Setting up a Mac Pro and iMac with Time Capsule - Help me make it work the best way

[iAdamB]

Hi All -

Here's the deal -

I have an old(er) iMac [24 inch white - 750gb - 3GB ram] that I have used for three years and just got a Mac Pro [3 TB - 8GB ram] that I am looking to set up for use with my other Apple stuff (AppleTV, Time Capsule, and iPhone)

Here's the deal - I have a baby at home (which means tons of pictures and video) and I wanted to figure out a way to best set up my gear to get the most out of it. I was thinking of using the iMac as an Internet/Media Streaming Machine and Use the Mac Pro for all my work/Photoshop/Editing stuff. Any thoughts?

And then there is Time Machine and the Apple TV - I have lots of stuff and am not sure the best way to set up my time capsule (1TB).

For the Mac Pro I have 4 drives and wanted to know if my logic is sound...

Drive 1 - 300GB Velociraptor - OS and Apps
Drive 2 - 1TB Black Caviar - Files and Media
Drive 3 - 1TB Black Caviar - Time Machine for the Mac Pro
Drive 4 - Scratch Drive (How I set that up???)

And then I was planning on using the Time Capsule for my iMac and MacBook Pro as their Time Machines.

I was wondering if that all makes sense and if there was a better way to set things up...

Thanks in advance...

 

[BlueRevolution]

The 24" iMac supports a VESA mount adapter, I believe. You could consider wall-mounting it and using it with Plex. I just bought a 1.5 TB drive for my iMac mostly because of that app.

I haven't worked with video much, but by my understanding the faster your scratch disk the better. You might want to consider getting another Velociraptor for the purpose. In Final Cut Pro, which I'm assuming you're using, there's an option to select a drive to use as a scratch disk.

I suggest putting your backup drive in an external enclosure. Doing so provides an extra layer of security. If your beast of a computer is stolen, your internal backup drive is gone too.

 

[donuttakedonuts]

If you really want file security, you should run a wire down to your basement or something to keep your backup drive safe in case of a fire or something. But how, may I ask, does one go about stealing a mac pro? Forklift?

 

[BlueRevolution]

If you really want file security, you should run a wire down to your basement or something to keep your backup drive safe in case of a fire or something.

You should always maintain an off-site backup. I have two, although my full backup is a couple of months out of date because it took two weeks to upload my 73 GB backup to my web server. I hope never to have to use it, since it would take months to re-download now that I have a residential connection again.

But how, may I ask, does one go about stealing a mac pro? Forklift?

Touché!