AnY Problems Using Third Party Components When Upgrading Mac Pro?

[gvdv]

Hi,
I'm about to buy a Mac Pro for audio and video editing and think that I'll go with the basic 3.0 configuration and add memory and hard drives myself because I have read that this is cheaper, and I have a couple of questions about this.

Obviously I'll have to match memory speed to the existing memory, and buy 'good' memory (reputable manufacturers like Kingston). The same for hard drives (I plan to go Seagate Barracuda 7200 rpm).

Is there anything that I should look out for when doing this? Is the process of installing a new hard drive fairly simple? Is there any equivalent of BIOS that I'll have to watch out for (I'm a PC guy).

Even in the PC world I have only ever installed memory and have left adding hard drives to my system to people who know what they are doing.

The other major question I have about adding third party hardware concerns the advisability of doing it in the first place. As long as I use reliable components, will I be O.K. doing this?

Thanks,
GVDV

 

[apfhex]

Sure, it's done all the time! You won't have to worry about anything provided you buy the right type of RAM and HDD (be especially careful in buying Mac Pro certified RAM). Just plug'n'play.

The Mac Pro uses EFI instead of BIOS, but there's no way to access it AFAIK, nor should you ever need to.

 

[gvdv]

Hi Aphex,
Many thanks for your informative and swift reply.

Is Mac Certified Ram listed anywhere - I presume a Mac dealer would know (but then again I have talked to a couple of people in various stores specializing in Macs here who haven't know what they're talking about).

GVDV.

 

[Davowade]

Got a new mac pro with a 5TB storage array and connect to it using an ATTO SCSI card. There was problems of the card not liking more than 2.5GB of RAM causing kernal panics and general crashes and freak outs.
But if you are staying with internal storage you will prolly be fine.

 

[gvdv]

Got a new mac pro with a 5TB storage array and connect to it using an ATTO SCSI card. There was problems of the card not liking more than 2.5GB of RAM causing kernal panics and general crashes and freak outs.
But if you are staying with internal storage you will prolly be fine.

Hi Davowade,
Thanks very much for this.
GVDV