Hard drive setup correctly?

Does archlinux automatically setup stuff like the hard drive? I was looking at dmesg and saw:
ide: Assuming 33MHz system bus speed for PIO modes; override with idebus=xx
That doesn't seem very good.

in kernel sources /your/kernel/source/Documentation/ide.txt
idebus=xx" : inform IDE driver of VESA/PCI bus speed in MHz,
where "xx" is between 20 and 66 inclusive,
used when tuning chipset PIO modes.
For PCI bus, 25 is correct for a P75 system,
30 is correct for P90,P120,P180 systems,
and 33 is used for P100,P133,P166 systems.
If in doubt, use idebus=33 for PCI.
As for VLB, it is safest to not specify it.
Bigger values are safer than smaller ones.

Similar Messages

I have a windows 7 desktop with an external hard drive setup on my home network, will i be able to access this on my home network to save and retrieve files from my mac air?

i have a windows 7 desktop with an external hard drive setup on my home network, will i be able to access this on my home network to save and retrieve files from my mac air?

Troubleshooting Home Sharing - http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2972

Hard Drive Setup for Creative Professional

Hi. I own a Mac Pro 3Ghz tower, and I only have one 250Gb hard drive along with an Iomega external 250Gb hard drive. I really need to upgrade my hard drives and create proper backups. I'm just not sure about the best options for backing up all my data and what the best options are for setting up my harddrives. Can anyone offer advice to a graphic designer that needs to upgrade his hard drive setup? I'm not sure what Raid is, so I would need to better understand what that does as well. I guess I need a road plan for the best way to go about all this upgrading.
Thanks.

Hi There,
I know you posted this more than a month ago, but i thought i'd see what you found and...what you can offer me in the way of answers. I appreciate any help you can give me!! Thanks in advance. I might have a couple options for you too.
I have the same set up pretty much. 1 250gb internal, 1 250 gb external, plus a 175gb external that i keep off site. Files are everywhere, yes i have copies, but it's an organizational disaster and not fail safe. If i lost a clients job, i'd loose more than the cost of just setting up a good backup system.
I found a few things out.
You can set up a software raid on your macpro using disk utility(although I don't know how to do it yet). (for raid info, look up raid on wikipedia, it's just a variety of ways to create more than one copy of data on any # of drives. 2 drives is a mirror image, 3 can be striped(any one drive can fail), and more...there are speed advantages with these too. )
Anyway i have 3 bays open for drives in my 2.66ghz quad. So setting up a software raid is option 1 - but from reading forums it seems like this isn't easy and requires maintainance? If you add a drive or remove one it erases all drives(?).
There is a system my friend turned me on to called Drobo.
It seems like the easiest solution and one that is lasting, check out the website at drobo.com it's external, has 4 bays and you can add and remove drives on a whim and upgrade up to 4tb. seems the easy solution, but costs 500 and then you need to purchase drives. but you can use any drives and it seems maintanance free.
Any recommendations - is software raid easier than I imagine?
Anyone have any offsite storage ideas? (.mac would be ideal, but it costs so much for storage and it's slow).
Looking forward to hearing your solution, and any advice for me.
Thanks,
Josh

External Hard Drive Setup

Hello! I am an amateur filmmaker aged 17, and for the past couple years I have been using my school's excellent computers (iMac 2010 27"), software (FCP 7), and external hard drive setup (500GB LaCie Rugged Firewire 800).
I'm gonna be a senior this year and am looking to create my own setup. I got myself a 15" MacBook Pro Retina with 16gb memory, 2.3GHz quad core processor, 500GB internal solid state storage, and am using Premiere Pro as my software. The only real thing I'm missing (besides audio setup, which isn't as important to me right now) is external drive for faster editing. I want a lot of storage but at the same time high speeds all for the lowest price. I also want to use my external drive for other stuff like family photos and music.
MY idea was to get a 500GB 7200rpm hard drive (not sure which one) to store all the footage I want on hand and then get a 4TB desktop hard drive (cheaper) for all the rest of my stuff and to store footage I no longer need quick access to.
My questions are:
What hard drives should I get?
Is this a good solution?
Is 4TB overboard?
Should I be spending this much as a 17 year-old?
Should I just stick with internal storage for now and not pay for external drive?
btw, one of the 500gb drives I was looking at was by Touro. Trustworthy?
Amazon.com: HGST Touro Mobile Pro 500GB USB 3.0 7200 RPM Portable External Hard Drive (0S03105) [Amazon Frustration-Free…

"Yeah it was in the wrong area but hey who's keeping score. "
Actually, I am - LOL!

IMac Hard Drive Setup Recommendations/ Thunderbolt

Hi,
i am planning to get a new top spec 27" iMac with 256GB internal SSD and will use it mainly with Premiere CC and After Effects CC to edit Red Epic Footage. Mostly 3 to 10 minute web videos. I am now thinking about the best Hard Drive Setup and could use some help.
My actual plan would be:
OS/Programms: Internal 256GB SSD
Project Files:       external 2TB USB 3 Hard Drive
Source Footage: CalDigit T3 Raid 6TB (Raid 0)
Media Chache:    256GB SSD with the Thunderbolt Go Flex Station
Outputs:            external 2TB USB 3 Hard Drive
Should this work well?
- How well works daisy chaining with thunderbolt: Is it ok to daisy chain a monitor to an thunderbolt connected hard drive or will this slow things down? How about daisy chaining a second hard drive? Should both hard drives then have "read" or "write" tasks or could i daisy chain an drive for my Renderings (write) to one with my Source Footage (read)?
- If i use a 5-bay Thunderbolt Raid enclosure, is it possible to use 3 drives in a Raid 0 for my source footage and drives 4 & 5 in Raid 1 for my Outputs (Renderings) or Projects? Or would this be a bad idea?
- How important is the size/speed of my Media Chache/Previews drive? Would an 256 GB SSD in an thunderbolt enclosure be a good choice?
- What read speeds should my storage for the source footage have so it`s not the bottleneck? Is there a big benefit from a 3-drive Thunderbolt Raid 0 vs. a 3-drive USB3 Raid 0 (both Software Raids)?
- What write speeds should i have for my Output storage?
Thanks a lot for the help!

[Moved to Hardware forum.]

External Hard Drive setup help

I recently posted about my ipod having more memory than my desktop 20g vs 8g. I bought an external hard drive to correct this problem.
Since I couldn't transfer my library correctly - it told me it was synched with another library and I couldn't get by that - I just removed/erased everything (itunes from C drive, E drive, and library) and started over - I didn't have that much loaded on the ipod, so it's a pain but I thought it would be easier.
The problem is when I downloaded itunes again, I made sure the directory said E drive to keep it on the EHD, not the normal C drive, but everything is still showing up on the C drive in the My Music folder.
How do I make it so itunes and my library exist on the EHD and not the C drive? I only have one CD and one purchased song reloaded so if I have to start over again I won't put my head through the wall.
Thank you.
Dell Windows XP

I appreciate your help. I'm going to start from the beginning because I'm still missing something and I'm just about to give up.
I have a 200+ cd collection. I thought it would be really cool to be able to carry the entire collection around with me so I bought a 4th gen ipod (20gig) off of ebay. I had no idea I had to synch it with a computer. I knew you could but I didn't know it required this. I thought I could burn the cds on the ipod, grab it, and go.
My computer is a couple years old and has 8 gigs of memory. I quickly realized that my entire desktop would be full of mp3 files and nothing else. I bought an external hard drive (80 gig) to hold all of the music, plus whatever else I wanted to store. Here the problems begin.
After much aggravation, I uninstalled itunes and started over. I've changed the directory to the E drive, per the article, and consolidated the library. I then deleted all itunes from the C drive - except it won't let me delete the itunes helper folder for some reason.
I imported a cd as a test run. The cd shows up in the library - on both the E drive and the C drive, which means I've done nothing about the memory issue and I now have two separate libraries - E drive is powered and plugged in. In other words, it won't consolidate to the E drive.
A separate issue, my ipod wouldn't synch with the test import cd. I decided to start over with that as well and restored to factory settings. I thought, okay, I'll restore and then synch with the test cd. I'll lose what I already have on there, but I'll just reload. It tells me I have to connect to the external power source to complete the restore, but I did not get a cable for the external power source when I bought it, so now I have to go and get that as well.
Sorry this is so long. This has been a bad idea from the very beginning, I can see that now. I'm out over $200 and I'm even further from my goal than when I started. Is there any way to fix all of this?
Thank you.

External hard drive setup for time machine reading as a virtual cd

Why is my MacBook Pro reading my external hard drive setup for time machine reading as a virtual cd?
Thanks

Hi Christian,
Is this something that has happened from the start? If so, I would reformat the disk and setup TM from scratch again.
Prepare the external HD by connecting to the Mac, open Disk Utility, select the manufacturer’s name of the external HD, select Partition and choose GUID Partition Table, format to Apple OS Extended (Journaled); quit Disk Utility.
Open System Preferences.
Click on Time Machine.
Click on “Select Disk.”
Click just to the left of "On" to turn TM on if it's not already on.
Click on the disk or partition you want to use.
Click on “Use for backup.”
Leave external HD connected, and TM will automatically do its thing.

Hard Drive Setup - which drives to use for what

So I have decided on buying a segate 7200.14 hard drive (Tell me if this is a bad one, I just saw a bunch of reviews and benchmarks and it is supposed to be one of the fastest), but I'm not sure weather to use it as a scratch disk, a media disk, or an OS disk. Currently I only have one slow, old 500gb drive, which I was going to use to store old media and exports (I don't need to acces projects that I worked on a year ago). I have an external backup drive as well. I was thinking of getting the 7200.14 drive, since it is so fast and cheap and using it for my main drive, but now I'm wondering, would I be better off using it as the scratch drive? I can always wait for my OS and programs and such to load slower, but I'd like stuff inside of the program to be quick. I also don't care much about exports since I'm in no rush to get the work out as quick as I can, and I normally just leave it rendering overnight.
TL;DR
1.) slow, old 500gb drive
2.) new, fast 7200.14 drive
3.) I can possibly buy another drive if it's absolutely necessary, but I have gathered that the third drive is for OS, which I don't need to load quickly at all.
Which one of these things is most bottlenecked by the hard drive? What should I do with my hard drive setup?
EDIT:
Also, is the 7200.14 a good drive? Tell me a better one if you think of one. I was thinking of getting the 1tb version but I might get the 3tb version for storage, since its a much better $/gb.

Alright, I've gathered that the media cache and the medi files are not suited to be on an SSD (media because of large file sizes and media cache because of longevity, since it has to read and write so many times). But which one would I benefit more from being faster? Or could I just leave them both slow, and get two cheaper slower hard drives instead of the one fast 7200.14?

Best Hard Drive Setup for Premiere Pro CS5.5

I'm running Premiere Pro cs5.5 on a Dell XPS 8300 (I know, I know!) with an i72600 chip and a 560TI card. The system came with two 500 GB Sata hard drives in a Raid0 configuration. I've seen a lot about proper hard drive setup but I'm a newbie (hence the Dell - I purchased before I read the forums). Should I add a third (or more) drive? How can I configure them taking into account what's already onboard? thanks very much!

If it were me, I'd add at least two more hard drives. A smallish one around 250 to 320 GB for the System drive. I'd reinstall Windows onto that.
Then I'd break out the RAID into separate drives, using one for Project and Scratch files and one for Exports.
The second new drive would be a really big one - 1TB or more. This I'd use exclusively for Media.*
* If I had a tapeless camera, such as AVCHD, then I'd definitely build in some kind of data safety, like at least a second 1TB drive for a RAID 1. Or if I had more money, add a third 1TB and a RAID controller card to make it a RAID 3.

Hard drive setup for CS5.5

Okay, finished a new build:
Intel Core i7 2600K processor
Asus P8Z68-V motherboard
Corsair 16 GB memory
Zotac GTX560 video card
OCZtech 60 GB SSD boot drive
2x Hitachi 1.5 TB 7200 hard drives
LG blu-ray burner
So the question is about the hard drive setup. Boot drive is pretty basic, with Windows 7 pro, CS5.5, firefox, and MS Office about the only things installed. So, two questions:
1. How do I change the boot drive so that things like "My Documents" is put on the D: or E: drive rather than the C boot drive? Is it a Windows thing or do changes need to be made within Office or Firefox?
2. How do I set up the two extra hard drives for Premier? The IT guy combined the two drives into one partition, which kindof defeats the point of having two drives, right? So we need to split those back out so there's a D & E drive and then I designate within Premier that the media cache and previews goes on one, and the storage & media & projects goes on the other? Do I need to do that within all the separate programs -- After Effects, Illustrator, Photoshop, Premier, etc. -- or can it be done all at once?
Thanks for any help!

1. Windows.
2. Those disks are in raid0 and appear as a single disk, so all you need is to have the IT guy add another two disks in a similar raid0 and to add an external disk for your backups.
See Adobe Forums: Generic Guideline for Disk Setup

Please help me arrange my hard drive setup, testing out different Raid arrays.

Hi folks! If I could bother you for your time to help me figure out what the best options are for my computer setup that would be much appreciated!! I'm editing mostly RED footage so 5K and 4K files.
Here's what my computer build is right now:
Asus Rampage IV Extreme
i7-3930K CPU (OC'd to 4.4ghz)
64GB ram
GTX 680 video card (2GB model)
Windows 7 Pro
Mostly Premiere CS6 and After Effects
Here's the fun part and the part that I'm still baffled by regardless of how many videos and searches I've done online, what to do with my hard drives!?
Right now I have my Mobo setup in Raid mode with these plugged in to the motherboard;
2 x 250gb Samsung pro SSD's on 6gb/s ports (Raid 0) (Windows 7 OS)
2 x 300gb WD Velociraptors 3gb/s ports (Raid 0) (empty)
3 Ware 9750-8i Raid controller +
8 x 3TB Seagate Barracuda drives ready to rock and roll.
Now based on everything I've read, I'm leaning towards setting up 4 x 3TB drives in Raid0 for my footage (making constant backups with synctoy onto an external Drobo)
4 x 3TB drives in Raid0 for exporting footage. (with continuous backups)
That leaves me wondering where's the best place to setup Media cache, cache files and project files and anything else. Also I've left the OS pagefile on the SSD's but wondering if I should set that up somewhere else?
Using Crystal Disk mark, I'm getting these results so far:
OS on Samsung Pro SSD's in Raid0
The 4 x 3TB drives in various Raid setups:
Raid0
Raid5
Raid10
Velociraptors in Raid0
All this is due to many months of recent work on a computer build that would get bogged down and editing became painfully slow. I'm trying out a proper dedicated Raid card instead of just 2 drives in Raid0 off the motherboard hoping this will make a big difference.
Any expert advice on here would be greatly appreciated!!!!

Let's start with the easy part:
C: SSD for OS, programs & pagefile
D: 2 x Veliciraptor in raid0 for media cache and previews
With 8 disks available on the 3Ware controller you can go many different directions and they depend on your workflow. Let me give two extreme examples and then you may be pointed in the right correction for your editing practice.
Workflow consists of quick and dirty editing, usually one day or less and multiple export formats each day (example Vimeo, YouTube, BDR, DVD and web), or
Workflow consists of extensive editing, usually a week or longer and exports to a few formats at the end of the editing (example BDR and DVD only).
If your typical workflow looks like 1, your idea of two 4x raid0 arrays can work, because the load is rather nicely distributed over the two arrays. Of course the drawback is that there is no redundancy so you depend very much on the backups to your Drobo and restoring data after data loss can be time consuming, coming from the Drobo.
If your workflow looks more like 2, then you can consider one 7x raid5 array for projects and media and a single drive for exports. That means that your raid5 will be noticeably faster then either of the 4x raid0 arrays you considered and offer redundancy as well. As a rough rule of thumb, a 4x disk raid0 will be almost 4 times faster than a single disk, a 7x raid5 will be around 5 - 5.5 times faster than a single disk. You profit from the extra speed during the whole editing week or longer.
The export to a single disk may be somewhat slower, but how long does it take to write say 25 GB to a single disk? Around 160 seconds. If you use a hot swappable drive cage, you can even use multiple export disks, say one for Client A, another one for Client B, etc. In your initial idea of a 4x raid0 that time may be 40 seconds, so you gain around 2 minutes on the export, but lose that in the whole editing week.
Just my $ 0.02

Unable to Unlock External Hard Drive w/ Correct Password

Specs
Retina MacBook Pro
Mac OS 10.9.4
Encrypted External Hard Drive with Time Machine application
Issue
I’m not able to unlock my ext. hard drive with the password stored in Keychain Access or by manually entering the password. When I plug my ext. hard drive on another computer the password works just fine.
I also noticed that when unlocking the ext. hard drive with an incorrect password the window will shake. When I unlock using the correct password it'll stall for about 10 seconds before it shakes. I’m not sure if that’s an indication of anything.
I formatted the ext. hard drive and encrypted it again. It works fine for a little bit before the same issue crops up again and the same password no longer unlocks the external hard drive. Again, it’ll unlock just fine on another computer.
Steps I've done so far in attempt to resolve the issue:
Keychain First Aid
Reset My Default Keychain
Repaired Disk Permission
Unlocking via Disk Utility
Formatting the external hard drive
Help!
I’ve come to the conclusion that it must be related to Keychain Access, the OS, or something else on my computer that’s preventing me from unlocking it. Does anyone have any clue why this is happening and what I can do to repair the issue?

Hi Kevin,
Its "Mac OS Extended (Journaled, Encrypted)" and its partitioned
kind regards,
thanks

External USB Hard Drive Setup - My Experience

Short Summary: I reformatted my 300Gb external hard drive to Mac Extended format (not journaled) with 3 separate partitions: Photos, Music, and Backup Files. Plugged the HD into the AirPort base station and then ran the AirPort Disk Utility (HD accessed via base station password) and place the AP Disk Utility icon on the task bar. I clicked on the icon, entered my password, and the three partitions appeared on my desktop. I am now able to read/write to the HD with both Mac computers and my Windows computer (loaded with the windows version of AP Utility software) via my wireless network.
My Hardware: Cable Modem, AirPort (AP) Extreme 802.11n, SeaGate 300GB USB/Fire Wire External HD, iMac w/ core duo, PowerBook Pro w/ core duo, AP Express setup as a print server, and my Windows XP computer for gaming.
Initial Setup: I shut down all computers and replaced my old AP extreme with the new one. I plugged in the SeaGate HD to the AP base station, turned on the AP then turned on the HD. Turned on my PowerBook (PB) Pro, loaded the new AP software and was connected to the internet with no problem. Similar to other posting on this topic, my external HD was not visible despite running AP Disk Utility.
Follow on troubleshooting: The HD was formatted in Mac Extended (Journaled) and had 9 GB of data that was stored via USB wire directly from my PB Pro. I transfered the data to my PB Pro via USB and then, using the standard OS10 Disk Utility application, reformatted the HD in Mac Extended (Journaled) with 3 partitions. I reconnected the HD to the AP base station and ran AP disk utility again. Lo and behold, the 3 partitions showed up on the desktop of my PB Pro. I loaded the AP software onto my iMac and Windows Computer and they both recognized the HD. I successfully op tested file transfer via the wireless network (about 2.5 MB/sec data transfer rate).
The Kicker: I then ejected the HD from my computers, disconnected it from the AP base station, and then hooked it directly to my PB Pro to transfer 11 GB of music files. As expected the data transfer rate was much higher. I reconnected the HD to the AP base station but the HD got hung up and was no longer accessible via the wireless network. I connected another external HD (ACOM 160 GB, NTFS file format) and while it was accessible, not all files were visible. I disconnected the ACOM HD from the AP base station, hooked it directly to my PB Pro, transferred 1 GB of music files and reconnected it to the AP base station. It reappeared on my PB Pro after running the AP Disk Utility, however, the files I just transferred were not visible. Noticing a pattern, I have determined that for my hardware lineup, any files that are directly transferred to the HDs either cause the HD to hang up or are not visible. I can only speculate on why this occurs; maybe there is a causal link to the format standard of the disk (NTFS, Mac Extended (journaled) or the processing of pre-existing data on the HD.
The Final Fix: I connected the Seagate HD to my PB Pro with a USB cable and then cleared it of all data by erasing all partitions and contents using the normal Disk Utility application. I then re-formatted and re-partitioned to 3 partitions with the Mac Extended format (not journaled). I reconnected the HD to the AP base Station, went through the AP disk utility again and all 3 partitions were made available to both of my Mac computers and my Windows computer. Data transfer is now strictly limited to wireless transfers.
Conclusion: Though the wireless transfer takes longer, all data is present, visible and accessible by all three computers. Once the data is present, applications such as iPhoto and iTunes works just fine with minimal drop off in performance. While my experience with my Apple computers has been somewhat more satisfying than adding new hardware to my windows platform, this particular case demonstrates that data standards and PnP are still elusive goals in the computer industry.
Cheers and hope this helps someone,
HCW3
iMac and PowerBook Pro Mac OS X (10.4.6)

Tom,
Welcome to the world of cross polination between OS X and Windows, glad to know I am not alone.
First off, you should load the APE software on all computers using your wireless network. This will enable you to access the USB HD from all computers.
Secondly, I am not certain if it is necessary to reformat your HD. I had the good fortune of having only a few files on my SeaGate 300GB so it was somewhat painless for me to reformat. This is what I do know from years of building windows computers and setting up my current network: starting with clean disks is always the best way to build a new system. With that said, try this: connect your second maxtor (the one with the itunes library) to the APE USB port and access it via your MacBook Pro. Go into Finder, select that drive and type .mp3 into the spotlight box. Does it find your music files on that drive? When your double click on a song it should play. If you go back into finder and select that USB drive again, do you see a folder for that artist? If you answer yes to the previous questions you are experiencing the same thing I did. Whenever I wrote files to the USB drive via the USB cable, they were not visible when I accessed the drive wirelessly. I have not figured out why this is so and I am sorry that this doesn't really help you out.
As far as the windows computer not seeing the USB drive via the ethernet connection, that is a tough one to troubleshoot since the APE would presumably allow hardwire connectivity. It seems to me that the APE should be acting similarly to a USB hub. It may have something to do with the modulation of the data stream between the USB line and the ethernet line, though this is probably a bad guess.
My best advice would be to transfer your itunes and video to DVD-ROM disks and then reformat the USB drive to Mac Extended and assign it a new volume name. Plug it in to the APE and verify you can access it via all your computers. If so, transfer the music back to the USB disk wirelessly. This will take a while so do it before you go to bed. I recognize that this is a very neanderthal work around, however, it will preserve your files and allow you to start from a clean slate. It will also take a while for itunes to repopulate the library list from the new location of the files, so start this before you leave the house for work.
Howard Warner
iMac and PowerBook Pro Mac OS X (10.4.8)

Hard Drive Setup Recommedation - Premiere Pro CC 2014

Premiere CC on my old Win 7 64bit hard drive had smooth video previews. Premiere CC 2014 on my new Win 8.1 64bit hard drive is choppy and sluggish. Same ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4650 car which uses WDDM v1.1 as the driver. No other driver available.)
Would love some expert advice how to setup my new configuration to be optimized for Premiere Pro CC 2014, get rid of choppy video.
Video is not a huge part of our small 2 person business so
1. I can't justify a large volume expensive SSD
2. can't justify another 2+ days to reload Windows 8.1 and all my programs on the small SSD I have (might not even fit.)
Should I leave programs and OS only on the new WD hard drive... put Premiere project and other data files on the old TOS hard drive and use something like the SDD via eSata as the scratch disk?
Dell Studio 1747 Laptop - 8GB RAM
1. NEW - INTERNAL WD7500BPKX new hard drive with Windows 8.1 - (Program files only) 7200 RPM, 750GB, 16 MB Buffer, 6GB/s
2. OLD - INTERNAL TOSHIBA MK 5056GSY old hard drive w/ Windows 7 (can be wiped and only have data files) 7200 RPM, 500GB, 16 MB Buffer, 3GB/s
3. SPARE - EXTERNAL Lacie d2Next - (partitioned, can be wiped) 5400 RPM, 500GB, 3GB/s eSata
4. SPARE/DONATED - EXTERNAL (eSata, Firewire, USB) OCZ-Agility3 SSD (can be wiped) ~100GB
Thanks. These configurations are an art that we can't specialize in due to our staff size, workload and budget.

Tweakers Page - Disk Setup but start with increasing RAM to at least 16 GB.

Mac Pro Hard Drive Setup

Hi,
I am waiting delivery of a mac pro dual quad 2.8 and I am getting a 500GB option in bay 1
I am ordering 2 x Samsung (finger crossed) F1 1TB drives (Bay 2 and Bay 3).
My main use will be for producing music which will therefore run plug-ins instruments, effects, work with audio files...
*Would a setup like this be ok?*
*_Setup A_*
500GB Drive 1 = System and other applications (e.g. Logic Pro, virtual insrtuments, other apps)
1TB Drive 2 = Audio library (Samples, sounds from virtual instruments many GBs large, etc... )
1TB Drive 2 = all sort of stuff from scratch disk to personal family files like photos, movies, music, etc...)
Will then use external Hard Drive to back up stuff I don't want to lose
*_Setup B_*
500GB Drive 1 = System (too large for just system)
1TB Drive 2 = Applications
1TB Drive 3 = Data (audio files, audio library, personal photos-movies-music, etc...)
*_Other option?_*
If I want to have a dual but with Windows XP... will I be able to just add another Drive (Internal/External) for a d*ual boot start up?*
Thanks for any help
Message was edited by: TC_MACPRO
Message was edited by: TC_MACPRO

Either configuration should work fine. It's really entirely up to you. However, I note in your proposed configuration that there's no provision for backups. Since your work is obviously valuable to you, then you need a backup plan. Unfortunately, given what you will have there's only room for one more drive which can have a maximum size of 1.5 TBs. Not large enough to back up 2.5 TBs of extant capacity. I suggest you give some thought to the backup plan. You could use external Firewire drives for backup. Or you could make use of the two additional SATA drives that can be installed outside of the four existing bays. Unfortunately, there's not much room in the Mac Pro to install the drives internally.
Basic Backup
Get an external Firewire drive at least equal in size to the internal hard drive and make (and maintain) a bootable clone/backup. You can make a bootable clone using the Restore option of Disk Utility. You can also make and maintain clones with good backup software. My personal recommendations are (order is not significant):
1. Retrospect Desktop (Commercial - not yet universal binary)
2. Synchronize! Pro X (Commercial)
3. Synk (Backup, Standard, or Pro)
4. Deja Vu (Shareware)
5. Carbon Copy Cloner (Donationware)
6. SuperDuper! (Commercial)
7. Intego Personal Backup (Commercial)
8. Data Backup (Commercial)
The following utilities can also be used for backup, but cannot create bootable clones:
1. Backup (requires a .Mac account with Apple both to get the software and to use it.)
2. Toast
3. Impression
4. arRSync
Apple's Backup is a full backup tool capable of also backing up across multiple media such as CD/DVD. However, it cannot create bootable backups. It is primarily an "archiving" utility as are the other two.
Impression and Toast are disk image based backups, only. Particularly useful if you need to backup to CD/DVD across multiple media.
Visit The XLab FAQs and read the FAQs on maintenance, optimization, virus protection, and backup and restore. Also read How to Back Up and Restore Your Files.
Although you can buy a complete FireWire drive system, you can also put one together if you are so inclined. It's relatively easy and only requires a Phillips head screwdriver (typically.) You can purchase hard drives separately. This gives you an opportunity to shop for the best prices on a hard drive of your choice. Reliable brands include Seagate, Hitachi, Western Digital, Toshiba, and Fujitsu. You can find reviews and benchmarks on many drives at Storage Review.
Enclosures for FireWire and USB are readily available. You can find only FireWire enclosures, only USB enclosures, and enclosures that feature multiple ports. I would stress getting enclosures that use the Oxford chipsets (911, 921, 922, for example.) You can find enclosures at places such as;
Cool Drives
OWC
WiebeTech
Firewire Direct
California Drives
NewEgg
All you need do is remove a case cover, mount the hard drive in the enclosure and connect the cables, then re-attach the case cover. Usually the only tool required is a small or medium Phillips screwdriver.

Hard drive setup correctly?

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