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macvillage.net · Mar 22, 2001, 06:05 PM

I have a B&W G3 (revision 1 without the U Bracket). I was considering getting a SCSI hard drive (changed my mind from an ATA drive). Here is what I was wondering:

Do I need to have a SCSI PCI Card or can I directly connect the SCSI drive to the motherboard of the B&W G3 and just go. I am not looking for anything faster than the ATA drive I have now (but since it is a Revision 1, I can't just get another ATA, without spending more than the SCSI drive that is).

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Paul S · Mar 22, 2001, 06:30 PM

There is no SCSI, internal or external on a B&W. You'd have to add a SCSI controller card. I suggest going ATA. You can get a Sonnet ATA/66 controller card that will support up to 4 drives. The card might be a little more expensive than a SCSI PCI card, but ATA drive will be significantly cheaper than a SCSI drive. Plus, the ATA/66 controller will be faster than the G3 built-in ATA/33 controller.

For a drive suggestion, go with the IBM Deskstar drives. 7200rpm and up to 75GB. I've seen the 75GB as low as $270 on-line. More than enough for most people unless you plan on doing a lot of digital video.

macvillage.net · Mar 22, 2001, 07:33 PM

Do you know of any manufacturers for the ATA/66 card? Thanks

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Paul S · Mar 22, 2001, 09:33 PM

Sonnet makes the Tempo card. VST also makes a card. It's more expensive because it has hardware RAID abilities built-in.

davidflas · Mar 23, 2001, 09:59 AM

Sonnet makes a raid-capable version of their card now too. Check out the non-raid card at http://www.sonnettech.com/product/tempo.html
raid card is at http://www.sonnettech.com/product/tempo_raid66.html

Both of these will be much faster than the drive that came with the G3

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"life is pain, Highness, anyone who tells you different is selling something."--The Man in Black from The Princess Bride

[This message has been edited by davidflas (edited 03-23-2001).]

Darth_Ellis · Mar 25, 2001, 11:43 AM

I have a rev A b/w g3-350. After hearing from Apple that the ATA controller doesn't accept multiple ATA drives, I set out to find a workaround. This is what I did.

It seems that the ATA controller is just "fussy" about multiple drives. Certain drives do seem to work, but others will not be recognized. I tried to install an IBM drive in a master/slave configuration with my stock hard drive with no luck. I then purchased a Maxtor 30 gigger (7200 rpm) and set it as the master, with my 6gb stock drive as the slave and it worked fine!! It would seem that the system board/controller is not as fussy with Maxtor drives (I have heard that from others).

The upshot is that now I have two ATA drives running on the primary ATA controller. I also threw a small 3gb drive in the second drive bay and attached it as a slave to the DVD drive and it works fine.

ATA drives are much cheaper than SCSI solutions in my experience. Just make sure you get a ATA ribbon cable that is spaced to accomodate your two drives side by side, or just buy a super long one (which is what I did).

Good luck and let me know if I can assist in any way.

Michael E.

macvillage.net · Mar 25, 2001, 02:56 PM

Well, afraid of corruption of the disk (since the controler has many flaws with Master/Slave config.) I decided to get the Sonnet Tempo card as a controler for the second drive. Now I am getting a 45GB IBM drive.

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