Help needed - I'm installing harddrives right now in a new macpro..

[AppleWorking]

Hey all,

I just received my new hard drives in the mail and I would like to know if this is possible...

My MP came with the stock WD 640 blue and I just purchased 2x 640 Blacks and 1x 1 TB Black (woohoo, excited)

What I want to do is as follows:

Slot one: 640 black

Slot two: Apple 640

Slot three: 640 black

Slot four: 1 TB black

With this configuration can I keep booting the computer with disk two until I set up the other drives and do a fresh install on drive one (maybe a week from now)? I just want to be able to test the drives out in this config since this is the way I want them permanently. Will this work? Can I boot up with disk two and keep using the computer?

How should I set this up? Do I have to tell the mac os which is my new startup disk before I move the stock apple drive?

One more question: What is a good utility for checking out these new hard drives thoroughly? I want to make sure they are working properly and not defective. I don't mind if it takes a while because I want them checked good. I also want something that can read the SMART info since I purchased one from a guy on Craigs who says it is new but he did open it. I assume the SMART will tell me the hours of use?

Thanks for all of the help!

 

[NoNameBrand]

Your computer will boot off the chosen boot volume no matter which bay it's in. If you want to change the boot volume, hold option down as the computer boots and you'll be given a list of all the volumes that you can boot from.

You can also pick the start up disk from the System Preferences.

 

[sparkie7]

Hey all,

I just received my new hard drives in the mail and I would like to know if this is possible...

My MP came with the stock WD 640 blue and I just purchased 2x 640 Blacks and 1x 1 TB Black (woohoo, excited)

What I want to do is as follows:

Slot one: 640 black

Slot two: Apple 640

Slot three: 640 black

Slot four: 1 TB black

With this configuration can I keep booting the computer with disk two until I set up the other drives and do a fresh install on drive one (maybe a week from now)? I just want to be able to test the drives out in this config since this is the way I want them permanently. Will this work? Can I boot up with disk two and keep using the computer?

How should I set this up? Do I have to tell the mac os which is my new startup disk before I move the stock apple drive?

One more question: What is a good utility for checking out these new hard drives thoroughly? I want to make sure they are working properly and not defective. I don't mind if it takes a while because I want them checked good. I also want something that can read the SMART info since I purchased one from a guy on Craigs who says it is new but he did open it. I assume the SMART will tell me the hours of use?

Thanks for all of the help!

yes. you can boot from a drive in bay 2. Just go to start up disk under sys prefs and select the drive you want. Alternatively start up the machine holding Option key and select the drive you want.

 

[canonballs]

Hey all,

I just received my new hard drives in the mail and I would like to know if this is possible...

My MP came with the stock WD 640 blue and I just purchased 2x 640 Blacks and 1x 1 TB Black (woohoo, excited)

What I want to do is as follows:

Slot one: 640 black

Slot two: Apple 640

Slot three: 640 black

Slot four: 1 TB black

With this configuration can I keep booting the computer with disk two until I set up the other drives and do a fresh install on drive one (maybe a week from now)? I just want to be able to test the drives out in this config since this is the way I want them permanently. Will this work?

Ought to.

Can I boot up with disk two and keep using the computer?

Yes, but if you ever boot from disk seven you forfeit the use of computer

How should I set this up? Do I have to tell the mac os which is my new startup disk before I move the stock apple drive?

If you press alt/option during sartup it will present you with a choice of all bootable volumes it can find. If you don't, that probably is still ok, I think it remembers the startup volume by name rathger than physical position. If the volume you are going to use for next boot is present before shutdown, the Startup Disk preference pane will let you select it.

One more question: What is a good utility for checking out these new hard drives thoroughly? I want to make sure they are working properly and not defective. I don't mind if it takes a while because I want them checked good.

Tech Tool Pro is not yet updated for MP 2009. Don't know if DiskWarrior is. Disk Utility (included with OS X) isolates bad sectors if you reformat zeroing all data (or is it called secure-erase?) and will alert you to non-okay SMART status.

I also want something that can read the SMART info since I purchased one from a guy on Craigs who says it is new but he did open it.
I assume the SMART will tell me the hours of use?

Tech Tool Pro reads SMART (some or all of the statistics?) but I'm not sure if it tells me time since last powerup or total poweron time—just a number between 0 and 100 that I'm not sure how to interpret.

 

[AppleWorking]

Hey, thanks for the replies! One more quick question before I begin...

I suppose I need to format the drives with Disk Utility. This is what I want to do with them:

WD 640 Black #1
I want to use this one as my main Mac OS boot drive. All of my mac apps including the os will be installed here. I hear some people say that it is best to have the OS on the outer part of the drive for fast access. How do you do this? Do I need to partition it, and if so, how big? Where are my apps going to go, on the other partition of this drive?

Apple 640
This is the drive that came with my macpro and it currently has the Mac OS and everything else installed by Apple on it.
I want to use this drive for Time Machine backups and for SuperDuper backups both. How should I format this drive?

WD 640 Black #2
I want to use this drive to install Vista Home Premium 32bit. How should I format this drive?

WD 1 TB Black:
I want to use this drive for ripped DVD's. I will most likely use DVD Fab (Windows program installed on the Vista drive above) to rip them directly to this drive. I was wondering, though, will this drive be accessable to the Mac? Meaning, can I play movies with the mac from this drive, or will I only be able to play them with windows?

Could you please tell me how to format all of these drives like a two year old. LOL There are so many options, etc, that I would prefer to be told exactly what options to select and formats to use so I can just get busy and fire them up (yeah, I'm impatient). Thanks