[G4] Internal Hard Drive compatibility for AGP

[Robert MacLeay]

Something which everyone is assuming you understand, but no one has said
aloud:

You are NOT going to be able to unplug a SCSI drive and insert an ATA/IDE
drive in its place.  A SCSI controller works with SCSI drives, and an IDE
controller works with IDE drives.  The cables are NOT interchangeable.  The
only things they have in common are the drive sled and the power cable.

Lucky you, there is a socket on the motherboard for attaching a pair of nice
cheap ATA/IDE drives.  Do buy a cable.

If you are going to be using this Mac for any length of time, consider
upgrading to a new controller card.  When I added a now-obsolete ATA-133
card to my Blue & White G3 and transferred my old drive from the onboard
controller to the new one, I saw disk transfer rates (measured with
Quickbench) go up by about 50% across the board.  You should see identical
improvements with a first-generation G4.  Go SATA (serial ATA) if you don't
need compatibility with an existing  ATA drive; it's even faster.


On Wed, 3 Jan 2007 21:39:04 -0600, JayB <FromJay at joimail.com> wrote:

> The reason I want to replace one of the drives (maybe both if cheap
> enough without losing speed) is, I think one may be about to crater.
> I'm running OS 9 on one and Panther on the other.  I've seen some
> unexplained slowing of the performance (although it's only at 1/2
> capacity) and a few times when running under the Panther drive, the
> OS 9 drive failed to show up on the desktop.  I've run disk utility
> and Tech Tool Deluxe.  I'll be dropping the OS 9 soon, but I like
> having the ability to go back to old software that I don't think I
> can upgrade or export (I've been running my photo biz on Macs since
> ''87).
> 
> So, I was thinking I should just spend $50 and replace the suspect
> drive (or both).  I just didn't think I could simply order any old
> IDE drive from Dealmac and plug and play.  Will I need to buy a
> different ribbon for that option?