WD1001FALS and 3.0ghz Mac Pro 8 Core Compatibility Questions

Hi all,
This is my first post, I think, in the three years I've been a member, so, please excuse my lack of knowledge of these forums.
I've searched this particular forum for info on how well WD1001FALS drives work on a Mac that should be here Monday and I could not find any references. I can get a couple of these drives from a friend at a really nice price.
First, are they compatible? If so, does Spread Spectrum Clocking (SSC) work on a Mac?
Second, will they work together as a software RAID mirror, and do you think this is necessary since I am using Time Machine for an external backup? If so, what would any of you set the chunk size to for photo editing in Photoshop and Aperture 2.0 among other photo apps? 64k perhaps, or larger? I'll be running 10gigs of ram if that needs to be known for any answers to any of my questions.
I apologize for all the questions, especially in a first post but, I need to give an answer to my friend by Saturday. Any help will be greatly appreciated.
All the best,
Mark Megerle

The Mac Pro, unlike the older G5s, couldn't care less about SSC, well it does in that it supports SATA specifications fully.
I didn't know the WD Black series were out and available. Let us know how they do. I would also invest in a fast boot drive along with those. Would be nice to see WD 1TB added to Barefeats 1TB comparison http://www.barefeats.com/hard94.html
Just don't think you want or need mirror, maybe stripe for performance. I would never be without just TimeMachine for backups, or one method. I would leave the block size to default unless working with video.
You can partition your drive and have an outer partition on each and then combine those into a scratch stripped RAID for Photoshop and then use the rest for data or a 2nd RAID, up to 3 such sets. If you want a more flexible RAID or mirror, I would look into SoftRAID
Some background on Photoshop performance
http://www.adobe.com/go/kb401089
http://homepage.mac.com/boots911/.Public/PhotoshopAccelerationBasics2.4W.pdf
What having 8 DIMMs can do for memory bandwidth and performance:
http://www.barefeats.com/harper12.html

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Make an appointment. But in the meantime...
So from cold boot, you can't do the Command Option P R through 2-3 full reboot cycles (don't let up)?
Unplug everything and let it sit overnight without power cord or anything. That is the only way to rest the SMC system management controller on the 2008 model, the older model still had a reset button.
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Last hope: open case, look inside, take the two RAM Riser cards and pull out, check the DIMMs are fully seated.
If you have 3rd party memory, remove that (would need to before taking in probably).
Might want to put RAM back to way it shipped with 2 x 1GB and one DIMM on each Riser in slot one. Maybe that will wake this sleeping giant. Changing RAM config use to be one way to clear nvram in the distant past in the time of Arthur.
PS: it is "odd" to find a BTO 3.2GHz system, and only 2GB. For memory performance, Barefeats found a marked improvement with 8 DIMMs, and of course Mac Pro really needs memory to feed 8 cores and pro apps (2GB would be okay for web and email type use only).

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Basically, I'm planning on buying a Mac Pro "Quad Core" 2.8 and installing Boot Camp and a Windows OS startup. This puts me into the notoriously tricky area of picking the right version of Windows for my needs, something I haven't really had to deal with in regards to OS X.
Basically, I'm not looking for something with too many bells and whistles or to much bloatware built into the OS. Also, I'll probably be using some older software/shareware, so backwards compatibility is an issue. On the other hand, I'd like something that works with the Quad Core architecture at its greatest efficiency.
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Thanks in advance,
Peter

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http://communities.vmware.com/community/beta/fusion
http://forums.parallels.com/
You don't need anything first, except I would start with a new hard drive for Vista, don't even do anything with it and pull OS X drive, boot Vista DVD and go from there, just as you would normally. Much easier. After it is installed is when you need Apple BootCamp from your Leopard OEM DVD, install, and then Apple Software Update will take care of 2.1. And install your graphic drivers yourself.
The problem(s) come with trying to use BootCamp Assist and setting up partitioning, and it only makes it harder - not easier - on Mac Pro (you aren't and don't want to use your OS X boot drive).
Windows on Mac forum @ MacRumors
http://forums.macrumors.com/forumdisplay.php?f=86
And their Mac Pro area http://forums.macrumors.com which has a lot of Vista talk from Mac Pro owners.
The only real issues are which graphics card to get today or in next weeks, what drives you are going with and other upgrades like memory (8 x 1GB is actually a good base ideal figure so all DIMM slots are taken up).
Barefeats has a number of benchmark articles:
Radeon 3870: http://www.hardmac.com/news/2008-06-16/#8451
Vista graphics: http://www.barefeats.com/harper11.html
Memory: http://www.barefeats.com/harper12.html
Drives: http://www.barefeats.com/harper9.html
WD 300GB Raptor: http://www.barefeats.com/hard103.html
- this is the drive to die for, but not natively supported
I buy most of the upgrades I need over the last ten years from OWC http://www.MacSales.com that specializes in Mac.
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/memory/Mac-Pro-Memory
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Western%20Digital/WD6400AAKS/
- until the WD "Black" series (I guess Blackbird name or SR71 are already taken) along with 3rd generation of their RE series drives. WD has been popular, reliable, with Mac Pro for last two years. Can't say the same of every vendor. Samsung F1 is also a real winner.
If you buy only one book to understand and get the most out of OS X: "Mac OS X: The Missing Manual" (Pogue has a Missing Manual Series on most everything, and this is the most popular recommended for Mac OS).
http://books.slashdot.org/books/08/02/27/1551206.shtml
I needed 3-4 for Vista before I found "Administrator's Pocket Consultant" and O'Reilly's "Vista Annoyances" are both excellent along with MS Press's "Inside Out."

WD1001FALS and 3.0ghz Mac Pro 8 Core Compatibility Questions

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