Thanks Guy. It sounds like you are already using the workflow that I'm envisioning. I assume you also have a backup system in addition to your RAID 5 redundancy before you archive? Can you tell me about that?

Thanks Ethan. I get the risks with RAID 0. I also have an off-site backup that I upload to via Crashplan. I don't have the fastest upload speed so sometimes it lags behind my projects a bit, but after a few days it's completely caught up. So I do backup twice as a rule. I should have mentioned this in my top post but I was worried that it was getting too long.

I don't think I can do the SSD route. I am juggling up to 6 projects simultaneously at times and with the relatively few ports on the iMac I think I'd go crazy. Clients are also always dragging old projects back up so I like to keep projects that are up to a year old in my active working drive.

The RAID 1 solution is problematic for me because it limits my automation of backups. I think I could only get up to 6TB at once with a mirrored setup and Time Machine would fill that up very quickly if I'm working off of 6TB with versioning.

Thanks Cary. That's helpful to hear about the source of bottle necks. The problem with going Mac Pro (I'm not willing to switch to Windows again) for a multi-core setup is I won't get a new display with it, which I desperately need.

I'd never considered an iMac until I saw this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJt3av99e8k . Apologies if everyone here has seen it thousands of times. This was compelling, especially considering that the iMac he tested there is already a generation old.

I would be spending significantly more getting a new decent display and and buying an 8-core Mac Pro (as opposed to the 6-core which under-performs compared to the iMac on most tasks) then I would buying this setup with a RAID.

Hi Cary, Just to make sure you're understanding my question:

I'm looking at RAID 5 for my active projects which I've read several times is ideal for editors. the RAID 0 would be where I'm backing up that RAID 5 with Time Machine. I'm trying to avoid human error and the slog of manually backing up data every time I add anything to a project folder. So I would have an active projects drive with redundancy and then an automatically backing up 2-bay RAID 0 that just acts as a big single drive so that Time Machine will not bug me about the single drive getting full.

If you understood that the first time, are you telling me I should avoid RAID setups altogether and just get a bunch of beefy drives like I have been all this time? If I do that then Time Machine (with its versioning ability) won't be able to help me much since it needs 1 target location for everything. I should have mentioned that automation is another priority for me here.

Needs more Borat references. I only counted 2 including the part where you say "my wife."

*Immediately runs to Best Buy to grab a Micro USB cable*