Hard Drives

J

jsorrell

Registered
Hello Again,

I'm wondering if anyone can help me with this one. I have a G4 733 Quicksilver with a 40Gig HD. I am looking to get more storage space, and I was looking into maybe a Firewire Hard Drive. I know that this machine has a ATA/66 HD interface (? if thats what its called) and I see some large HDs but they are ATA/133, and the card that I would need to install to be able to use the HDs are another $99. I was thinking maybe along the line of a Firewire Hard Drive. I am not sure if I could actually use one to boot and run everything on (and just use the internal one for "Backups") or if I can just use it to backup documents on and still boot and run my apps from the internal Hard Drive. Does anyone have any information they could share with me to figure out what my options are. I know I should probably just get a new Mac, but I'm kinda fond of this one and I wouldn't want to give it up. Thank you!!!

Justin
 
I've got a laptop so i've gone for external firewire drives for extra storage. If you are looking for the easiest solution, buy an external fw drive, keep your system and apps on the internal drive and leave files on the external drive.

My small tip- check out the lacie triple interface drives (usb2, firewire 400 and 800). They seem reasonable priced and will work great with your current machine but will also work with the faster firewire 800 if you get a new machine in the future. Also, usb2 is useful for attaching it to pcs or older, non-fw macs.

The lace triple interface drives are a touch more expensive than competitors, but they are available from the apple online store, so i got an educational discount.
 
jsorrell said:
I know that this machine has a ATA/66 HD interface (? if thats what its called) and I see some large HDs but they are ATA/133, and the card that I would need to install to be able to use the HDs are another $99.
Click to expand...

You won't need a card, unless you're out of channels. Most HDs sold today are backwards compatible (ATA interface). I have an ATA100 120gb Seagate drive running just fine in a Beige G3 DT (6 months). Before that there was a 30gb WD ATA100 drive which ran perfectly for a few years.

Tiger Direct (http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/Category/category_hdd.asp) has a WD 200mb 8mb cache drive for $89 after rebates right now. I'm more partial to Seagate drives, but WDs have served me well in the past. I wouldn't touch a Maxtor drive with a 100' stick.

Just pop the large one in as your main system disk, then purchase a firewire enclosure to house the 40gb stock drive and use it for backups and such. You can grab the enclosures for $30+.
 
True: you'll need an ATA PCI card like this one:

http://sonnettech.com/product/tempo_ata133.html

...if you want to be able to use more than 127GB of that drive. Even if you partition the drive into partitions smaller than 127GB, you'll still only get 127GB total out of the drive, if installed internally to the internal ATA bus. That's why you'll need the card if you wish to install internally.

As far as I know, the MDD G4 towers were the first to support 48-bit LBA (Large Block Addressing), which is what allows the computer to "see" more than 127GB on a hard drive.
 
The 200gb drive is still a bit cheaper right now than most of the 120gb ones...so buying it and 'loosing' anything above 127gb is probably worth it. They do have a 120gb WD drive for $69 after rebates at Tiger Direct.
 
I am in the same situation right now.

I want to add a 160GB drive to my QuickSilver 2002 Model. Mine has 2 80's in it right now. I think I need another controller to add more internal drives? Anyone want to verify that? I was looking at the OWC SATA controller, and then getting a Seagate 160GB. Does anyone see this being an issue?

I also have a very interesting situation that I need to attempt:

I can't afford downtime. Right now I have Jag on my QS2002. I am planning on moving to Panther if this new drive works out. But I want to set my system up right since I am going through all this trouble anyway.

Here's the plan:

1. Install the 160 on the new controller card. Carbon Copy Clone both of my 80's to the 160...I need to be able to boot something if the install goes awry.

2. Wipe clean and install Panther and my programs on one of the 80's. Copy over my user settings and anything I want from the Jag install now sitting on the 160.

3. Once I have this up and going, clean off the 160 and use it for it's intended purpose - as a media drive for our studio (stills and DV work). The other 80 will be used as a backup drive.

Anyone have any thoughts on this?

Here are links to the controller and drive I was thinking about...

http://eshop.macsales.com/Catalog_Item.cfm?ID=6952&Item=SIISCSATM12

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=22-148-018&depa=1

Thanks for any help anyone can shoot this way.

Later,
Eddie
 
Yes, you'll need to add a Controller card to have more drives. The SATA Controller card is a Serial ATA card for drives like the G5's come with.

Make sure if you get that card, to also get an SATA drive, otherwise, get an ATA 100 or 133 card.

The card and drive you linked to are fine.

You plan is also fine, but I would clone your bootup disk to the new drive and make sure it boots before going further.
 
Exactly as I had planned bobw...thank you for the reassurance. Also, I think I read one of your posts on a different thread about the SATA drive/card combo. So I was taking that into consideration already...

Sounds like it's just a go...now I need to get off my lazy butt and buy this stuff...which is going to happen right about now!

Later,
Eddie
 
Go to pricewatch.com and click on Hard Drive then SerialATA and you'll see some better prices.
 
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