multiple drives question

Should you keep just your operating system on one drive and files and media on others? Does this make a big difference performance wise?
i can see where backing up would be easier.

I have 4 drives in my mac pro. My main drives has os and files, drive 2 is pictures backup and aperture vault (in case time machine or main drive fails), and disk 3 is time machine. Disk 4 is empty at the moment.

I do keep an external drive backup offsite.

Should I move all my media from my main drive to the second drive and not have the internal backup copy?

You could use your 4th drive as a clone of Drive 1, but if you should ever have an OS failure, you have (I assume) the install disks to repair that situation. You're already backing up to Drive 3, with storage on Drive 2. You've also got an external storage device. I'd say your bases are pretty well covered. I'd leave No 4 blank for now, until you're sure you have something you need to put on it, like an alternative operating system (gazing into the future!!)

Good day.

If this helps, this is how I have my set up.

Bay 1 "Boot Disk": all that I have on the is the OS and my apps.

Bay 2 "Media Disk": all my work (I'm a web and graphic designer), movies and music.

Bay 3: Nothing it's in the post, but I will be using it as an over spill for my work.

External SATA drive I'm using as a TM, back up of all my work, music and films.

I just mover all my work from the "Boot Drive" and the increase in boot time was amazing. Dropped from 20 seconds to just under 10, because the drive isn't seeking 450GB of files. The boot drive only has 60GB of space used now.

Now to do a TM back up on an external drive, with out having to but the £200 Time Machine, you'll need to get into the guts of your pro and add a eSATA extender cable on the MB. I'll point you to a post I made earlier on how you go about doing this. I did this a while ago, it wasn't that hard, just a bit tricky to get the frond fan bay out, apart from that, no problem.

Looking at you computer stats I see you have the same computer as I do, so if you do decide to add the eSATA cable I'll be happy to give you some more pointer if you need them.

Hold tight I'll just go get the like to the other post and I'll post it back in a sec!

As promised!

There are links in the second message left by me (look out for "the hommer") that will point you to, how to install eSATA extender cable, and the cost of it.

http://www.mac-forums.com/forums/apple-desktops/134379-new-mac-pro-need-help-setting-up-hds.html#post774886

I did see those esata cables. I agree that would be handy. I do have an esata external. I will have to consider that.

Right now my main external is an owc mercury that is firewire. I love that thing. Holds 2 drives.

I have my os on a 500gb drive. Kinda seems like a waste to have most of that empty. Perhaps I'll swap for a 250GB and put the os and apps on that.

Hi Guy's,

Reading this post with interest as I'm considering a mac pro as main machine together with my current MBP. My Iomega external HDD failed, so was interested to know whether i can use one of the slots as a back up drive for Aperture and large file tiff's. I have a TC for everyday backups. Would i need to have the Raid card fitted? How reliable are the drives, and can anyone recommend the best option?

Cheers all and happy new year..

Hi "Pail RS".

If you still concidering a Mac Pro, and you have the spare "extra" pennys. Do it! I spent £3k on my and it was all money well spent.

If you do and don't want to go to the hassel of adding a eSAT cable then yes you can use any of the extra bays to install another HDD and use it as a back up drive and you would not have to install a RAID card. You ony need a RAID card if you want to RAID two drives, the idea for doing a RAID is to speed up read/ wright speeds.

As to which is a reliable drive? I've never had any issues with WD drives. But I'm not sure why you need that if you have a TC?

Hope that helps?

Hi,

Thanks for the reply, sorry if i'm not up to speed on this raid set-up!

I'll most likely get a pro in march, and will use a drive as another backup then, i'm probably paranoid after loosing some important raw files after the iomega died. The TC is great, but i'd rather have several copies now...

Cheers,
Paul.