4 Hard Drives of the same type.

[ArkaPro]

hello,

Today Im going to purchase my new hackintosh

Hardware in short:

• INTEL CORE 2 QUAD Q6600 2.4GHZ 1066MHZ 8MB 64BIT BOX
  • TT Big Typhoon 120 vx
    

  [*]ASUS P5K DELUXE

  [*] CORSAIR TWIN2X4096-6400C5DHX DDR2 4GB (2GBX2) 800MHZ CL5 XMS DH

  [*]SAPPHIRE X1950XT ATI RADEON X1950XT 256MB DDR3 DVI VIVO PCI-E

  • ZALMAN VF700 Cu FULL COPPER VGA COOLER LED
    

  [*]4 Hard drives - W.D WD5000AAKS 500GB SATA II 7200RPM 16MB BUFFER

  [*]CORSAIR 520W CMPSU-520HX

  [*]ASUS DVDRW X18 DRW-1814BLT DUAL LAYER LIHGTSCRIBE SATA BLACK

OK,

I'm a Video Editor, but going to use the computer for Internet, Office, games and other appz as well as the Adobe Production suite and Final Cut Studio.

I'm totally green in Mac and Hackintosh.

 

I want to run windows XP, Vista and OSX.

1. Can you please tell me how should I divide and use the HDDs most efficiently?
   My purpose is that both systems (PC and Mac) will be able to access Media such as music, sound effects, graphics and all other media files etc.
   So I would be able to share and use them cross platform.
   
2. when I think about it, all of the HDDs are from the same manufacturer and model.
   won't it be difficult during let's say; BIOS and installation to know which is which?
   I mean, don't you think it's going to be tricky to setup from which Drive to Boot?
   Maybe its better to buy diffrent companies or models of 500GB HDDs?
   
3. If you have anything to advise about the hardware configuration above please do!
   

Thank you! and wish me good luck! :angry2:

[BJMoose]

Looks like you've got just about everything covered. If your case has the room, here's how I've got my drives mounted...nothing is connected internally. Backplane: http://www.pc-pitstop.com/sata_cages_enclosures/a4in3.asp

 

I have just ordered a similar external 4 drive enclosure for the other 4 drives. Gives you a tremendous amount of flexibility for swapping and adding additional drives.

 

Video editing is my profession so I use my systems mostly for editing, photoshop (menu and background creation) and dvd authoring. I have 12 of the same brand of drives (all Samsung 500gb Spinpoints). Pay close attention to when you are installing your drive cables. I labeled mine 1-8 and connected them in order drive 0 through drive 7. Go to your local office supply store and pick up some of those multi-colored round stickers (each about the size of a nickel). There's plenty of room on your drives to place one of these labels for identification purposes. I use blue stickers to distinguish my OSX drives (hand write on the sticker the name of the drive e.g OSX system, Windows system, PC Data, Mac Data etc.). Yellow stickers for Windows and red stickers indicate fat32, green = OSX Journaled, white = NTFS. You can come up with your own system, but this works for me and my workflow. Hope this helps and that all goes well with your setup.

[ArkaPro]

Looks like you've got just about everything covered. If your case has the room, here's how I've got my drives mounted...nothing is connected internally. Backplane: http://www.pc-pitstop.com/sata_cages_enclosures/a4in3.asp

 

I have just ordered a similar external 4 drive enclosure for the other 4 drives. Gives you a tremendous amount of flexibility for swapping and adding additional drives.

 

Video editing is my profession so I use my systems mostly for editing, photoshop (menu and background creation) and dvd authoring. I have 12 of the same brand of drives (all Samsung 500gb Spinpoints). Pay close attention to when you are installing your drive cables. I labeled mine 1-8 and connected them in order drive 0 through drive 7. Go to your local office supply store and pick up some of those multi-colored round stickers (each about the size of a nickel). There's plenty of room on your drives to place one of these labels for identification purposes. I use blue stickers to distinguish my OSX drives (hand write on the sticker the name of the drive e.g OSX system, Windows system, PC Data, Mac Data etc.). Yellow stickers for Windows and red stickers indicate fat32, green = OSX Journaled, white = NTFS. You can come up with your own system, but this works for me and my workflow. Hope this helps and that all goes well with your setup.

Thanks for the replay and for the great tips!

But actually I was asking about the problems that may accured during installation of lets say new OS, or when i'll use the bios HDD boot menu - all HDDs will look the same! how will I be able to tell between the HDDs when using Bios and OS instellations?

I might just format or install on the wrong drive!

 

The other thing I asked for is how to actually use, manage, and partition it.

Are you using Windows at all?

If so how do you share the MEDIA/data between the 2 OSs?

Can you please write down the Structure/Partition and use of your HDDs?

Cheers!