Suggestions for 2009 Pro SSD configurations

[Montymitch]

Full disclosure: I am a noob. I have installed clean OSs on iMacs and MacBooks, and restored from Time Machine backups a few times, and I've installed ssds in laptops, but the multiple drive setup in the Mac Pro is a little confusing to me. Any help is appreciated.

My dad's work just hooked him up with an Early 2009 Mac Pro, and he wants to max it out. He's got a 250gb OWC Mercury PCI Express SSD that should be here any day and we are looking for suggestions on how to configure it.
Here's how it sits now:

We want to install the OS and program files on the SSD and keep the other drives for media files, storage and backup.
I guess the question here is what is the best way to do this? He's stepping down from a 500gb hd to a 250gb ssd, so a Time Machine setup isn't going to cut it (or will it? can you be selective when restoring?).

 

[pastrychef]

Just plug it in, initialize it, install OS X, and do a restore from Time Machine. Your current 500GB has very little data on it so there should be no problems going from 500GB to 250GB.

 

[Montymitch]

The OS is currently installed on the 1tb disk. The 500gb disk he has is kind of a final output destination--it's cleared off to function as an archive.

 

[pastrychef]

In that case, you will need to offload some of the stuff such as movies, photos, etc. These can be set in preferences of iTunes, iPhoto, etc.

 

[ybz90]

If he needs the of files on the Time Machine, consider building a "fusion drive" via Terminal of the SSD and the 1TB drive. Then use that concatenated storage volume as the boot "drive", restore the Time Machine to it, and then use the other drives as you see fit.

 

[Montymitch]

Ok, so it looks like I have two options.
1: Clean install of OS and programs on SSD, move files and everything manually.
2: Move large files/libraries off of current drive to reduce overall size to sub 250gb size. Then install SSD and restore OS to it from backup. Question: is this going to create two separate bootable drives? I guess format the old drive once the SSD is configured?

Thanks for the help. Am I missing any other options or things I should consider before we tear into this thing?

 

[pastrychef]

Question: is this going to create two separate bootable drives? I guess format the old drive once the SSD is configured?

Thanks for the help. Am I missing any other options or things I should consider before we tear into this thing?

No, if you format the old drive, you won't have two bootable drives.

As ybz90 suggested, another option would be to create a fusion drive. I've never tried this personally, so I can't comment much on it.