CustoMac 2012 Buyer's Guide - My First Build

[crdualboot]

First off - Thanks for taking an interest in my build!! This will be my first - and I am really looking forward to it. I have spent the last 3 weeks reading post after post with the hopes of getting off on the right foot as my parts arrived. I have some super basic questions but I am confident that with a little patience and some posts I can have a great - stable build. Thanks in advance for any help you can provide - after I get it up and running I will format and move it over to the user build section. I hope this meets with the rules - If I should move it there now - let me know.

This will be used for gaming (on the windows 8 side) and photo/video editing (on the OSX side)

Components
Intel Core i7-3770
GA-Z77X-UP5-TH
GeForce GTX 670
SanDisk Extreme SATA 6Gb/s 120GB SSD x2 - Would like Win 8 boot on one, ML on the other
Seagate Barracuda SATA 6Gb/s 1TB HDD - Split partition - one for OSX one for Win 8?
16GB Corsair 1600Mhz DDR3
Corsair 650watt
TP-Link PCI Express Wifi Adapter
Corsair Carbide 500R


I am going to start working on my boot USB with ML on it. I have also read that when dual booting - the Windows side should be installed first. Is this only relevant when you are dual booting on the same drive? I have read through the dual booting for novices post but it states its for using only one drive. How much of this info should I use with my separate drive setup? Any advice would be great - have read many posts from stork, Going Bald etc - so thanks for what you all have done already.

PS - all items were purchased via the links on the buying guide to help support things.

 

[Going Bald]

I am going to start working on my boot USB with ML on it. I have also read that when dual booting - the Windows side should be installed first. Is this only relevant when you are dual booting on the same drive? I have read through the dual booting for novices post but it states its for using only one drive. How much of this info should I use with my separate drive setup? Any advice would be great - have read many posts from stork, Going Bald etc - so thanks for what you all have done already.

PS - all items were purchased via the links on the buying guide to help support things.

Welcome to the world of build and run!

Dual booting on 2 drives is the easiest thing to do. Question for you though, are you ever going to need access to the Windows drive from OS X of to the OS X drive from Windows?
If not, I highly recommend you spend a bit extra and get one of these: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817990016

This allows you to have only one OS in the build at a time and no possible way Win8 can write on your OS X drive and you won't have spotlight indexing files and Time Machine "don't use this drive for backup" files on the Win8 drive.

I would suggest drives in pairs - SSD for OS and HDD for User files
Use http://lnx2mac.blogspot.com/2010/09/moving-os-x-users-to-separate-partition.html for the OS X side
Not sure what to use for Win8 yet - Haven't tried it, but http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorial...ate-move-during-windows-7-installation-3.html might work.

 

[crdualboot]

I guess I have not really thought about it. I don't have any special reason currently to access the files at the same time. Would I still be able to use my single HDD for storage on both sides? Does this require you to physically swap the drives? If so - is there any increased risk of damage or corruption?

On the storage front - you mentioned in pairs - do you mean a total of four drives (Two SSD for Boot and two HDD) instead of partitioning the single HDD? I have been doing some reading on a dual boot post and it mentions going exFAT - although that is not really great corruptions wise? Can you run two formats in separate partitions on the same drive?

 

[Going Bald]

On the storage front - you mentioned in pairs - do you mean a total of four drives (Two SSD for Boot and two HDD) instead of partitioning the single HDD?

Precisely. SSD is boot drive/OS files only. All of your user files/Libraries links in Win7 are on the 3.5" drive. Same for OS X.

Internal drives are for sharing between OS X and Windows.
If you buy a large enough SSD, and don't have a lot of files, you could leave them on the SSD and use the 3.5" drive for backups/Time Machine. Or not have the 3.5" drive at all.
The point here is never to have the two OS drives in the build at the same time.

Been using this method ever since they came out with externally accessed hot swap trays and haven't had any problems.

 

[kayak4water]

Thanks to Going Bald and threads here I got my system going. I have windows 8 on one drive and OSX on another. My Thermaltake Level 10 Series Level 10 GTS Snow Edition SECC ATX Mid Tower Computer Case permits me to slide into contact the HD with the OS of the hour. I'd bought my case before I had an opp to see the KINGWIN KF-253-BK 2.5"&3.5" Multi-Function Hot Swap Rack w/ USB 3.0 Hub that Going Bald presented below.

The Hot Swap Rack looks like it fits in a 5.25" external drive bay. It looks like a better way ergonomically if one has dual drives for each OS.

In my system using a mechanical hard disk for each OS, Windows 8 boots in about 8 seconds after the POST. OSX 8.2 Mountain Lion takes about 25-30 seconds. With both drives in contact, I can choose, but that also increases the boot times.

BTW, programs I ran in Windows XP work in Win 8. They have an icon in the Metro Start Screen and in practice, work within the Desktop app. That includes Quicken Deluxe 2012 for Windows, despite a Quicken forum fan claiming that Win 8 requires the 2013 version.
If I needed to access the other HD from the active OS, I'd build a mini-ITX system for the Win 8 drive. Maybe add a KVM (keyboard, Video, Mouse) switch.

 

[crdualboot]

Thanks for the tips - Glad to report the build went well and step one - SSD 1 with Windows 8 is loaded and fully functional! All items out of the box worked flawlessly and I am up and running. I have ordered the hotswap rack as advised below and will be trying to get ML up and running after swapping out the drives. I'll report back after the next step - one that I think will be a little more difficult. Overall though - bios is up to date F11 and I think all my setting are ready. I need to run a search for backup options - any tips there?

Thanks!

 

[Going Bald]

Thanks to Going Bald and threads here I got my system going. I have windows 8 on one drive and OSX on another. My Thermaltake Level 10 Series Level 10 GTS Snow Edition SECC ATX Mid Tower Computer Case permits me to slide into contact the HD with the OS of the hour. I'd bought my case before I had an opp to see the KINGWIN KF-253-BK 2.5"&3.5" Multi-Function Hot Swap Rack w/ USB 3.0 Hub that Going Bald presented below.

Ha! Guess that's one way to do it - buy a case with the HDDs already in hotswap bays. No need to buy one.