Installing SSD & HDD: in which order to follow these steps?

[jdecraene85]

Hi,

Although I've been reading MacRumors for quite a while now, I only just registered. So, hi!

I'm looking to install the Crucial M4 128 GB SSD (boot disk) in stead of my current hard drive and replacing my optical drive with an optibay and the Samsung Spinpoint M8 1TB (storage drive) in it (along with adding 4GB RAM).

I will receive an USB powered enclosure for my optical drive with my optibay order.
I've got the Snow Leopard disc from when I bought my MacBook, I haven't tried Lion yet.
In which order should I take the following steps?

• Can I first put everything in place and then install Snow Leopard from the USB-connected optical drive? Or should I leave the optical drive in its place until I have installed Snow Leopard on the SSD?
• The new firmware for the Crucial M4 released last week improves the performance a lot, but I read the firmware needs to be flashed from a bootable CD. Do I have to do this before I install anything on the SDD or can I do it after installing OS X? And how do I do this (the bootable CD)? Also, at what point do I activate the TRIM support?
• After installing Snow Leopard, do I download the Snow Leopard updates first or can I install Lion right away?
• What is the best file formatting system for the storage drive? Mac Journaled or NTFS? (I will be installing Paragon NTFS support anyway)

Thanks in advance for your help!

 

[satchow]

• Can I first put everything in place and then install Snow Leopard from the USB-connected optidrive? Or should I leave the optical drive in its place until I have installed Snow Leopard on the SSD?
• The new firmware for the Crucial M4 released last week improves the performance a lot, but I read the firmware needs to be flashed from a bootable CD. Do I have to do this before I install anything on the SDD or can I do it after installing OS X? And how do I do this (the bootable CD)? Also, at what point do I activate the TRIM support?
• After installing Snow Leopard, do I download the Snow Leopard updates first or can I install Lion right away?
• What is the best file formatting system for the storage drive? Mac Journaled or NTFS? (I will be installing Paragon NTFS support anyway)

- You cannot install Lion/Snow Leopard off of an external optical drive, only internal
- Not sure, but TRIM support will be enabled automatically if Lion supports it
- You need to get up to SL 10.6.7 (or something like that) before you can update to Lion. Or you can copy Lion to a USB ThumbDrive and not worry about this or bulletpoint #1
- NTFS is fine since you're installing Paragon, higher compatibility