I have a Mac Pro with that same processor. I never sit around wishing it was faster, so I’m wondering if the problem your media management. You only listened on hard drive – the 250GB drive. Is that the only drive in your computer and the only drive you use for video editing? If so, then yes your computer will be very slow and it will be more cost effective to by the proper storage devices.
But if you are handling your media correctly and still need a faster computer, buying new Mac Pro will last longer because they’re expandable and they stuff more processors in them. So it takes longer for them to be perceived as “slow.”
If you upgrade to the new FCP, you’re stuck with FCP X, which doesn’t open old projects. I think Apple is still offering FCS (FCP7), but there’s a catch to it or something.
And as for backup, well, you need to have a hard drive (or preferably a RAID) dedicated to your projects and a hard drive dedicated to backing up the memory cards that your camera records to (if you’ve made the leap to solid state recording). Then you need to back up both of those drives. G-Tech is a good source for RAIDs and hard drives.
