[G4] Large disks on G4 Gb enet and controller questions

[Petter Adsen]

Hi everybody,

I have a Gbit Ethernet with 2x450MHz G4 CPUs, and desperately need  
more diskspace. From what I understand, this model cannot handle new,  
larger disks (above 120GB?) without installing a new controller.  
Sometimes I connect a 250GB USB disk that I use to move data and that  
works just fine, I suppose that's because there is a controller in  
the drive enclosure that does the job. I also have two external  
Firewire disks, but they are both smaller than 120GB, so I don't know  
if I could swap one of these drives for a bigger one, or if I'd also  
need a new enclosure. I guess the only way to find out is to try a  
larger drive in these enclosures?

As I mostly need the additional space for storage, speed is not  
really that essential, so I'm not sure if I should get a new  
controller and a big disk to mount internally, or just buy another  
USB or Firewire device. In any case, the disk will need to stay  
connected to this machine at all times, so paying extra for a  
portable device is meaningless in this scenario.

With a new controller, will I be able to boot off it, or would I need  
a boot disk connected to the onboard controller? The prospect of  
disregarding the onboard controller entirely and installing a new,  
fast controller with one very fast disk for the OS and applications  
and another very large disk for data is very tempting, in order to  
speed up the system and swap etc.

If I do need to boot off a disk connected to the onboard controller,  
is it possible to just load the kernel from this disk and then hand  
over control to a disk connected to the new controller and use that  
new disk as a root device? (Like most UNIX machines are able to do  
from tape or CD or whatever?)

And what kind of controller cards should I be looking at? What is  
available for these machines, and what sort of price am I looking at  
for the controller alone? Is SATA an option?

So, what I'd really like to know is what sort of controller I should  
go for if I choose to go the internal route. Does anyone know of a  
compatible controller that can handle large disks, and that the  
system will recognize and be able to boot from? If it can also give  
me better performance than I'm getting today that would be wonderful,  
but I am willing to live with similar disk performance to what I have  
now as long as I can get more space. However, as I would really like  
to upgrade the processors at some point, hopefully not too far into  
the future, I'd like to get better disk performance first, if  
possible, and this would be a good time to do that.

Has anyone out there got any experience with this they would be  
willing to share? Any pointers to controller cards I might want to  
take a look at, or another idea altogether that I haven't even  
thought about?

All hints and tips are guaranteed a loving home ;-)

Petter