Hard Drive Setup help for Graphic Designer

First, let me say that I know a lot about a little, but very little about a lot and will appreciate any advice or corrections given.
I have FINALLY upgraded my old G4/2GB/350GB with a 250MB external to a MP3/4GB/250/500 and I can't wait to get to work on it. However, after reading many, many posts, I want to make sure I set things set up right for me before I load her up. So, I'm thinking about adding an additional 500HD and doing a mirrored RAID for my data files, run the OS and applications off of my 250 (and maybe later partition it for Vista, too - or should I plan ahead and do that now?) and I will of course be using at least one external drive (maybe 2 to switch out) for an additional backup. I already own Retrospect so will probably stick with that unless someone gives a good reason to change (although it has been giving me errors which is probably why I should switch).
Currently, my G4 is set up with 4 partitions, 1 of which is for my OS and another for my PS scratch (50GBs for it). My files are often quite large these days (which has totally taxed my system and productivity) so I need to make sure I set this new system up to anticipate ever increasing file sizes and working with more RAW image files.
On the new system, I'll be primarily using the CS3 design suite and Lightroom, and I have ever growing i-Tunes and photo libraries.
So...what would be a good breakdown for partitioning the 500 and leave ample scratch disk space? Currently, I have 35GBs of active client files I keep on my HD, 30 GBs of photos, and 10GBs in the i-Tunes library. I obviously am not using all my disk space (but I've also been archiving and/or deleting a lot of files lately in anticipation of this upgrade). And, I probably won't even come close to filling a 500, but want to make sure the room is there should I need it.
And, just to make sure I understand things, I assume the mirrored drive would have the same partition set up? And the externals the same, too? Anything special I need to know about that?
Should my applications and games always be on the first drive with the OS?
Anything else to consider? Thanks again for your comments.

Thanks, Hatter. I've been reading way too much, so I'm not so sure what to do now. I have more questions, so appreciate your patience.
Today I read your posts with Badlydrawnboy because of the photography issues, which got me to thinking more about all this. Say I dump the Vista idea for now and maybe put it on a small external later. Backup is still extremely important to me, so for the other 2 currently empty drives, would it make sense to mirror the $99 Maxtors you guys were discussing for my data and backup? Then my 500 could maybe be my PS and Bridge scratch? Which bays would these all go in? I know the options are probably endless, but I don't want to make this more difficult than it should be and need to get up and running as quickly as possible.

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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.
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Message was edited by: curvebender
Message was edited by: curvebender

curvebender wrote:
2. Is this a good setup:
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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.
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Media Chache:    256GB SSD with the Thunderbolt Go Flex Station
Outputs:            external 2TB USB 3 Hard Drive
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- 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.]

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