Mac OS X - A basic question!

Hi guys,
look: You can't boot a Mac from a Mac OS X version older than the one which shipped with it,right?
example > if your mac came with dvd install version 10.6.3 you only can boot your mac with a dvd install 10.6.3.. 10.6.4..+ is that right?
/\ this is the first question.
The other question:
If I am using a mac of a friend and he doesn't know the mac os x that shipped with it.(example:he lost the dvd install)
In there any command in the mac to see which mac os x version shipped with it??
thanks,
matio

1. Try it.. I would think it's possible to boot from a near recent MacOS version for the same model number Mac. For instance, if your system came with 10.6.3, you might be able to boot off the MacOS version 10.6.2.. provided of course your Mac model shipped with 10.6.2 at one time. It gets risker the farther back you go. The DVD disk for one model will not necessarily work with a DVD disk of another model though. However, you should be able to boot off of any Snow Leopard v10.6 DVD that is sold as a retail disk.
2. If you open up Apple/About this Mac and click on the "Software" Content item, you will see the System Software Overview. This will give you the particulars on the software installed on your machine. For instance, in the first line you will read the SystemVersion umber and build number of the software that is on your machine > System Version: Mac OS X 10.6.5 (10H574). You can cross-check this build number with the one on your DVD for compatibility.

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Katie Black wrote:
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Yes I'm sure it will work great for you.
The iFrame format is something Apple has come up with. The reason for its existence is unknown to me so I can only speculate. But it seems to me that Apple "invented" this format in order to have devices such as Ipod/Ipad/Iphone/Ixxx create clips that are editable on consumer hardware such as already mentioned devices but also standard Mac computers, without the need for format conversion.
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1. Can I partition the SATA drives (wanting to divide
the 300GB drives into 4 75GB volumes) and still have
the RAID work (assuming I partition each drive in the
same way)?
I'm assuming you mean using Apple's software RAID to mirror the two SATA drives connected to your PCI card, right? If so, then you can just install the OS into the internal HD, and start up your new server. Then, launch disk utility, create the RAID mirror 'logical disk', and then (I think) you can create your multiple partitions on the RAID volume (not 100% sure it will let you, but that would be the process if it does). In any case, you might want to consider getting a PCI SATA controller that does hardware RAID itself - less strain on the server CPU, and generally more robust than software RAID. Also: you didn't say how big your SATA drives are, but they'd need to be 300 GB each to get a 300 GB RAID mirror volume, as a RAID mirror is half as big as the sum of it's members.
2. If I can use multiple partitions, am I right in
assuming that I need to create the partitions via
Disk Utility BEFORE I install OS X Server?
Since you're installing the OS on the internal drive which isn't part of the RAID, then no, you could install the OS first on the internal, then set up the RAID SATA disks later.
3. And regardless of whether I can use partitions or
not, the RAID is set up in the Mac OS X Server
installation process, right? (Even when I am
installing the software to a disk that will not be
part of the RAID?)
RAID is setup from the disk utility app, which you can do before or after you install the OS. Probably easier to do it after.
4. Finally, (I have the 10 user license for the
server software), are each of the partitions
considered (in Apple terminology) a "share point"?
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