I have a 2009 Nehalem Mac Pro, and I am planning to add a single (or if possible two of them) OWC Mercury Extreme Pro SSD to it.
However, I want to reserve the 4 HDD bays for the 4 x 2TB mechanical hard drives, therefore, I have to place the SSD in the second empty optical bay drive.
I have been looking at OWC Multi-Mount Bracket but the options available are quite confusing to me. Should I buy this OWC 2.5" to 3.5" (x2) and 3.5" to 5.25" bracket set or this 2.5" to 3.5"and 3.5" to 5.25" bracket set.
Do I need to buy addition SATA cable to connect the SSD and SATA socket?
Using the OWC bracket, will it align nicely with the SATA socket without the use of a cable?
I see that you can potentially add 2 SSDs to 1 empty optical drive bay, how is that possible? I thought that there is only 1 SATA socket available. So how is the the second SSD connected to the logic board?
My Applications + Library + System folders on Macintosh HD add up to about 42 GB. I can afford to buy the 60 GB, 120 GB or 240 GB SSD model from OWC. Is it wise to pay for the extra space on the SSD now and be 'future proof', or stick with the current need (plus a bit of 'stretching space')? By the way I intend to move my entire User folder to the 7200 rpm hard drive, so my private data won't stay on the SSD.
From BareFeats website, I see that a RAID 0 pair of OWC Enterprise Class SSD is, of course, much faster than a single SSD of the same brand/type (except that the start up time is longer). The author mention that the RAID uses built-in SATA controller. What does that mean? Did he just connect 2 SSDs directly to the logic board without a dedicated RAID card, and set up the RAID pair using Disc Utility prior to Mac OS X installation? Is there any down side to having a SSD RAID apart from longer start up time and sleep/wake issue? I need to run Windows 7 on Fusion 3 regularly, and sometimes on bootcamp (Windows 7 installed on a separate 7200 rpm hard drive).
Are expecting Apple's SSD kit to perform better than OWC's?
The main purpose of having a SSD for me is to cut down on the startup time and application launch time. Routinely sleeping my Mac Pro between use isn't an option due to workplace environment policy.
Lastly, i intend to replace the only superdrive in the Mac Pro with this Blu-Ray drive. Will that work straight from the box (apart from the lack of Blu-Ray movie playback in Mac OS X)? Are there better Blu-Ray drive out there?
I would really appreciate you help here.
Thank you.
However, I want to reserve the 4 HDD bays for the 4 x 2TB mechanical hard drives, therefore, I have to place the SSD in the second empty optical bay drive.
I have been looking at OWC Multi-Mount Bracket but the options available are quite confusing to me. Should I buy this OWC 2.5" to 3.5" (x2) and 3.5" to 5.25" bracket set or this 2.5" to 3.5"and 3.5" to 5.25" bracket set.
Do I need to buy addition SATA cable to connect the SSD and SATA socket?
Using the OWC bracket, will it align nicely with the SATA socket without the use of a cable?
I see that you can potentially add 2 SSDs to 1 empty optical drive bay, how is that possible? I thought that there is only 1 SATA socket available. So how is the the second SSD connected to the logic board?
My Applications + Library + System folders on Macintosh HD add up to about 42 GB. I can afford to buy the 60 GB, 120 GB or 240 GB SSD model from OWC. Is it wise to pay for the extra space on the SSD now and be 'future proof', or stick with the current need (plus a bit of 'stretching space')? By the way I intend to move my entire User folder to the 7200 rpm hard drive, so my private data won't stay on the SSD.
From BareFeats website, I see that a RAID 0 pair of OWC Enterprise Class SSD is, of course, much faster than a single SSD of the same brand/type (except that the start up time is longer). The author mention that the RAID uses built-in SATA controller. What does that mean? Did he just connect 2 SSDs directly to the logic board without a dedicated RAID card, and set up the RAID pair using Disc Utility prior to Mac OS X installation? Is there any down side to having a SSD RAID apart from longer start up time and sleep/wake issue? I need to run Windows 7 on Fusion 3 regularly, and sometimes on bootcamp (Windows 7 installed on a separate 7200 rpm hard drive).
Are expecting Apple's SSD kit to perform better than OWC's?
The main purpose of having a SSD for me is to cut down on the startup time and application launch time. Routinely sleeping my Mac Pro between use isn't an option due to workplace environment policy.
Lastly, i intend to replace the only superdrive in the Mac Pro with this Blu-Ray drive. Will that work straight from the box (apart from the lack of Blu-Ray movie playback in Mac OS X)? Are there better Blu-Ray drive out there?
I would really appreciate you help here.
Thank you.
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