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thriii

macrumors 6502
Original poster
I'm going to go pick up my Mac Pro from the mailbox right now and I have an SSD and a 1TB Caviar Black waiting to be put into the system. How should hard drives be formatted before installing OSX? And do I format them all the same? Right now I'll have

Boot Drive (SSD)
Data (1TB)
Time Machine (640 that came with Mac Pro)

Also, are there any benchmark tests I should run to see how my system is performing?
 
I'm going to go pick up my Mac Pro from the mailbox right now and I have an SSD and a 1TB Caviar Black waiting to be put into the system. How should hard drives be formatted before installing OSX? And do I format them all the same? Right now I'll have

Boot Drive (SSD)
Data (1TB)
Time Machine (640 that came with Mac Pro)

Also, are there any benchmark tests I should run to see how my system is performing?
OS X uses HSF or HSF+ (adds journaling). It only works for OS X though. Windows, if you want it, will have to use Boot Camp (partitions the OS X boot disk) or a separate drive.

There's not much for Mac benchmarking software, so everyone uses Geekbench to test the system performance. If you load Windows, you have much more you can test with.
 
I'm going to go pick up my Mac Pro from the mailbox right now and I have an SSD and a 1TB Caviar Black waiting to be put into the system. How should hard drives be formatted before installing OSX? And do I format them all the same? Right now I'll have

Boot Drive (SSD)
Data (1TB)
Time Machine (640 that came with Mac Pro)

Also, are there any benchmark tests I should run to see how my system is performing?

No need to do any pre-formatting, just boot from the OS X installer CD and you'll be able to format any installed drives from that environment (after which you'll install OS X onto your SSD, no need to even reboot).

As to how to partition the disks, etc, that's a matter of preference.
 
im a little confused.. HSF or HSF+? will mainly be using OSX but thinkin about runnin xp from inside OSX or maybe gettin a another drive... the mac pro from what i understand can hold 4 drives.. is it possible to have another somehow?
 
im a little confused.. HSF or HSF+? will mainly be using OSX but thinkin about runnin xp from inside OSX or maybe gettin a another drive... the mac pro from what i understand can hold 4 drives.. is it possible to have another somehow?
HSF
HSF+ (it's a newer version)

You can chose the version desired during the installation (most go for HSF+).

As per adding additional drives the MP, it has 4x HDD bays. It has 2x optical bays (base models ship with a single optical drive, leaving the second empty). If this is the case, you can physically squeeze a pair of 3.5" HDD's in, or 4x 2.5" HDDs (or SSD's).

For ports to connect it to, you have a few options.

1. Built into the system = 2x ODD_SATA ports. These will work with OS X HDDs for both boot or non boot. But not with Windows.

2. Optional cards. You can use an inexpensive eSATA/SATA card, but most won't boot OS X (save one eSATA unit by Highpoint that goes for $229USD). Includes Fake RAID controllers, as they're nothing more than SATA cards with drivers that allow RAID operation (and in some cases, parity array levels that shouldn't be used at all due to the lack of an NVRAM solution for the write hole issue).

Past that, you get into Host Bus Adapters (HBA's) or RAID cards. Not cheap, but you can get far more ports using these. You'd also need external enclosures to use them, which aren't cheap either.

If you're sticking with OS X, you can place the SSD in the optical bay (OS X only), even accompany it with a mechanical for backups. Then have all 4x HDD bays for RAID use (or RAID + backup disk/s).

Windows will change matters, as you'd need to either run it off an HDD bay, or from a SATA card to stuff it in the empty optical bay along with the SSD. You can get a card that works for under $25USD (based on the SIL3132 chip).
 
HSF
HSF+ (it's a newer version)

You can chose the version desired during the installation (most go for HSF+).

As per adding additional drives the MP, it has 4x HDD bays. It has 2x optical bays (base models ship with a single optical drive, leaving the second empty). If this is the case, you can physically squeeze a pair of 3.5" HDD's in, or 4x 2.5" HDDs (or SSD's).

For ports to connect it to, you have a few options.

1. Built into the system = 2x ODD_SATA ports. These will work with OS X HDDs for both boot or non boot. But not with Windows.

2. Optional cards. You can use an inexpensive eSATA/SATA card, but most won't boot OS X (save one eSATA unit by Highpoint that goes for $229USD). Includes Fake RAID controllers, as they're nothing more than SATA cards with drivers that allow RAID operation (and in some cases, parity array levels that shouldn't be used at all due to the lack of an NVRAM solution for the write hole issue).

Past that, you get into Host Bus Adapters (HBA's) or RAID cards. Not cheap, but you can get far more ports using these. You'd also need external enclosures to use them, which aren't cheap either.

If you're sticking with OS X, you can place the SSD in the optical bay (OS X only), even accompany it with a mechanical for backups. Then have all 4x HDD bays for RAID use (or RAID + backup disk/s).

Windows will change matters, as you'd need to either run it off an HDD bay, or from a SATA card to stuff it in the empty optical bay along with the SSD. You can get a card that works for under $25USD (based on the SIL3132 chip).

Just Formatted using "Mac OS Extended (Journaled) so im a little confused where HFS or HFS+ is selected.. how do I check which my drives r using?
 
Just Formatted using "Mac OS Extended (Journaled) so im a little confused where HFS or HFS+ is selected.. how do I check which my drives r using?
Mac OS Extended (Journaled) = HSF+

HSF+ is an easier way of typing it is all. 😀 😛

If you want to check a drive's filesystem (type used), just go in Disk Util.
 
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