Questions Before Buying A New G5 Dual 2.7 Options

[bluetone78]

Hello all,
My G4 iMac just isn't cutting it anymore, so I need an upgrade. I was think about getting the G5 dual 2.7, but I had a bunch of questions first:

1. What's this I hear about an Intel Mac? When are they coming out? Are they going to be better than the dual G5's that are available now? Should I wait to buy untilt hey come out?

2. Obviously I'm gong to need more RAM - I've read good things about Corsair (in this forum, elsewhere). I also read talk of buying in "bundles"? what does that mean? How do I buy ram in bundles?

3. I'd like to have a seperate interal drive to put my samples, audio files, etc. Is there a good reason (performance wise) to get the dual 400GB drives factory installed from apple? If not, can anyone recommend a decent brand for this application?

4. Apple LCD displays vs other Brands?


Thanks so much,
Charles

[edge100]

This RAID 0 thing is new to me, as of this posting.  I did some web-searching on it, and I'd say my understanding of RAID 0 is murky at best.  It uses two drives in conjunction, using double the HD space to speed up HD access?  Sounds like a bit of a balancing act to me...

There's really no need for RAID 0 in audio production unless you're working on some really big projects, the normal speed is totally adequate even for the more demanding scenarios. What you might want to do is to dedicate one HD for samples and one HD for other audio, this way you can easily maximize the audio streaming speed as both HDs can fully utilize their dedicated data buses.

Sound on Sound did a test of RAID 0 with Logic a year or so ago and found that in many cases, RAID 0 is SLOWER in this particular instance. They were able to get much higher track counts using the drives separately rather than as a RAID 0 array.

I would seriously doubt that music production will benefit much from RAID 0. Use one drive for storing samples and one drive for all your audio files, and you'll be fine. In fact, I use a single Firewrire drive for samples and audio (plus some additional downloads, etc) and I've had no issues. Just dont use the system drive. That'll definitely tie you down.

Mike