[X4U] powermac g4/533

[Daly Jessup]

At 2:05 PM +0100 27/2/07, alexandre wrote:
>hi
>
>i'm looking to set up a file server at my 
>home/office and have found a powermac g4 533 mhz 
>selling for 60¤ (chf 100.-). i'm planning on 
>installing 2 (and later 2 more) 500gb drives in 
>it.
>
>mactracker software says this model has 4 
>internal 3,5" ATA bays, but that it does NOT 
>have "large drive support".
>
>is this true? is there any way to go around this limitation?

It is true. I have no experience of this, but it 
appears that you can get a PCI card from Sonnet 
and then update the G4's firmware to enable large 
drive support. You have to boot into OS 9 to do 
the firmware update. See this page: 
<http://www.sonnettech.com/downloads/largedrive_sw.html>

On this page they show the Tempo ATA133 PCI card 
that supports four hard drives.
<http://www.sonnettech.com/product/pci_adptrs.html> 
I can't find that card listed in their price 
list, but you could call them about it.

Then on this page they go into detail. It looks 
like you need custom cables as well, to connect 
the four drives.
<http://www.sonnettech.com/product/tempo_ata133.html>

Anyway,  it looks like you should be able to put 
together a solution, though the solution will 
cost more than you paid for the computer!   :-0

Daly


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