Ready to buy, have I done my homework?

[JediMac]

OK, so I am ready to take the plunge for a new Mac Pro, but I’m looking for a little clarification on some things before I do. I am trying to decide between the 2.93 Quad and the 2.26 Octo. I am a print graphic designer, so the Adobe Creative Suite is the bulk of my app. work. I may dabble in editing some home movies down the road, but it is not what I do for a living. Some observations/questions from poring through the forum here:

1. The 2.93 Quad would probably provide a greater speed boost in the short term (next 18-24 months) and the 2.26 Octo would be better in the longer run. Does that sound about right?

2. Snow Leopard is going to be a nice boost to the Octo. Does the same hold true for the Quad?

3.The earliest Snow Leopard will be out is June. Is there any reason to think early Nehalum adopters will get a discount on SL? I can be persuaded to wait three months if it means saving $129.

4. I was under the impression that an internal drive couldn't be used as a Time Machine backup, but apparently I was wrong about that. Other than the drive not being "outside the box" as it were, is there any downside to doing this? If the main HD goes down, the others are still OK to just slide out and install in a new machine, right?

5. I learned enough here over the last week that installing my own additional hard drives is the way to go. That said, when I go to sites like OWC and Newegg, I don’t know exactly what I’m looking for. Does any SATA drive slide right into these babies?

Well, I’d appreciate any feedback from my questions/comments. I have swung back and forth many times a day between the two models. Considering I’m upgrading from a 9.33 GHz G4, I’m probably splitting hairs, but I want to make my purchase as future proof as possible. Thanks much!

 

[techound1]

I'll hit a few of these.

SL is supposed to be a "lighter, meaner, faster" version of 10.5, so it should see a boost on all fronts.

I doubt you'll get an early adopter deal on SL. They just don't do that.

The downside to an internal backup drive is that the only thing it saves you from is a hardware failure of the primary drive. Fire, plague, and pestilence otherwise all effect both drives equally (which is my flip way of saying that an external can be mounted under a table to thwart a casual thief, or put into another building to avoid the casual fire, etc).

Apple's spec page on the pro says:

Storage

* Four 3.5-inch cable-free, direct-attach hard drive bays with built-in independent 3Gb/s Serial ATA channels; four internal hard drive carriers included

Which means you'll need 3.5" SATA hard drives, with an information exchange rate of up to 3 gb/s. When the drives come, mount them in the carriers, pop the carriers into the machine, and you're good to go.

 

[brop52]

I've included all the relevant drives with 16MB cache or above, 7200/10000 RPM, 3.5" HDDs 500GB or more on Newegg. You can do more specific searches if you are looking for higher capacity by going to power search.