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Anywho, I guess my next question is capacity (memory). What kind of space & capability will I really need to ensure smooth transfer of my files?



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I mean, I shouldn't need a fucking Mac Pro model as opposed to just the "screen-and-tower-in-one" I-Mac, or should I?



The movie editing software sounds like the beefiest software you want to run. So, look at the system recommendations for the movie editing software you want to run to determine what the system specs should be. Also look at user reviews to see what they say about the software they say they need to run it.

The amount of disk space is just going to be a function of how much video you want to store. For archiving video, you can use an external hard drive. So, I'd think the only disk space you'd need on the computer was to handle the video you're actively working on.

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The whole Mac -v- PC debate has been on for years, like Chevy -v- Ford.



It sounds like your debate shouldn't be Mac vs. PC, but just Final Cut software vs. Vegas. I guess Vegas is the best PC movie editing software, that's what someone else in this thread was saying. Quickly browsing at the user reviews on Amazon, on first glance, it seemed like the Final Cut stuff was worth the extra cash to get a Mac to run it on. People in the Vegas reviews were saying stuff like, "If you don't mind learning by trial and error...".

Keep in mind that you are going to have to sit there and use this software all the time. Yeah, maybe the Mac to run Final Cut is, say, ~$1000 more up-front. But, consider for the next 2/3 years, every time you sit down to use the damn thing, that's what you got. If you can get the work done faster and with less irritation in Final Cut, how much has that extra $1000 up front saved you with an easier, more pleasant work-load in the long run? Not irritating you as much and freeing up time for other stuff.

But, read the Final Cut vs. Vegas reviews and make sure it really is so much better. I don't really know.

It's about the software, not the operating system or the hardware.


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SATA or RAID



SATA and RAID aren't opposing standards. You can have SATA disks in a RAID array. SATA refers to how the disk physically connects to the computer, e.g., what the ribbon that connects the disk looks like and that you'll need a SATA driver. RAID is how you configure these, probably SATA connected, disks in your system.

There are like 5 or 6 standards you can use to set up a RAID array. The first one, RAID 0, is just for speed. It utilizes 2 disks like it's one disk that's a lot faster than either disk would be independently. In this configuration, any disk you lose causes you to lose all your data on both disks. Other RAID configurations make use of redundancy, where if one disk fails all the data is on other disks in the configuration. So, you can just keep going until you replace the failed disk. And, once you replace the failed disk, all the data can be easily populated back on it because it's right there on the other disk. RAID 1 is where there're 2 disks, both of them having the same data on them.

Assuming Bishop is right about Final Cut being an industry standard, everything else he said I agree with.