[G4] Options for adding disk space to Power Mac G4?

[Eric Wood]

Am Jan 14, 2008 um 9:40 PM schrieb Eric Smith:

> I have a Power Mac G4 ("Sawtooth" model) with these attributes:
> 1.0 GHz CPU (Sonnet upgrade)
> 1.3 GB RAM
> USB 2.0 card
> 2 internal ATA drives:
>  - 20 GB drive w/ two partitions, one has OS 9.2.2 and the other
>    has 10.4.11
>  - 57 GB drive at this time mainly holds iTunes database
>    (~18 GB and growing slowly)
>
> I want to install Leopard on this system, just because it's the
> latest and greatest and I want to play with it, and also to try
> out Time Machine. I would do an initial install and not disturb
> the contents of the 20 GB drive. My options as I see it are:

...
>
> 5. Add another internal drive to the system. Unfortunately here,
> two ATA drives is the maximum. Another drive would require a PCI
> controller card for ATA/133, SATA, or SCSI, and probably some
> mounting brackets, etc. While this would offer the best performance
> it is definitely the most expensive option, and there's still that
> 128 GB limit.
>
> I'm leaning toward 3 or 4, but I thought I would put it out to the
> list to see if anyone has an opinion on the advantages vs. tradeoffs,
> or any ideas of other options that I have missed.
>
> Thanks,
> Eric
>

I replaced the old ATA drives in my G4 with serial ATA, and it's been  
grand. I don't think a SATA card costs very much, and you certainly  
don't need any additional mounting hardware - SATA drives fit fine  
where your ATA drives do. Rather than cluttering your space up with  
external drives, just modernise the inside of that puppy.

Matter of fact, I turned two SATA drives into a software RAID. You'll  
want to keep important data backed up, of course, since if one drive  
goes, it's bound to spell the end of the entire virtual volume.  
Otherwise, I think I'd put Leopard onto one and then use the second  
to store huge data, such as your iTunes library. My drives are 500 GB  
and 120 GB.

Eric W.