First mac...lots of repetitive questions sorry

[torrentsign]

So i recently took the plunge and picked up a stock mac pro plus the 8800gt, im still clueless about mac osx though.

I plan on using my current 150gb raptor as the osx system drive/apps.
Now heres my first question i plan on using the stock 320gb as both a scratch drive and windows drive...is that possible? say 100 for windows 200 for osx scratch disk...i ask because osx doesnt use the same formating as windows correct? so is this possible and how would i go about doing it?

gonna throw in a 1tb f1 for all data.

As far as memory i read the whole thread but i am still confused...i understand that they are best in groups of 4 or 8 matching....So could i get 6 1gb owc sticks and use the 2 1gb stock sticks that come with it or would that not be optimal...8gb is fine for me and i dont see the need for anymore at this point so filling up all my dimms is not an issue.

 

[Jebaloo]

So i recently took the plunge and picked up a stock mac pro plus the 8800gt, im still clueless about mac osx though.

I plan on using my current 150gb raptor as the osx system drive/apps.
Now heres my first question i plan on using the stock 320gb as both a scratch drive and windows drive...is that possible? say 100 for windows 200 for osx scratch disk...i ask because osx doesnt use the same formating as windows correct? so is this possible and how would i go about doing it?

gonna throw in a 1tb f1 for all data.

As far as memory i read the whole thread but i am still confused...i understand that they are best in groups of 4 or 8 matching....So could i get 6 1gb owc sticks and use the 2 1gb stock sticks that come with it or would that not be optimal...8gb is fine for me and i dont see the need for anymore at this point so filling up all my dimms is not an issue.

As far as RAM goes I think your idea is fine, and a good work around.

Someone else will have to answer the windows question though.

 

[rockinrocker]

I plan on using my current 150gb raptor as the osx system drive/apps.
Now heres my first question i plan on using the stock 320gb as both a scratch drive and windows drive...is that possible? say 100 for windows 200 for osx scratch disk...i ask because osx doesnt use the same formating as windows correct? so is this possible and how would i go about doing it?

yep, should be fine. you can put a partition on any of the drives and use it for windows. if you want it to be bigger than 32 gig then the partition (but not the whole drive) can't be FAT32 which is (i think) the only file system that can be read by both os's.

 

[yippy]

The boot camp assistant (comes with your computer) can partition the drive into part Windows format and part Mac format.

 

[itou]

As far as memory i read the whole thread but i am still confused...i understand that they are best in groups of 4 or 8 matching....So could i get 6 1gb owc sticks and use the 2 1gb stock sticks that come with it or would that not be optimal...8gb is fine for me and i dont see the need for anymore at this point so filling up all my dimms is not an issue.

if you don't intend to upgrade further than 8GB, then your method is sound. if you will, you'll end up with 8 sticks of 1GB each in the dustbin. i'm kind of in the same situation, but i'm filling up 4 slots instead of 8, going with 4 sticks of 1GB for now, then buy 4 more sticks of whatever is the highest capacity they have at the time that i can afford. that way, i can have 2 pairs of matched 1GB for now, and then 2 pairs of matched xGB's later plus the older four 1GB sticks.

 

[orpheus1120]

I however will choose 4 x 4GB solely for future upgrade opportunity. 16GB will last you for quite sometime before it becomes obsolete. Waiting another 3-6 months more for the prices of the 4GB 800Mhz DIMMs to fall and choose to upgrade later if you wish.

This approach may cost you more, but it provides maximum upgrade possibility in the future. 32GB is my goal, but I'll make do with 16GB for now.