MP 1,1-5,1 OS Install Question

[brownk]

I have a 2010 Mac Pro (5.1 - 2.66x2), that came with Snow Leopard.

I have a new hard drive and would like to a do dual partition of Snow Leopard and Mountain Lion.

I assume I should do a Mountain Lion install and the add Snow Leopard to the 2nd partition? I assume this do the added complexities of Mountain Lion (Recovery Drive, FileVault 2,...).

I was considering encrypting the drive at erase (DEK - Disk Password), but heard it was safer to encrypt using FileVault 2, after installation?

So I guess the question is whether to erase the new drive with Snow Leopard or Mountain Lion?

Any help would be appreciated.

 

[nobullone1964]

I have a 2010 Mac Pro (5.1 - 2.66x2), that came with Snow Leopard.

I have a new hard drive and would like to a do dual partition of Snow Leopard and Mountain Lion.

I assume I should do a Mountain Lion install and the add Snow Leopard to the 2nd partition? I assume this do the added complexities of Mountain Lion (Recovery Drive, FileVault 2,...).

I was considering encrypting the drive at erase (DEK - Disk Password), but heard it was safer to encrypt using FileVault 2, after installation?

So I guess the question is whether to erase the new drive with Snow Leopard or Mountain Lion?

Any help would be appreciated.

Start with your older OS. When it boots into setup use disk utility to partition the drive into 2. Name them per OS. Install and when complete start over with the newer OS. You already have the partition needed by name. Install the newer OS on that partition (It really doesn't matter which OS you start with).

 

[KeesMacPro]

I assume I should do a Mountain Lion install and the add Snow Leopard to the 2nd partition? I assume this do the added complexities of Mountain Lion (Recovery Drive, FileVault 2,...).

As @nobullone1964 stated it doesnt matter from which OS you erase and format the new disk with 2 partitions.
Although physically 1 device, the OS (SL and ML) will see these as 2 different disks.
For Mountain Lion: during the install the OS will (automatically) make a small recovery partition inside the ML partition .
About encryption: FileVault is something you can consider and activate at any time after the install.