iMac for Video Editing

Thanks for all the replies, you guys have been really helpful.

It's interesting about the NAS because I was trying to work out why a gigabit nas would not outperform a fw800 external, I'll budget for a raid 0 fw800 solution, for working files and in progress projects. Once complete, I'll move them over to my raid 1 nas, for storage and accessibility via the iPad and ps3. Does that seem like a reasonable workflow?

The only other thing that I'm not sure of is a backup solution. I like the time capsule idea, but would need to backup data from the internal, the external and nas drives. Is that possible?

Hi guys, ill be purchasing my iMac in the next week or so, and I'm just figuring out my storage options for hd video editing and raw photography in lightroom 3.

-I'll get the the i7 with 2tb internal HD, which I'll use for the OS and apps only (and general temp space)
-I'll then get a 2tb FW800 external drive for my photos, light room catalog, and video files. This will be my working drive, and maybe raid-0 config.
-I then have a readynas duo NAS as my backup drive which also serves files around the home.

my reasoning for this is that the readynas is too slow in raid 1 to serve media to the iMac, so hence I need the additional fw800 drive. The internal 2tb is perhaps overkill, but it's not that much extra is is not easily upgradable. Ideally I'd go with the dual drive ssd + HD option but it's silly money and I can't afford it.

Does that setup seem reasonable for my purposes? Does anyone have any suggestions for how I could improve this, and specifically on suitable drives.

Just as an addition to what is asked above, I'll likely get the g-raid 2tb raid 0 drive from applestore at the same time. That seems like the best drive to meet my requirements.

So I'll have os and apps on the internal and working files and the external fw800 raid0 for both my video and photography workflows, with a manual backup to my readynas. Is that a reasonable config?

I'll add a time capsule later on to automate backups of the system and working files.

I feel your pain Chris 🙂

Could someone with a bit of experience in this area be so kind as to sense check my last couple of replies, just to make sure I'm not making any crazy assumptions before buying this system.

Also if someone could let me know how much space a Mac os + cs5 production install would likely use, that would help too.

Many thanks guys!

Thanks for all of the input guys, just to update this thread (in case it helps anyone else out)

Having had chance to research the external FW800 options a few of you suggested, I'm going to get a G-Tech G-Raid 2TB RAID0 drive for my working files, and just use the internal disk for OS and Apps. That seems like the most recommended configuration for video editing.

I also note, that the suggestion to up the RAM appeared a couple of times. I may buy with 4GB, then upgrade to 12GB later on (with 2x4GB) as my video editing progresses. Does anyone know if I can use standard DDR3 1333mhz memory or does it have to be mac specific?

Thanks