Dvd-ram|-r(/w)|+r(w)

Pengu

Pengu

Digital Music Pimp
Heyas.
I have started full time work in the helpdesk where I am about to complete my Diploma of IT, and one thing I plan to do with my new found wealth, is a much needed upgrade of my G4. It is a G4 400Mhz, with Gigabit Eth., Orig. ATI Rage 128 16Mb, 320mb (64 orig + 256) ram and 60Gb (20 orig + 40). It has the factory DVD player in the bay, and a Sony CRX-175E in an external Firewire enclosure.

My plan is, to add a 120 Gb drive (probably move the "spare" drive into the bay used for the zip drive..) which will hold all my data (this will be my "Home" drive, apps/system will be on either the 20 or the 40), add some ram (256 or 512, depending on price) and if it isnt too expensive, repace my cd-rw with a more compatible one (it used to work with itunes etc, support is very limited since 10.2.8), most likely some form of dvd/cd combo. I keep practically everything I download, even the smallest of things. this gradually grows to become gigabytes of data. I anticipate that so long as employment continues, i will buy/flexirent a powerbook when i want to upgrade next, and use the g4 for a server of sorts at home, with say 3 120 gb drives for data backup.

Anyways the point of all this, is that I have been reading up on DVD-RAM (apple actually offered this in the three models available when i bought mine..) and it seems like the best way to go for backing up data to high-volume optical media. It doesnt have to record in a linear fashion, so i can actually delete and replace a file if i want, just like with a hard drive. anyways.
I'd also like to be able to write to standard dvd-r/rw and dvd+r/rw (i know dvd+r/+rw isn't actually approved by the dvd forum, but anyways).

I've seen a few drives that will write to CD-R, CD-RW, DVD-RAM, DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD+R and DVD+RW. The question is. Does anyone know of one that will work with OSX (will be on panther very soon) and does anyone know what the support for DVD-RAM is like? is it the way it's intended, acting like a "virtual hard drive" (allowing for true RAM (random access memory) (ie: non-linear) writing? what about dvd+r/+rw? is that supported under Panther?

I know this information is probably mostly posted on the boards somewhere, the search function invariably returns way too many results of way too little relevance. any advice would be appreciated.
 
You might want to double-check the DVD-RAM writing ability of the drives you've been looking at: most DVD drives that write to DVD-R/W and DVD+R/W will NOT write to a DVD-RAM, but will be able to read a DVD-RAM. They're two incompatible, completely different technologies, even though they use similar media.

We had a DVD-RAM (Apple-supplied internal model) under 10.2.6 and we could read and write to it from the Finder, but from the Finder only. It was good for backups and the like. I don't know how it would work under 10.3.

I would highly recommend the LaCie external DVD+/-R firewire drive -- I've always had good results with LaCie. It won't be DVD Studio Pro or iDVD compatible, but you can still burn a DVD through the finder or Toast.

DVD-RAM is an older technology, and I haven't seen a drive that will write to a DVD-RAM in a long time.

Also, may I suggest purchasing an internal ATA PCI card for that extra hard drive? If you put it in the Zip bay, you'll have to use the optical ATA cable, which is much slower than the hard drive ATA chain. You can get a simple ATA/100 or ATA/133 card for under $100, and the speed increase in data reading/writing is quite noticeable with 7200RPM drives.
 
Stay away from DVD-RAM. It's not that fast, it doesn't hold that much data, and it's hard to find media. I had a DVD-RAM in my g4/450, ofcourse there are like 4 different sizes, 2.6G, 5.2G (double sided 2.6G disk), 4.7G, and 9.4G (double sided 4.7G). To add to that, some media is in a plastic cartridge, others are a normal disk. The DVD-RAM that came with my sawtooth only works with the 2.6/5.2G discs that are in the cartidge, and they currently go for around $13 for the 2.6G one. You can get a 4.7G DVD-RW disk for around $3, and you don't have to flip it over to get more storage :) You'll quickly make up the difference in cost between a DVD-RW/+RW drive and a DVD-RAM drive. I'd look for an older Superdrive, probably an A-04, you can find them for $150-200 and they are supported without a problem as 1,000's of people have bought them and added them in (but if you want iDVD support, it must be internal).

Now, there are a few drives out there that support DVD-RAM/+RW/-RW, but they are not supported on the Mac natively (no iDVD, no finder burning, etc) but may be supported with either Toast or Retrospect.

On the CD-RW front, if you look in ad's you can find LiteOn 52x24x52x burners for around $20 after rebates. This drive is natively support in OS X.

As for other upgrades, the very first thing you should buy is a new videocard. I'd highly suggest getting either a Radeon 8500 (if you want dual monitors) or a Radeon 9000 (has DVI/ADC, so if you don't have an ADC monitor you need an adaptor to do dual displays). You will see a night and day difference once you're able to use Quartz Extreme. When I replaced the Rage 128pro on my g4/450 it felt like a new machine. Next I'd upgrade the memory to atleast 512, RAM is cheap (for $90 you could buy 3 more 256M modules and have 1G). Last I'd upgrade the CPU, if you're looking at best bang forthe buck, look at an 800Mhz upgrade you can get for around $250.

Brian
 
Your G4 Gigabet will run very well on Panther, much better than on Jaguar. I have a friend with the same machine and just installed Panther on it for him. Big difference.

The CD drive in your machine is a DVD-ROM. Replace that with Pioneer's DVR-106, the same drive Apple uses, and you'll be able to use iDVD with this drive installed internally. You can buy it at neweegg.com for about $131.00;

http://www.newegg.com/app/viewproduct.asp?DEPA=1&submit=Go&description=dvr-106

You don't have to move the spare drive at all. There is room for 4 hard drives in your machine, the original, one on top of that in the U brackets, and to the left of that drive on the floor, you'll see two drive brackets. Their are enough power cables for the CD (DVR), zip and 4 hard drives. The spare plugs are usually stuffed behind a bracket.

You might also want to think about replaceing the video card. I put the ATI 8500 in and that also makes a nice speed bump. Try to get as much memory as you can. That will also be an improvement in performance.

next step would be a processor upgrade, if you want to go that route. You can see what's available for your model here;

http://eshop.macsales.com/MyOWC/Upg...I=#TimeFormat(Now(),+&shoupgrds=Show+Upgrades

I would stay away from Powerlogix. The company doesn't seem to be doing well.
 
Sheesh!
Thanks for all the replies. I'll try to address them in order.

As for DVD-RAM. I know it only used to support 2.6 or whatever the size was, but it officially supports 4.7 now, so there is no size difference to DVD-/+R.. I did see a drive that writes to literally everything (dvd -r/rw +r/rw -ram cd-r/rw) but im not sure if it was mac native supported. anyways. i may not go the dvd-ram option, because it is as you said, an older technology..
As for the location of the "spare" hard drive, i wasn't aware the ide ribbon for the dvd/zip was slower, but isn't that speed going to be reflected in the slow-down in the PCI bus? either way. no biggie.

As for the liteon CD-r. If i get a dvd-r/rw it is going to have cd-r, and replace both of my current drives. i'm sick of having to use toast to make mp3/audio cds again, because apple changed something and i cant use itunes anymore.

as for ram. I know. ram will speed up a machine way more than a cpu upgrade alone. but remember. im not in the US. im in aus. Someone at work just bought two 256mb DDR sticks for a new PC he's building, and it was $160ish.256 is ~$90 here at the moment. it may be slightly cheaper because its not DDR, but it wont be much.

As for video, i've thought about it. Q. Extreme support would be nice, and it would mean i could actually play Ghost Recon... only problem is, i doubt the guy i get most of my stuff through can get ADC-compat. cards. Do ATI sell their OWN cards (most PC video cards are actually made by third parties, using either an nVidia or ATI chip) with ADC?? I have a 17" Studio Display CRT, so ADC is required. and im not going to upgrade, only to need a DVI-ADC converter. that is just plain stupid.

CPU upgrade, is not going to happen on this machine. it runs fairly fast for what it is, and i think a better video card and extra ram will help enormously.

Thanks again for all the insight.
 
There is no difference between these two drives. One is an OEM, the other is retail. Usually, the A06 comes with software and cables and cost more, but the drives are identical. You can check Pioneers site for this info.
 
Thanks for that bob. I found one for $~AU225. Thats like, $US166. ( I love the currency converter in Calculator.app)

Also, you mentioned the AGP/Gigabit G4s having a second IDE ribbon for HDDs. I've never found it when I've had the case open (add HDD, add RAM, swap DVD-Rom for CD-R (and then back again)).

Also. does anyone know the max speed of the PCI bus? The tech sheet from apple says they're 33mhz 64bit slots, but I'm wondering what sorta speed that will translate into with an ATA controller card in one.
 
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