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Meadowfield · Jul 24, 2003, 07:11 PM

Hi folks,

I've got a new Dual PM 125 and want to add an extra Hard Drive for back up. I am certainly not a power user, but am willing to pop-open the puppy and install it myself assuming I don't have to retrofit anything.

Suggestions are encouraged.

Thx

BrettOZ · Jul 24, 2003, 07:45 PM

Installation is very easy (Just follow the manual - if you got one with your machine, if not look on the Apple site). I would recommend the Seagate Barracuda (Fast, compatible with the ATA/100 and fairly quiet). In saying that you may want to go for the cheaper option of an ATA/66 drive and put it on the scond IDE channel?

Just some thoughts. oh yeah - congrats on the new purchase, I too have just bought a 1.25 dual system and it rocks!

jguidroz · Jul 24, 2003, 09:23 PM

I recommend Maxtor. Added two to my B&W G3 rev.1 and never had a problem with them.

awcopus · Jul 25, 2003, 12:30 AM

I recommend Western Digital Caviar drives, the big variety. For $200 you can have 200 gigabytes, speedy, quiet, 3 year warranty, and that extra 8MB cache makes a difference if you're editing any audio or video material.

Order from hypermicro.com. Very professional, very affordable. 30 day money back guarantee.

Want to have a reasonably objective basis for sorting through everybody's recommendations, go to www.storagereview.com.

Meadowfield · Jul 25, 2003, 08:59 AM

Thanks guys! Perhaps this will narrow down the running...

I'm a light user with only 11GB's used of 75 so size doesn't really matter. I'm most concerned about compatibility and ease of use. The whole IDE/ATA lingo's givin' me cold feet! Ideally, I'd like something that's plugnplay. Speed probably isn't that big-a-deal ether, I guess, so long as it can keep up with the OEM drive, right?

Then again, maybe I can take this opportunity to change the primary drive out and use it as a back-up. I've noticed it does rattle a little when it's warm...

drmbb2 · Jul 25, 2003, 09:27 AM

Since you mention that this new drive is a backup drive, I would strongly suggest a firewire device and NOT a second internal drive. The reason is simple, anything that might trash data on your primary drive may well hose your backup drive - power surge/spike, internal power failure during a read/write, etc.

Get a nice 7200 RPM firewire drive (LaCie, AcomData both make great drives - there are undoubtedly other good makes too, just those are the two I've personally used), connect it only during backups/restores, and between uses store it somewhere separate from your G4.

Just my $.02 worth.

awcopus · Jul 25, 2003, 10:00 AM

drmbb2:

Your advice would sound like wisdom were it not for the warning in my heart.

Meadowfield, back up your critical data on DVDs or CDs, not hard drives.

drmbb2 · Jul 25, 2003, 10:42 AM

Originally posted by awcopus:
drmbb2:

Your advice would sound like wisdom were it not for the warning in my heart.

Meadowfield, back up your critical data on DVDs or CDs, not hard drives.

For important personal files, I would agree. But the great thing about a Firewire drive, backed up with CCCloner, is you have an exact, and bootable, mirror copy of your system. My AcomData drive of course, is more likely to fail than a CD, but with a MTBF of something like 250K hours, and only being used once a week for a system backup, I'll accept that. I would not, however, ever put that same drive on the same bus and power supply as the machine it's backing up.

But I do also have CD's of my Documents and a few other specific folders too - a little paranoia is a good thing

Meadowfield · Jul 25, 2003, 01:04 PM

Agreed - the firewire is best for back-ups, and I do have a SmartDisk primarily for this purpose, but I'd also like to have the internal drive, if only for the tinker factor...

Meadowfield · Jul 26, 2003, 05:32 AM

I found a nice resource here:

http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/IDE/IDE_R...veinstall.html

But would like to know a little more about the possibility of moving the original drive to the "slave" position and perhaps getting a quieter/quicker/bigger (your preferred brand here) unit for the master slot. What's the difference betw the two anyway? Wouldn't you simply use the start-up control panel to select betw them?

Thanks for your patients..

Meadowfield · Jul 28, 2003, 11:22 AM

btw, what do I have now? The profiler doesn't list a vendor, just the device number ST380024A...

awcopus · Jul 28, 2003, 11:36 AM

You know, you could open your computer and take a look at it, too. Would take less time than it takes to open up System Profiler, let alone post a Q to the board.

My bet is you have a Seagate ATA V.

Meadowfield · Jul 28, 2003, 11:55 AM

Originally posted by awcopus:
You know, you could open your computer and take a look at it, too. Would take less time than it takes to open up System Profiler, let alone post a Q to the board.

My bet is you have a Seagate ATA V.

Good one! I suppose I could, but I'd miss out on the chance to commune with you guys!

Meadowfield · Jul 30, 2003, 05:37 AM

To conclusion...

I got a Western, had a drone, and resolved here

xBench reports nice improvements on both drives. Curiously, the Seagate does even better in the 66 bus!

Paul