SATA HD in a G4?

mikew

Registered
Can I get a Maxtor SATA/150 drive to run in a G4 450hz dual OS 10.4?
I've got a (Ultra ATA/133) serial ATA card.
 
I added a PCI SATA card to my Dual 1Ghz and have 2 160's hanging off it working along side the 2 80's that shipped on the ATA controller. Everything has been working perfectly.

Enjoy,
Eddie
 
mikew said:
I've got a (Ultra ATA/133) serial ATA card.
I don't think you have an Ultra ATA/133 Serial ATA card -- that's like saying you're hooking up a USB device to a FireWire port -- won't work!

Ultra ATA/133 is parallel ATA.

Serial ATA is serial ATA.

Two completely different interfaces... it sounds like you've got an Ultra ATA/133 card. To make sure, look at the card itself -- if the connectors for the hard drives are long (1 1/2" long, or thereabouts) and narrow with a bunch of pins in the connector, you've got Ultra ATA/133 parallel ATA and cannot use a Serial ATA hard drive with it.

If the connectors are smallish, and resemble a weird USB port or small connector of some sort, with flat pin connectors, then it's probably Serial ATA.
 
Thanks ElDiabloConCaca.
The box that the drive came in says that the
serial ATA card it comes with is "Ultra ATA/133 Combo PCI Card"
Maxtors site http://maxtor.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/maxtor.cfg/php/enduser/olh_adp.php?p_faqid=450
"The Ultra ATA-133/SATA PCI Combo Adapter Card will allow you to add up to two additional IDE devices to your system and 2 Serial ATA devices"
Ive installed it, but it does not show up.

ElDiabloConCaca said:
I don't think you have an Ultra ATA/133 Serial ATA card -- that's like saying you're hooking up a USB device to a FireWire port -- won't work!

Ultra ATA/133 is parallel ATA.

Serial ATA is serial ATA.

Two completely different interfaces... it sounds like you've got an Ultra ATA/133 card. To make sure, look at the card itself -- if the connectors for the hard drives are long (1 1/2" long, or thereabouts) and narrow with a bunch of pins in the connector, you've got Ultra ATA/133 parallel ATA and cannot use a Serial ATA hard drive with it.

If the connectors are smallish, and resemble a weird USB port or small connector of some sort, with flat pin connectors, then it's probably Serial ATA.
 
Ah, I see -- it's got both PATA/133 and SATA connectors. That's convenient!

Most likely, that card is not compatible with either Macintosh computers or Mac OS X... or both. Does Maxtor make any claims as to Macintosh compatibility with that card?
 
http://www.maxstore.com/product.asp?sku=2376583

If speed is important to you, boost the power of your Windows® PC with this Serial ATA PCI card. This card adds two SATA ports with burst transfer rates up to 150MB/sec—50 percent faster than ATA/100 interfaces. Also features an Ultra ATA/133 port that supports up to two ATA drives.

According to Maxtor, this is a PC only card, not Mac compatible.

ACCESSORIES
SATA
K01PCSATA Current — — SATA/150 and Ultra ATA/133 Combo Card 1 year PC only $49.95
 
WEll, if the card I got for free won't work...

Google keeps coming back to Sonnet's Tempo Serial ATA PCI card. Any suggestions/comments.
 
I've used a couple of Sonnet cards, and highly recommend them.

Sonnet has one SATA card that is for internal hard drives only, and then they've got a much higher priced SATA card that can support external hard drives -- be sure to take that into consideration when purchasing! ;)
 
Well I just bought a Tempo SATA (dual) card in hopes of setting up a RAID mirror on my new g5. It turns out I might not need it (If I can get Tiger to do it without the extra card) . If NewEgg won't take it back I might part with it cheap. I think on pre-tiger systems or maybe even pre g-5's you can't boot to a RAID array. I don't know if you can boot to an external PCI sata controller.

Nick
 
Well I was able to boot to the Sonnet Tempo Card. It only comes with one SATA cable however so I need to pick up another to see if the OS X RAID function will work with it. I'm having trouble getting the standard RAID setup to work in Tiger on a G5 single 1.8
 
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