine is like a smart versioning system. It backs up what it needs to back up. It doesn't blindly overwrite already archived files when the content of those files haven't changed since the last back up. And you can have multiple copies, versioned by date, of the same file when the contents of those files have changed. Depending on how you do backups now, this may save some time.


3) Ignoring complications due to all the possible RAID combinations, at the minimum you want a fast drive for the OS and Applications, a high capacity drive for your media files, an internal or external high-capacity drive for file backup, and it's also good to have a bootable clone of the system drive should your system drive fail (Time Machine does NOT create a bootable clone, for that you have to use Carbon Copy Cloner or Super Duper).

 

[zdobson]

1) Do you anticipate editing images whose total size with their layers and edit histories exceeds 4GB? Or will you exceed this limit with multiple open files? If not, a dedicated scratch disk really isn't necessary given the amount of RAM you're installing.

2) Possibly. Time Machine is like a smart versioning system. It backs up what it needs to back up. It doesn't blindly overwrite already archived files when the content of those files haven't changed since the last back up. And you can have multiple copies, versioned by date, of the same file when the contents of those files have changed. Depending on how you do backups now, this may save some time.


3) Ignoring complications due to all the possible RAID combinations, at the minimum you want a fast drive for the OS and Applications, a high capacity drive for your media files, an internal or external high-capacity drive for file backup, and it's also good to have a bootable clone of the system drive should your system drive fail (Time Machine does NOT create a bootable clone, for that you have to use Carbon Copy Cloner or Super Duper).

Thanks for the feedback. That will definitely help. I rarely have files over 50MB , so it sounds like I won't be needing a scratch disk. What about running batch processes? Is that mostly using the processor?

Anyone use AscendTech drives before? Or even heard of them? I found this 150GB 10K drive for $129. Is there really that noticeable a speed boost using a 10K drive for startup? Since I'll be coming from a 4200rpm notebook drive to a 7200rpm desktop drive, I'm wondering if I'll really notice a difference going all the way to a 10K drive.

 

[Nick T.]

$129 sounds too good to be true.

If you're not a pro-user, then stick with the 7,200 drives. You'll love the speed! It gets more and more expensive as you approach the cutting edge of technology.

If you're a pro-user, then it's pretty easy to calculate the time saved at each speed level. At that point, if desire is a factor, just go with the fastest you can afford, else just do the basic arithmetic and make a rational decision.

Enjoy!

 

[zdobson]

$129 sounds too good to be true.

If you're not a pro-user, then stick with the 7,200 drives. You'll love the speed! It gets more and more expensive as you approach the cutting edge of technology.

If you're a pro-user, then it's pretty easy to calculate the time saved at each speed level. At that point, if desire is a factor, just go with the fastest you can afford, else just do the basic arithmetic and make a rational decision.

Enjoy!

I thought the same thing about the $129 drive. I saw a $190 10k Raptor on pricewatch, so that would probably be a safer bet.

I'm a professional photographer. There seems (to me, at least) to be a big divide between what a pro photog needs and what a pro video/audio/graphics user needs.