[G4] Much Ado About Harddrives

[Eric Wood]

Am Jan 16, 2008 um 9:58 PM schrieb Robert C. Buitron:

> Doug Burton wrote:
>> On Jan 16, 2008, at 6:24 PM, Tony Gamble wrote:
>>> It'll be perfectly compatible... provided you also install a SATA  
>>> card to run it, such as this one:
>>>
>>> http://eshop.macsales.com/item/SIIG/SCSATM12/
>>>
>>> Once everything is plugged in, open up Disk Utility and format  
>>> the drive with the Mac OS Extended file system.
>>>
>>>
>>> Tony
>> <SNIP>
>> I just checked OWC's website dealing with SATA cards and I don't  
>> see one that will support 4 drives.  Do they make one for the Mac  
>> that will support 4 drives?  If I upgrade my DA file server to  
>> SATA as I have been planning to do, I need one that will support 4  
>> large SATA drives.  Right now I have 4 IDE drives running off an  
>> Acard Ultra 133 ATA PCI card which supports 4 drives.  Besides the  
>> cable mess the Acard won't support Ultra ATA speeds and that was  
>> the main reason I upgraded my server to a DA.
>
> I've been following this thread about HDs as I'm considering buying  
> two external HDs for back-ups. Perhaps one or several of the  
> experts might chime in and offer an opinion or suggest where I  
> might find information that will help in the purchase decision.
>
> I have a G4 dual 1.25 GHz, 2GB of RAM (maximum), and 4 internal  
> hard drives, 2 of which are supported by an Acard Ultra 133 ATA PCI  
> card. My G4 is the mirrored drive (please bear with me as I don't  
> know the exact Mac descriptive names) with 400/800 FW.
>
> What would be the best kind of external hard drive (that's  
> bootable) - SATA or ATA, and would I need a another PCI card if I  
> were to get SATA? Or could I switch the internal HDs with the new  
> SATAs, installing the new SATAs in the G4 and using the old ATAs  
> (300GB each) as external?
>
> I use my machine primarily for image editing - photography - hence  
> the need for large storage media.
>
> Thanks, and BTW, I enjoy and appreciate all the information that's  
> exchanged on this forum.
>
> Rob

You will need a serial ATA controller to use a serial ATA drive, and  
for your model of Mac, that will mean buying a PCI card. You would  
then install those drives internally and, if it is your wish, move  
your old parallel ATA drives into external enclosures that plug into  
Firewire or USB.

That system probably has room for 3 or 4 hard drives internally, so  
you wouldn't necessarily need to move any drives outside the case. I  
don't know of any external enclosures for serial ATA drives, and even  
if there were one, it would negate the speed benefit of serial ATA,  
since serial ATA operates much more quickly than Firewire or USB  
would permit.

Your serial ATA drives should be perfectly bootable once installed,  
and I'd certainly recommend doing just that. External drives are  
great for back-ups, in my humble opinion.

Eric W.