Imac issue-need your thoughts

[Gofaster2]

Well its time to upgrade my 2.4ghz single core windows xp pc machine. I just got into Digital photography and when running Lightroom the old pc cant hang without rebooting. So after a wonderful visit to the Apple store I am convinced that the new Imac is what I need. But I have some issues I need help with.
First, currently I run two drives with four partitions. The one drive I keep just the OS and programs.I have it partitioned so there is a D: that I use to house movies as I rip them. The second drive houses all my photos, and documents,itunes music, that way if I need to reformat the os drive I dont have to move these items. The second drive has a partition just for software that I have downloaded. This is really overkill and not needed.

So the question? With the 27" imac with quad core how to accomplish this?
I want secondary drive that houses all photos(several gigs worth) and documents, would a Firewire drive work for this?

And I also want to run a network drive that will handle back up duties for the internal and external drives? Is this possible?

Or should I pick up a use Mac Pro on ebay?

I forgot the main drive on the imac will be spilt so I can run windows as I have CAD and office programs I need to run.
Oh I have say thanks to the salesmen at the Apple store on the Plaza that showed me how much power the imac had.
He resized 150 photos into a email,streamed a HD movie preview from apple.com , played a HD movie that was on the hard drive and had 5 safari windows open,iphoto open and imovie all at one time, the machine never slowed down, and this was just the 3.06 dual core, not the quad core one. Very impressive Apple!!!!!

Thank you any and all help.

 

[TheBearman]

Well you could do that, or you could use just a NAS device for backup AND media storage. I've watched iTunes HD content (720p) from a NAS device without any problem. Even wireless (n speed) it runs just fine. Because of this I'm not sure I see a need for a local "attached" external drive.

BTW: If you're concerned with performance while you're editing images you could setup a local "working" folder.

 

[Gofaster2]

BTW: If you're concerned with performance while you're editing images you could setup a local "working" folder.

Working folder? Guess I dont understand fully?

 

[gjw4u]

OP, by "working" folder I guess TheBearman means that if you are editing some photos, drawings, or movies, you temporarily move these files to a folder on the internal HD to get a boost in response time.

 

[Gofaster2]

Would a NAS be fast enough to just edit from?

 

[gjw4u]

Gofaster2, the internal HD will always be faster then FW800 > Ethernet > USB 2.0.

 

[panzer06]

Would a NAS be fast enough to just edit from?

Depends on the network components and the NAS components. If everything is at least GigE and supports high throughput features like jumbo frames perhaps the performance will be acceptable. Of course if you spend that much in LAN ans NAS components a MacPro will probably cost as much.

Cheers,

 

[Badger^2]

well, you dont really need to do any of that

OS X doesnt need you to set it up that way, theres no need to have an entirely separate drive for those things.

"several gigs" aint much these days, and will hardly make a dent in a 1TB drive.

If you do want to keep your LR images on an external drive, then sure, FW800 would be the way I would go.

In fact, thats how I do it now, all of my iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie and client files on a separate 500 gig FW800 drive, that backs up to another 500 gig FW800 drive with Superduper.

So once you have it setup, best thing then is to get a backup drive or 2 -- maybe one for a Time Machine backup, and then a bootable backup using Carbon Copy Cloner or Superduper.

If you are dead set on setting up partitions, on a Mac is a snap.

 

[Gofaster2]

Not dead set on a partition other then the one for windows. I am just trying to find the best way to not have important files on the main disk. I almost think I should buy a used quad core mac pro on eBay.

Everytime I shoot there is several gigs of photos, it's starting to add up.I just need to find the best solution for storing the raw files and the jpgs that provides acces to them for editing.

 

[RichardI]

With OS X there is no need for a defensive drive setup like you describe. I used to have one myself and one of the pleasures of OSX on a Mac is that you can concentrate on what you are doing, not how you're going to do it. I will say that you definitely must have a separate partition for Windows, if you absolutely MUST have Windows based software (we don't want the Windows disease getting onto our Mac ). If you need Windows for MS Office alone, I have MS Office for Mac, and find it to be better than the Windows version.
I would set up one partition for Windows and one for Mac, size of each to be calculated based on your needs. I used BootCamp on my Win partition, but I hear the two "parallel" type programs are very good. At any rate, you can certainly do what you say, but why create a whole separate partition when a directory would work just as well?

Rich

 

[Gofaster2]

With OS X there is no need for a defensive drive setup like you describe.

That maybe true, but I found it nice to know that my stuff is safe on an another drive in case of drive failure. Maybe I should op for the 2 tb model also. Any good books to read on os X ? Maybe like a advanced osx
manual?
Also how does everyone get around the lack of USB ports? Hubs i guess?

 

[dave92029]

Lightroom runs great on Late 2009 3.06 iMac

I just bought a late model iMac 3.06 , the base model. I also use Lightroom.

So far I have imported approx. 15,000 photos into LR 2.6 and I'm very pleased with speed and response of the program with the basic iMac configuration. I'm using this transition to the iMac as an opportunity to better organize my photo collection.

Slide show in LR is smooth, and browsing the current library is quick. the base iMac is an excellent platform for photo processing with Lightroom. Lightroom takes full advantage of the Mac's 64bit OS and is thus much faster than using the same program on a 32 bit OS.

I had concerns about the imac's performance when looking at just the components. The Real World performance of the components with the OS are much greater than what you might expect.

I have a 1TB HD attached to my iMac for photos - in addition to the HD I'm using for Time Machine. The ITB HD is an iOmega usb drive ($79 at Fry's) and I'm very pleased with my ability to access large amounts of data and import them into the iMac.

 

[Gofaster2]

I think based on what has been posted I will order the 2tb hard drive, and just run a NAS for back. Will a iMac last me four years?

Well after alot of reading and thinking I am going with a Mac Pro. I probably will buy a used 2.66 quad early 2009 model. I have found a few locally for $1200, that will leave money for upgrades. 3 new hard drives and a GTX285.
1st Raptor HD for OSX/WIN7
2nd drive for Documents/Photos-WD green
3rd drive for itunes and movies-WD green
Nvidia gtx 285 driving a Dell u2410 and a Dell 20" in portait.

This will allow me to run osx and windows thru vmware or bootcamp. Plus I will look into a NAS back up drive preferably a RAID 5 setup.

Is there any issues with this idea? I know I am giving up that wonderful screen but I think this would give me what I am looking for. If not I may just be stuck with a custom built win7 machine.