Second HD for Power Mac G4?

R

RHITMacMan

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I was thinking about getting a second hard drive for my Graphite Power Mac G4 (Gigabit Ethernet Edition) computer. I wanted to get the latest Western Digital 7200 RPM 120 GB drive, but I wasn't sure about the compatibility. I believe it's an EIDE Ultra ATA/100 drive. I'm not sure if my G4 has an ATA/66 or ATA/100 bus. Assuming it has an ATA/66 bus, would an ATA/100 hard still work? If it would, what would be the down falls since it's not running on an ATA/100 bus? I wanted to install this drive internally along with the original 60 GB hard drive I already have.
 
I believe you have an ATA100 HD controler.

If not, the ATA100 HD will still work on an ATA66 controler. I have a Maxtor 80GB ATA100 HD on in my G4 which has an ATA66 controler in it.

There's no performance issues when running an ATA100 HD on an ATA66 bus. The HD will just work at ATA66.
 
I finally found an Apple page that contains all the specs for recent systems. After browsing the page, it looks like I actually have the Power Mac G4 Digital Audio version, since I have dual-533 MHz processors. According to the specs, I should have received an Ultra ATA/66 7200 RPM 60 GB hard drive. Although, I never found the spec sheet to actually state whether my ATA bus was actually just 66 or the 100 version, just what the hard drive was.

http://www.info.apple.com/support/applespec.html
 
It's an ATA/66 bus. Note how cleverly Apple glosses over this fact in their advertising by billing it as an "Ultra ATA" bus. Anything ATA/33 and over is technically "Ultra ATA", so they are using that ambiguous term to disguise the fact that their bus speeds are sadly lagging behind the current bus standards.

The new WD 120GB drives are backwards compatible, but they will be severely limited by the bus speed.

I recommend investing in an Acard or Siig ATA/100 or 133 card. You will definitely notice the difference. A stellar hard drive like the WD 120GB drives really cry out for such bandwidth.
 
I notice they list the Power Mac G4 Gigabit Ethernet, Digital Audio, and Quicksilver as having Ultra ATA/66 drives on the specs page. Then when you look at the spec page for the Quicksilver 2002, you notice that they just state that the drives are Ultra ATA. Quite interesting...

I looked up the Acard and couldn't find it anywhere. I found the Siig card, but it didn't list any Mac specs or compatibility. It just said Windows 95 or later. I don't think I want to get it though, since it stated that it only works with HDs up to 128 GB and I may end up getting a larger hard drive later. I believe Maxtor actually has the 160 GB drives out now.
 
Siig recently released Mac versions of their PCI ATA products at a good price point (both of which break the 137GB barrier):
http://www.siig.com/products/ide/features/UltraATA133_100Pro.html
http://www.siig.com/products/ide/features/UltraATA133_100RAID.html

Acard usually OEMs their ATA controllers to resellers like Sonnet Technologies, but you can source them direct as well. Their firmware supports Mac OS 9 & X and supports drives larger than 137GB:
http://www.acard.com/eng/product/adapter/mac/ide/aec-6880m.html

Sonnet Technologies OEM cards:
http://www.sonnettech.com/product/tempo_ata100.html
http://www.sonnettech.com/product/tempo_ata133.html
 
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