PowerMac config for still imaging

[Simon H]

Well, I am about to come over to Apple after a lifetime of Windows but need some help.
I am a photographer and am looking at a PowerMac to be my main imaging machine - prime uses will be RAW conversions (Canon 1DSII so appx 20mb RAW files for 100mb 15 bit TIFF) and Photoshop CS2 along with normal mail/web etc
The spec i am planning on is a quad with 4gb RAM and the 7800 video upgrade (from my understanding Aperture will make use of the extra video card performance - is this correct ?)
So far, so good. Disks is where i am stuck. Currently on my Windows machine, I have 10,000 rpm raptor for OS, another for PS scratch, RAID1 array for data and an external firewire disk for backup.
With the PowerMac, i was thinking about a 10,000 raptor for OS, 250gb internal for data, 2x firewire for replicated backups - one FW disk would also be scratch for PS.

This raises a couple of questions ;

1. Is this config viable ?
2. How easy/hard is it to reinstall OS X onto another disk ? I imagine it's just an install but want to make sure there are no gotchas...
3. Do the Raptors give significant benefits ? On XP, they have proven significantly faster but i'm not sure whether they have the same effect on OS X.

Also any date for Aperture's release ? This was the final thing that got me ready to switch....

Anything i've missed ?

cheers

Simon

 

[Bear]

...
The spec i am planning on is a quad with 4gb RAM and the 7800 video upgrade (from my understanding Aperture will make use of the extra video card performance - is this correct ?)

Yes, Aperture will.

So far, so good. Disks is where i am stuck. Currently on my Windows machine, I have 10,000 rpm raptor for OS, another for PS scratch, RAID1 array for data and an external firewire disk for backup.
With the PowerMac, i was thinking about a 10,000 raptor for OS, 250gb internal for data, 2x firewire for replicated backups.
This raises a couple of questions ;

1. Is this config viable ?
2. How easy/hard is it to reinstall OS X onto another disk ? I imagine it's just an install but want to make sure there are no gotchas...
3. Do the Raptors give significant benefits ? On XP, they have proven significantly faster but i'm not sure whether they have the same effect on OS X.

1) Yes
2) Very easy, All Macs come with system restore media (DVDs now) taht will bring your system back to as installed by the factory.
3)I'd recommend Seagate or Hitachi. I have had rather bad experiences with Western Digital disks.

And you missed one thing... The 30" LCD.

 

[Simon H]

Bear,

thanks for the quick reply.

The 30" may have to wait a while but hopefully not too long ! My 19" lcd felt very small after playing on the 30" !
I have had good and bad luck with WD but no worse or better than any others. Do Hitachi or Seagate havea na equivalent high speed disk ? Ulitmately, does the 10,000 rpm give much benefit ? Would a 7200 drive with 16mb buffer give good results as an option ?

cheers

Simon

 

[carlos700]

The 73GB has a faster read/write time than the 36GB. Two 10K 73GB in RAID should be really fast for a Mac OS X boot drive.

 

[Simon H]

The 73GB has a faster read/write time than the 36GB. Two 10K 73GB in RAID should be really fast for a Mac OS X boot drive.

Carlos,
does the PowerMac support a RAID array natively or does it require a RAID card ?

cheers

Simon

 

[Blackheart]

Carlos,
does the PowerMac support a RAID array natively or does it require a RAID card ?

cheers

Simon

Factory, it only has software RAID. You must purchase a 3rd party RAID card for hardware RAID.

If I were you, I would stick with a non-RAID boot disk unless you are going to have external volumes. The last thing you need is a drive to go bad on a RAID 0 and have all of your work go POOF.

 

[Simon H]

Factory, it only has software RAID. You must purchase a 3rd party RAID card for hardware RAID.

If I were you, I would stick with a non-RAID boot disk unless you are going to have external volumes. The last thing you need is a drive to go bad on a RAID 0 and have all of your work go POOF.

There will definitely be external disks for data. I steer clear of RAID0 these days but wasn't aware of the RAID support so was curious what was supported.
I think i'll stick with a single hi speed drive for OS, big data drive and 2xfirewire disks for backup

cheers

Simon