setting up new mac pro

Just ordered a mac pro with the following specs

One 3.33GHz 6-Core Intel Xeon
6GB (3X2GB)
ATI Radeon HD 5770 1GB
1TB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s

Purchased an additional 2Tb hd and 16g ram.
Using computer mainly for photo editing using LR, PS4 and autopan pro.
Some files sizes reaching 1G+

Questions

1. I've never created a boot drive before and wanted to know how difficult it is to create.
2. Is it necessary to partition the two hard drives?
3. Whats the advantage of partitioning?
4. Are there any recommendations for maximizing the speed of mac pro?

Any thoughts would be welcome.
Thanks
Owen

The Mac Pro will arrive with the operating system already installed on the boot drive which by default is in bay one. Partitioning is simple just go into Disk Utility and select the drive, and into partition. No great advantage unless you want to run another operating system.

The maximum speed you will get will be with an SSD in bay one as the boot drive. Go over to OWC and have a look at their Mercury range. A 240GB SSD as boot with operating system on it, and application and photo drive in bay two.

Also worthy of consideration is taking memory up to 12/16GB also from OWC.

thanks for the quick reply.
so would i only have the OS on the SSD?
would i need a 240gb or could i get one smaller if its just containing OS?
thank you
Owen

Yes a 128GB SSD will do the job, and if you do not run games etc, even a 64GB. And I would backup the operating system to a partition on the pare hard drive. You can use cloning sofgtware or Time Machine which is included in your operating system.

thank you.
last question.....
looked at the video test on ssd vs hdd and its impressive on start up.
Will the ssd hd affect the performance of working with Photoshop? I'm assuming it will.

thanks for all your suggestions.
Owen

The SSD will very much effect Photoshop, especially if it has enough free room to be a decent scratch disk