[G4] upgrading G4 HDD, RAM, backup, wireless, etc.

[Charles Williams]

Ronald Wrote:

>Put most of your money into the RAM upgrade

I have been looking at 2nd hand prices and (I'm in Australia BTW) it 
seems just a 'cost effective' to order new SDRAM from the US as to 
source it used from ebay. The question is just how much do I need. My 
'thrift' concept obliges me to leave the existing 3-3-3 256mb stick 
in place, but should I add an extra 512 or 1024?

Does RAM 'quality' matter much? Is it worth paying a premium for 
certain types of RAM?

>and then a larger hard  drive.

I have been tempted by SATA and eSATA cards, but I think that what I 
need is about 320-500GB of 'common or garden' storage on my 'main 
drive'; in the case, on the original bus. Are there any traps to 
aware of when buying a new drive?  What's the difference between IDE, 
EIDE, PATA? Or even more simply... what should I look for?

One consideration is that I'd like to keep a mirror/ or backup of my 
data because once I have encoded all my CDs I surely won't want to be 
doing it over again in case of a HD crash. Any suggestions?

>You can find a good new DVD burner by searching the net for vendors 
>with Pioneer brand burners

Does a Pioneer 110D secondhand seem like a reasonable option? Will I 
be able to boot from it if required?

>Haven't used an airport base, so no comment on that question.

I need to get my hands on it to try it out, but it should be free. 
It's that or a PCI card, I can't see the point in paying through the 
nose for an Apple airport card.

I have seen an ebay seller with "AirPlus" PCI cards from D-Link who 
claims that they will work with Apples (seen as Airport card), does 
anyone know what model this would be? Is it the case that  PCI 
wireless cards generally work under OS10.4* if they contain the 
correct chipset?

>You might consider an upgrade for your processor, but 800 is still
>good for what you describe as your normal usage.

Yes, I think that with more RAM and a slightly improved disk 
performance I can live with it for a long time.

*Is there a general sense that performance under OSX has been 
improving for all G4s as OSX has developed, or is there a 'sweet 
spot' (i.e. a particular install) that I should aim for?

Thanks for your help.

Regards,

Charles

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