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louh · Jan 21, 2006, 07:34 PM

I have a dual 1Ghz Dual PowerPC G4 mirrored door drive. All of the internal hard drive bays are filled with hard drives no larger than 160GB. These four hard drives are all filled with only 10% remaining capacity. I also have a Siig Firewire 800 + USB 2.0 Combo PCI Card installed.

I am in the process of new iMovie projects and need more hard drive space.

My question is should I replace one of the internal drives or buy an external Firewire 800 and/or USB 2.0 drive. My two main criteria for purchase are, in order of importance, getting the best speed possible when using this drive, and capacity of the drive. Price really isn't an issue, just overall speed and capacity - mainly speed.

I would not replace the original ATA/100 device that contains the operating system, applications, plugins, etc. if I went the internal route, even though this is the smallest drive at 80GB. Call it paranoia in something not working after replacement. I would replace the other ATA/100 device.

Can anyone give me advice on the best hard drive to get whether it is internal or external?

Thanks,
Lou

mduell · Jan 21, 2006, 11:33 PM

Buy a new internal SATA drive and an SATA PCI card.

500GB Seagate SATA drive for $350ish.
Someone else will have to recommend an SATA card for you.

Back up 15 and punt · Jan 22, 2006, 12:19 AM

You can pick up a decent firewire 800 enclosure for about $50 to $130. I personally like OWC enclosures but you will pay a premium for them. As for the Hard drive I would recommend that you go with a Seagate drive. If you look for sales you can probably find a 250gb drive for about $100.

mduell · Jan 22, 2006, 01:16 AM

FW800 would be slower (and more expensive) than internal SATA.

louh · Jan 22, 2006, 08:57 AM

Thanks for the suggestions but I'm a bit confused. Can I simply replace the smaller ATA/100 drive that is currently in the second ATA/100 bay without the purchase of a new SATA PCI card?

This part confuses me! What is the difference between SATA and ATA? Do they need different PCI cards?

Thanks for your help.
Lou

Originally Posted by mduell

Buy a new internal SATA drive and an SATA PCI card.

500GB Seagate SATA drive for $350ish.
Someone else will have to recommend an SATA card for you.

Back up 15 and punt · Jan 22, 2006, 09:05 AM

Yes, you can simply replace the drive. The drive you remove could then be placed in an external housing or vice versa.

mduell · Jan 22, 2006, 02:32 PM

Originally Posted by louh

Thanks for the suggestions but I'm a bit confused. Can I simply replace the smaller ATA/100 drive that is currently in the second ATA/100 bay without the purchase of a new SATA PCI card?

This part confuses me! What is the difference between SATA and ATA? Do they need different PCI cards?

Yes, you could, but you stated in your original post that you wanted performance. With two drives sharing the same ATA bus you're not going to get the same performance you can get from having each drive on its own cable.

SATA is a newer replacement for ATA. It uses smaller cables (instead of the ribbon cables ATA uses) and supports higher transfer speeds. Yes, they need different PCI cards.

OreoCookie · Jan 22, 2006, 03:28 PM

300 GB drives usually have the best bang for the buck right now. There are faster/larger drives out there, but you pay a premium either way.

louh · Jan 24, 2006, 11:48 AM

Originally Posted by mduell

Yes, you could, but you stated in your original post that you wanted performance. With two drives sharing the same ATA bus you're not going to get the same performance you can get from having each drive on its own cable.

SATA is a newer replacement for ATA. It uses smaller cables (instead of the ribbon cables ATA uses) and supports higher transfer speeds. Yes, they need different PCI cards.

There are four seperate bays in my computer. Each with their own ribbon cables. The two in the rear bay are set up for ATA/100. When this computer was newly purchased, one of theseATA/100 bays had the origianl hard drive, leaving one ATA/100 with it's own cables. Are these two sharing the same ATA bus? If so, tha's how it will have to be because I need all of the storage space that I can spare.
I'm still confused about the smaller cables that come with SATA. Will I just ingore the ribbon cables that are currintly in the second ATA/100 bay and buy an appropriate PCI card and connect the new drive via the PCI card? Does anyone have any suggestions on a PCI card? It looks like 33MHz or 66/33MHz cards will work that compy with PCI2.1 standard and come with Mac driver software.

Slowly but surely this is starting to make sense to me.
Lou

louh · Jan 24, 2006, 11:50 AM

Originally Posted by mduell

Yes, you could, but you stated in your original post that you wanted performance. With two drives sharing the same ATA bus you're not going to get the same performance you can get from having each drive on its own cable.

SATA is a newer replacement for ATA. It uses smaller cables (instead of the ribbon cables ATA uses) and supports higher transfer speeds. Yes, they need different PCI cards.

There are four seperate bays in my computer. Each with their own ribbon cables. The two in the rear bay are set up for ATA/100. When this computer was newly purchased, one of theseATA/100 bays had the origianl hard drive, leaving one ATA/100 with it's own cables. Are these two sharing the same ATA bus? If so, tha's how it will have to be because I need all of the storage space that I can spare.
I'm still confused about the smaller cables that come with SATA. Will I just ingore the ribbon cables that are currintly in the second ATA/100 bay and buy an appropriate PCI card and connect the new drive via the PCI card? Does anyone have any suggestions on a PCI card? It looks like 33MHz or 66/33MHz cards will work that compy with PCI2.1 standard and come with Mac driver software.

Slowly but surely this is starting to make sense to me.
Lou

louh · Jan 24, 2006, 11:58 AM

I'm really sorry for the dual post. I got a message that I wasn't logged in so I posted again before checking if my original made it.
Soory

mduell · Jan 24, 2006, 05:52 PM

If two drives are on the same cable (so the cable goes logic board->drive->drive), then they're sharing the bus. As far as I know your MDD only has ports on the logic board for drives to plug into.
Yes, for SATA drives you'll plug the drive into a PCI card using a different, smaller cable.