[Jansar]

Would anyone know what the largest HD I can put in one of these machines is? I already have two installed (two 120 GB drives), but I'm maximizing space because of movies and I would like to make my capacity much larger.

Also, what would be the best decision for me to do with the two open ATA/66 slots?

[DrBoar]

Go for serial ATA if you need really big drives
http://www.firmtek.com/seritek/
and two 250 GB should work out well.
The ATA/66 is linited to disks smaller than 128 GB, as I recall

[Link]

using the primary bus.. the biggest hard drives you can find.

Using the seconday bus.. 120gb drives. Have fun! (A PCI ATA133 card will do good here)

[awcopus]

Originally posted by Jansar:
Would anyone know what the largest HD I can put in one of these machines is? I already have two installed (two 120 GB drives), but I'm maximizing space because of movies and I would like to make my capacity much larger.

Also, what would be the best decision for me to do with the two open ATA/66 slots?

Get a Sonnet ATA/133 Tempo Card and you can add two 250GB Western Digital Caviar Drives (8MB cache) to your current config in the slots Apple cripples at ATA/66. Get the drives from hypermicro.com or newegg.com (reliable, cheap) and mention "storagereview.com" when you place your order for more savings from hypermicro.

Enjoy!

[Jansar]

Originally posted by DrBoar:
Go for serial ATA if you need really big drives
http://www.firmtek.com/seritek/
and two 250 GB should work out well.
The ATA/66 is linited to disks smaller than 128 GB, as I recall

I hear Serial ATA is mad fast, but it's a little bit out of my price range. Thanks very much though! I only need these drives to store some movies without much care of how fast they are.

Originally posted by awcopus:
Get a Sonnet ATA/133 Tempo Card and you can add two 250GB Western Digital Caviar Drives (8MB cache) to your current config in the slots Apple cripples at ATA/66. Get the drives from hypermicro.com or newegg.com (reliable, cheap) and mention "storagereview.com" when you place your order for more savings from hypermicro.

Enjoy!

Thanks very much! This is waht I plan to do, and as a previous customer of newegg (and satisfied), I will do just that. (I'll also add the price tag here post purchase to give some others an idea of how much that operation costs.

[Jansar]

So far, I placed an order with hpermicro.com for TWO 250GB WD Caviar drives with priority overnight shipping for $556. Amazing!

These drives go at around $360 each at MacMall!