New Mac pro HD setup

[toddbe]

I am a Windows user about to make the leap to a Mac Pro. I cannot wait! I have read many posts about hard drive setup, and am still confused. What do you think of this setup for general purpose photography editing in Leopard with Photoshop, and printing with Qimage in Windows?

Drive 1 and Drive 2: 500 GB each, Raid 0, all Apple OS, apps, and data.
Drive 3: 500 GB, partitioned 100 GB Mac scratch disk, 400 GB Windows: Windows apps, and Windows data.
Drive 4: 1,000 GB, partitioned 900 GB time machine, 100 GB Windows scratch disk.

Will this work? Can you partition drives to be Apple and Windows? Any better suggestions? Will data be able to be shared both ways?

Thanks,
Todd

 

[killmoms]

Seems fine to me, not sure I understand the need for a "scratch" partition for OS X. Does it really make that much difference in Photoshop? However, about data sharing:

Windows cannot understand HFS+ (the Mac filesystem format) at all, unless you purchase MacDrive. This is what I suggest.

OS X will read NTFS volumes, but not write to them (unless you use one of those MacFUSE NTFS drivers, but I don't trust 'em). OS X will read and write FAT32 volumes, but you can't store files over 4GB on them (and Windows Vista will not install to them, only NTFS).

 

[orpheus1120]

I used to have MacFuse back in the days of Tiger and it seemed to work fine with writing on my EHD's NTFS. However I have had problems when I loaded in DVDs, and the system cannot recognize and play the discs.

 

[toddbe]

I will not be using any large files (over 4 GB) that i will need to read in Windows. Most are Photoshop files aroung 100 MB.

So I purchase MacDrive and,

Drive 1 and Drive 2: 500 GB each, Raid 0, all Apple OS, apps, and data. OK
Drive 3: 500 GB, partitioned 100 GB Mac scratch disk, 400 GB Windows, FAT32: Windows apps, and Windows data.
Drive 4: 1,000 GB, partitioned 900 GB time machine, 100 GB Windows scratch disk. OK???

Will this work?

Thanks, Todd

 

[orpheus1120]

Your setup looks alright to me, except for your drive 1 and 2 in which you do a RAID 0. Unless access speed is imperative for you, I would advise against a RAID 0 as it doesn't offer any redundancy. But since you have time machine with 900GB, your setup should be safe.

 

[Frozonecold]

I thought leopard could write to NTFS partitions?

 

[orpheus1120]

Not natively I'm afraid not.