[G4] G4 WD ATA drive

[sr ferenczy]

well... its a toss up. most drives today are ATA-100 spec (100 MB/s), 
but still only get around 20 MB/s transfer rates. and i believe the AGP 
macs were all ATA-66 busses (66 MB/s) so frankly the chance of a PCI 
card speeding things up tremendously is relatively low. you will 
however see a speed increase just upgrading to the WD drive (lower 
latency, faster read/write than the stock drive)

all told, you arent really missing much not using a PCI card - i have 
tested my WD 120 drives on both the internal bus and my acard ATA-133 
card, negligible differences. so the only reason i use my PCI card is 
to have access to drives >136 GB (i have a couple of 250's) because my 
QS's bus doesnt support ATA/6


	i would say save the $80!

hope that helps,

	sandor


On Jan 5, 2004, at 11:42 AM, Steven Austen wrote:

> I'm a novice with PCI cards, but I thought they were necessary to take 
> advantage of the newer drives' higher access speed.  If so, is it 
> worth the $80 for the PCI card?
>
> thanks,
>
> Steve
>
> ============================================================
> From: sr ferenczy <srf7425 at rit.edu>
> Date: 2004/01/04 Sun PM 09:59:46 EST
> To: "Power Macintosh G4 List" <G4 at lists.themacintoshguy.com>
> Subject: Re: [G4] G4 WD ATA drive
>
> your mac should be able to use a 120 GB harddrive with no problem
> without a PCI card. its the ATA/6 capability that you wouldnt have in
> the 450 - and that is only needed to support drives above 136 GB.
>
> sandor
>
>
> On Jan 4, 2004, at 9:49 PM, S Austen wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> I'm running G4, 450 MHz, AGP with original 20 GB hard.  I just
>> purchased a Western Digital ATA 120 GB drive.  I know that to take
>> full advantage of my new drive, I need to install a PCI card.
>> However, until I buy the new card, can I install the new drive, format
>> it, and use it, then install the card later without losing data?
>>
>> thanks,
>>
>> Steve
>>