[G4] Newcomer to G4 - query on hard disks

[John Baltutis]

On 12/23/05, Ian Piper <ianpiper at mac.com> wrote:
>
> I have just purchased a dual 450 MHz G4 (I think it is called a
> Gigabit Ethernet model). I have a question about hard disk expansion
> and would appreciate any advice you could offer.
>
> The machine has a 30 GB disk, located in drive bay 3. From the manual
> it seems that I can put two disks in this bay, and I can see the
> extra IDE and power cables to allow this. However, the manual also
> says that the G4 supports up to 3 internal drives. I can't see any
> IDE (or other for that matter) connectors in the other two drive
> bays, so how do I fit a third drive?

Confusing, isn't it. I have that machine and Apple isn't too clear. You can
install TWO IDE/ATA HDs (top of pg. 57) or three SCSI HDs, if and only if, it
initially came with and Ultra160 SCSI drive (top of pg. 64) or you install a
PCI expansion card (pg. 66).

> Is it possible to put an
> internal hard drive in the bay where the zip drive would normally go
> (there is a second IDE bus with the DVD-ROM drive on it and a spare
> IDE connector)?

Yes, but that bus is much slower because it uses the ATAPI protocol (intended
for CD/DVD, tape, and ZIP drives) vice the ATA protocol (for HDs). See
<http://www.ata-atapi.com/hist.htm#T4> and
<http://www.stanford.edu/~csapuntz/ide.html> for details.

> If it were possible presumably I would have to set
> the DVD jumpers to slave and the disk's jumpers to master. I have a
> Mac Cube and I am pretty sure that it has one IDE bus, holding the
> disk and DVD-ROM, so on the face of it it should be possible. Has
> anyone done anything like this?

IIRC, others have. I haven't, being content to run two 128 GB ATA HDs
internally and a 300 GB FWHD externally.

>
> Brief background - I would like to use the existing drive as a boot
> disk and add two RAID (mirrored) 120 GB disks to use the computer as
> a file server for my network.

Can't help with this one.