Setting up storage for iPhoto and iMovie on rMBP

Question

Hi,
I just purchased a rMPB 15" with a 256 SSD drive and 8gig RAM.  While I have several iOS devices (phone, ipad, ATV) this is my first MAC OS device.
I purcahsed it mainly to organize my photos and video.
I probably have thousdands of photos, and hundreds of hours of video (on MiniDV) that I want to import, edit, organzie, etc.  I know that the intenal harddrive will not be enough to support all this.  I want to set this up right the first time, so I dont have any issues.
My first thought was NAS, but after doing some research it appears that might not be the best course of action since it looks like iPhoto and iMovie dont suppport NAS.
Then I thoguht external USB hard drive, but what happens when I dont have the hard drive connected?  I dont want to have to keep a hard drived tethered to my laptop at all times.
Ok, then I thought just use harddrive to backup via time machine.  But what happens when internal drive gets full?
Do i load all my photos directly onto a harddrive and then have iPhoto just point to it, thus not ever having them on internal drives?
Its these type of questions I have.
My ultimate hope is some sort of NAS setup, so my non Apple devices (windows, DLNA, etc) coudl access the ptotos and videos as well.
Thanks for the advise
Ron

Answer 1

1.  Can iPhoto support multiple libraries on its own (or do I need that additional software referenced above)
It can do multiple libraries on its own. However, that just allows you to create and open Libraries, you can't move images between them and so on. If you are using multiple Libraries check out iPhoto Library Manager
If I take all my photos, and organize them with iPhoto (using an external drive for example), they way I understand how iPhoto works is it takes all the photo in, and then organizes them into its own system.
You need to make a small distinction here: iPhoto stores the files, you organise the Pictures as you want.
It's a key distinction.The file is just a container -  a box - for your Photograph. Think of it this way:  In my iTunes Library I have a file called 'Let_it_Be_The_Beatles.mp3'. So what is that, exactly? It's not the song. The Beatles never wrote an mp3. They wrote a tune and lyrics. They recorded it and a copy of that recording is stored in the mp3 file. So the file is just a container for the recording. That container is designed in a specific way attuned to the characteristics and requirements of the data. Hence, mp3.
Similarly, that Jpeg is not your photo, it's a container designed to hold that kind of data. iPhoto is all about the data and not about the container. So, regardless of where you choose to store the file, iPhoto will manage the photo, edit the photo, add metadata to the Photo but never touch the file. If you choose to export - unless you specifically choose to export the original - iPhoto will export the Photo into a new container - a new file containing the photo.
Once I take the time to tag them, identify, group ect.  All that meta data is only relevant in Iphoto correct?
No, it's relevant to the Photograph and (almost) all of it can be used for searching and can be exported with it.
So, if you use a media browser you can search on any text: Title, Caption, keywords etc. (There is a single exception: there is no way to share Faces information as there is no agreed convention for this kind of metadata.) Any thing else you add in iPhoto can be written to the file on export.
For help accessing your photos in iPhoto see this user tip:
https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-4491
Depends on the export setting you choose, but potentially, everything except Faces.
This User Tip
https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-4921
has details of the options in the Export dialogue.
Are they still organized by date?
Organised where?
When exporting photo's out of iPhoto, do they retain any file structure.
Do you mean filing structure? Depends on what you choose in the export dialogue.