Setup a new Macbook Pro to minimize application slowdowns over time

Hi,
I own a dual G5 2.0 tower which has become (over time) extremely slow...it seems I get the spinning beachball all too often, but have plenty of ram and HD space. Even when opening JPEGS.
I am buying a macbook pro this w/e and was wondering what the best way to setup the new computer because I want to use it as an HD FCP editing station (on location), but from time to time use applications like aquisition and bittorrent which really seem to bog the system down. I assume not using migration assistant, and re-installing from scratch is a good idea.
Forgive what may be basic questions, but do I setup a partition initially on the internal drive (and have 2 system folders or something similar?) or will simply setting up different users to access only certain applications help? (I assume not).
Obviously a concern is the laptop drive is small 160GB 7200RPM but I can guess most of the time I will be running a GRAID for the video editing files, and bigger aperture library (I may have a small select library on the internal drive to show clients and friends "on the go")
I really appreciate any tips or suggestions and hope that my questions make sense. I realize I want the computer to "do it all" but can't afford it to be strictly an editing station, as I'll be selling the G5 to help pay for the macbook pro!
Much appreciated,
Brian Broz
Vancouver, Canada

Understand that P2P software operates under the premise that you will have many connections to peers. Each network connection requires memory and CPU cycles to operate properly without timing out the connection or slowing down transfers. In fact, the faster the Internet connection and the more peers connected to your P2P application, the more resource intensive the P2P software will be. You will want to either close the P2P application or tweak it's settings so that it uses minimal bandwidth and resources while you are performing other tasks on your MBP. Try Azureus for torrents as it allows you to tweak settings very nicely.
Partitioning your hard drive will accomplish nothing in this case. Better to invest in an external FW800 drive for the improving performance while video editing or where you need additional storage.

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