Should I partition it so that Time Machine only eats up part of it? Maybe 1TB to Time Machine, and 2TB for general storage? I'd fill 500G of that immediately, moving off the old NAS, and probably another good 200G moving off the new conversion files.

I do not recommend partitioning the Time Machine drive. Time Machine will kick it automatically every hour and if it is partitioned you are increasing the overhead on the system by asking the drive to split duties and seek across two partitions. Also, if you are doing a Time Machine image of all volumes, it would included the general storage volume, and then you are backing up a mechanism to itself.

One of the great things about Time Machine is that it will use the space to automatically create images every hour, and then you can push back through those. In my studio I can roll back to a complete image of the machine from months ago with no problem. This can be very handy for tracking down an old take of a project, or for restoring the machine to a state that predates a problem.

Meara, I don't know if you got an answer but I use time machine. Or I guess I use the time capsule. Anyway, it's sort of hidden away with my modem so it might not be obvious to anyone who would break in. At home, it's not hidden that we'll, but at work, it in a closed cabinet that might not be so obvious to someone for that reason.

Hmm. Well, I wasn't thinking of having it back up itself. I thought the backup of the general storage portion would go to the new raid array. But I take your other point.

I'm a huge ditherer, too. I had myself all the way to the shopping cart with my decision last night, and got Dave talked into it, when I concluded I coulsn't conclude yet.

I guess I'm trying to figure out how to make the Mac & pc backups live happily together, without one bullying th other out of space. And I think I'm unclear on truly how much space I'll require, because up to this point, everything lived on the daw and optical.

I'm using 3TB WD Red drives in the new NAS. So far they have run cool and quiet making the NAS silent. Needless to say, I can't say how they hold up over time.

That will probably be what I end up going with, Gud.

Hey, you guys look different from a mac!

I basically hate the "Arrange By" option in Finder. It is kind of like sorting by date and grouping by conversations in Outlook, except more confusing. What I really want to do is to be able to *sort*, not arrange. In List View we're cool--I got my column headers and my chevrons, and I'm good to go. But I have a lot of folders where the filenames are pretty much meaningless. I'd rather use icon or three column view, but still have it sorted.

I get that Command J brings up a View Options panel, and this is very helpful indeed. Lifesaver, to apply adequate hyperbole. But I don't understand how to get the same effect when I'm in the file open dialog--I find this is already irritatingly neutered (compared to the Windows default--I'd love to be able to type or paste a path, for instance). I can't right mouse click, and the dialog doesn't even have all the buttons above the file/folder display that Finder does.

Am I out of luck? Condemned to always click on "show all" three times every time?

Unrelatedly, does anyone use Applescript for anything? Ad hoc or routine? Did you write it yourself, or get it from someone else?

Do you use Folder Actions? I'm realising that I could definitely use one or two, but unfortunately not any of the defaults they have (mostly copying a file from folder A to folder B, whenever some other process on another machine creates it).

Unrelatedly, does anyone use Applescript for anything? Ad hoc or routine? Did you write it yourself, or get it from someone else?

I use one for combining PDFs, which is a routine thing. I think I "wrote" it myself (it's fairly simple; it's just add one [or more] PDF to the other, in descending order of date created), but I've been using it for so long that I genuinely can't remember.

Type a forward slash while the open file dialog is active and it will ask you for a path.

I used to use AppleScript a lot, but these days I find I tend to write scripts in ruby and use osascript to drive apps, if needed. When I was using it I'd often try to find something someone else had written as a head start, if nothing else.

Folder actions I've never used.

I've used Applescripts for similarly small things. And Automator, too, which is essentially Applescript for Dummies. Nothing big.

I have replaced Finder with PathFinder on numerous versions of OS X in the past due to generally hating Finder. The latest Finder fixed enough things I hated (and I'm using the Mac rarely enough now) that I haven't done it on the most recent version, but if you have something you hate about Finder there's a decent chance Path Finder fixes it. If you do a lot of mucking about in and amongst your files, I think Path Finder is an unbelievably powerful and useful upgrade and worth every penny. Certainly it's worth the free 30 day trial to see.

I've used Applescripts for similarly small things. And Automator, too, which is essentially Applescript for Dummies. Nothing big.

D'oh, my PDF-combining thing is in Automator, not Applescript.