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Snow Leopard Hardware Compatibility
Save your headaches by booting into 32-bit kernel mode, the default. You won’t lose anything by doing this, and it will minimize any driver issues.
Boot mode
Snow Leopard can boot into 32-bit or 64-bit mode, though the form the final release will take is unclear.
Expect issues in 64-bit mode with hardware devices and related software.
NEC 30" LCD PERMALINK
The NEC 30" LCD 3090WQXi is my favorite monitor of all time.
I had no problems calibrating the monitor with the Spectra View II software on Snow Leoaprd.
Sonnet Tempo E4P PERMALINK
I use this 4-port eSATA card frequently. Operation with driver version 2.1.9 has been problem-free in Snow Leopard (in the 32-bit kernel).
I am testing the beta version of the 64-bit driver; the 32-bit driver does not load if Snow Leopard is booted into the 64-bit kernel, which means that attached drives simply don’t show up on the desktop. Rebooting into the 32-bit kernel is your solution.
Sonnet Tempo SATA Pro ExpressCard/34 PERMALINK
Using version 2.1.9 of the Sonnet driver, I created a 2-drive RAID stripe (using Disk Utility) which worked in 32-bit kernel mode. Booting into 64-bit kernel mode the RAID stripe would simply not appear on the desktop, because the 32-bit driver does not load in 64-bit mode. See notes above on the 64-bit driver.
Hard drives and SSDs PERMALINK
No issues found on either my 2.66GHz quad-core Mac Pro Nehalem or 2.93GHz 8-core Mac Pro Nehalem.
External enclosures PERMALINK
External drives should be unaffected. However, any specialized software or drivers associated with specialized enclosures could be a source of concern in 64-bit mode.