mdd hard drives

[bobw]

Yes, they are in order. The fastest bus is listed first (ATA-100), in your machine.

[shelbydodgeimp]

If they are in order, why is the optical drive bus in the middle?

The optical drives on the MDD are ATA33 which is the slowest bus.

[bobw]

Your system specs show it has only two Hard Drive ATA Bus's, ATA/66 and ATA/100.

One Optical drive bus - ATA-3

[shelbydodgeimp]

Right, but the oiptical drive bus is the slowest ATA bus so it *should* be listed last in Apple Sys Profiler-> ATA

[shelbydodgeimp]

Also, FYI according to the faq here:
http://forums.macnn.com/showthread.php?t=246391

In 2002, Apple adopted a newer IDE controller with the QuickSilver '2002' model that made use of 48-bit addressing, thus alleviating the 128GB barrier and allowing the use of IDE drives in excess of 250GBs+. If you own one of the following Power Macintosh models, you're free to roam the storage prairie with no restraints;

Power Macintosh G4 - QuickSilver '2002' (800MHz, 933MHz, Dual 1GHz)
Power Macintosh G4 - MDD '2002' (Dual 867MHz, Dual 1GHz, Dual 1.25GHz)
Power Macintosh G4 - MDD '2003' (Single 1GHz, Dual 1.25GHz, Dual 1.42GHz)

One common misconception is that ATA-100 or ATA-133 are necessary for large drive support. This is untrue. It just so happens that ATA-100/133 became prevalent at the same time as 48-bit LBA. Thus, pretty much all ATA-100/133 controllers have large drive support, but they are not one and the same.

The QuickSilver '2002' model featured an ATA-66 controller in conjunction with 48-bit addressing, and thus is capable of using large drives. The same goes for the secondary ATA-66 controller in MDD machines, which is also capable of supporting large drives.