[Raion]

Welcome to the club.

You have the widely known to be more reliable PSU, "The Cherokee" so as far as reliability goes it should be rock solid.

1 The front panel has little notches that line up with the bottom of the case. Gently align them, then rock the front of it back until the two tabs on the sides lock in. Everything should look even, panel fitment on these is perfect in 99% of cases.

2. I leave mine connected, no problems here, but feel free to go the extra mile and use a PDU or power strip to shut it down.

3. Both of those look like SI cards. You can add the second one to the carrier likely and get a second head.

4. Don't boot GNU/Linux for this, as GNU/Linux's XFS tools can't support IRIX versions anymore, but there's an XFS tool called xfs_dump, and its corresponding equivalent, xfs_restore. The Ian Mapleson guide works perfectly: http://www.sgidepot.co.uk/disksfiles.html#CLONE

Looks like you're rearing to go.