[G4] Much Ado About Harddrives

[Robert C. Buitron]

Wayne Clodfelter wrote:
> I am remarking, in place, below
> 
> Eric Wood wrote:
>>
> 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.
> 
> I believe there are now Firewire enclosures that do work with SATA 
> drives, and SATA drives generally cost less than equivalent sized PATA 
> drives.
> But there are also eSATA enclosures that connect to an eSATA PCI card 
> and are fully SATA I and SATA II compliant.
> I do not have eSATA but I do run 2 SATA drives (320GB Seagates) and 2 
> PATA drives (750GB and 120GB Seagates) internally, and 3 external 
> firewire drives (120GB ? brand Firewire 400, 120GB Seagate Firewire 800, 
> and 500GB Seagate Firewire 800) on my QuickSilver. They do require 3 
> separate PCI cards (the ATA for large drive support on this Mac).
> 
> IMHO, in the real world the speed difference of the drives is negligible 
> compared to other aspects of my computing experience. A good video card, 
> lots of RAM, a fast processor, and AMPLE SPACE on the hard drives are 
> much more important.
> 
> Were I to start today, I probably would run SATA internally and eSATA
> externally, for the price difference between SATA and PATA drives, and 
> because that is the direction I believe the Mac is going.
> 
> But that's just my opinion. For now.
> 
> There's a lot of info out on the web if you google things like "sata pci 
> mac" or "esata mac" or "esata enclosure" etc.

Thanks to all who responded to my questions regarding HDs and whether to 
use SATA or ATA externally. I plan to research the suggestions. Most 
likely I will buy 2 SATA HDs and the PCI card, remove the 2 internal ATA 
300 GB HDs connected to my ACard PCI, install the SATAs, and use the ATA 
HDs as external backups.

Lots of opinions out there, however you gave me excellent info and 
suggestions. I hope with the help of this forum, I can keep my G4 dual 
mirror going for another 4 more years. I'll probably buy a new machine 
in a year or so but this one continues to satisfy my needs.

Rob