Realistic expectations of FCP on different levels of Macs

Hi, all —

Working at a school, I've been asked to choose my next Mac. I'm currently riding out the last few months of usable life on an early-2009 Mac Pro tower and need to decide my replacement path.

I use FCP 7 (yes, I know... but frankly, in the ed biz, if it ain't broke, don't fix it) and some Adobe stuff (PhotoShop, Audition, After Effects... all circa CS5.5). I also still create DVD Studio Pro images of certain programs (school board meetings, concerts — so the directors have hard copy for their classrooms).

One counterpart of mine uses a Mac Mini for much of the same functionality and says it works okay for him. Another counterpart says to stay away from the Mini — he has more problems than successes with his, and I've seen it for myself: horrible lag time, slow performance, etc.

I don't know the specs of their Minis, but I can tell you they were bought only last year, so they're fairly current.

I'm leaning toward a higher-end iMac (a notch below the 5K model, if only because they'd laugh at me requesting such a screen when our output is primarily for analog cablecast and web streaming) or the entry-level Pro tower (again, running the risk of having my request laughed at due to cost).

Does anyone out there have practical experience crossing over between any of these devices for daily production use (say, having a Mini at work and an iMac or tower at home, or vice-versa)?

What's really killing me here is storage. I have all my drive bays in the current tower full, and a handful of external drives, as well. Seems to me, there's NO good option for moving forward and keeping my (presently)-internal drives... I'll have to get enclosures for them or let them go and buy more externals onto which to move that media over.

A final question: is there any good guide out there, or here on Ken Stone's site, for installing Final Cut Studio (including FCP 7, DVD Studio Pro, etc.) onto the pro tower? I mean, if they get me the tower, am I still going to be able to even run that stuff? I really am not interested in going to FCP X any time soon here at work, and still rely on DVD output. If Studio is a non-starter on the Tower, then I guess the iMac is the only answer.

Any and all input would be appreciated!

Thanks in advance,

Mike