Mac Pro - add Raptors and RAM order?

[kirkbross]

I have a Penryn 2 x 2.8 / 500GB / 8800GT on order and I have 6 GB of RAM and two Raptors waiting; one of the latter will become the boot drive.

Does it matter when I add the drives and RAM -- i.e. should I boot it once stock first and do updates, or just add the RAM and drives from the get go?

 

[aibo]

It doesn't matter. You might consider the possibility that your mac has problems... was it the RAM and drives you added, or was it that way with the stock configuration? If you don't run the stock config at all, you won't know.

I added my drives and RAM before booting up even once. No problems.

 

[yeroen]

Go ahead and put everything in before you boot up.

Since you're going to be swapping boot drives, you'll need Carbon Copy Cloner or Super Duper to clone the pre-installed boot disk to the Raptor first.

 

[jaimeflores]

Go ahead and put everything in before you boot up.

Since you're going to be swapping boot drives, you'll need Carbon Copy Cloner or Super Duper to clone the pre-installed boot disk to the Raptor first.

I have a similar deal going on as the original poster. Two questions though:

1) Wouldn't it be better to boot up BEFORE putting everything in? I've heard reports of a few of these new Mac Pros being DOA. It may be a rare occurrence, but at least you'd know that it wasn't the Raptor or the RAM.

2) Why would you need CCC or SuperDuper!? Shouldn't simply swapping out the default drive with the Raptor and then formatting it with the Install Disk suffice?

I appreciate the help,

--Jaime