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moki · Dec 24, 2003, 11:05 PM

(I'm sure this has been asked before, and I did try to use the Search function on MacNN, but it seems to be temporarily broken)

I have a G4 Cube that I'm planning to convert for more nefarious purposes, but I'd like to replace the hard drive in it.

The OEM hard drive is a bit slow, but more important for the setting I plan to put it to use in, it's loud. It's developed a rather annoying whine over the years that I'd prefer to dispense with.

What are the specs on hard drives that will work in a Cube? I believe it accepts an ATA 100 full height drive, but I wanted to make sure.

Also does anyone have any recommendations on a good hard drive to get that will:

1) Fit and work properly in a G4 Cube
2) Not generate much noise (that's the priority)
3) Be reasonably fast

Hard drive capacity doesn't really matter too much; anything over 20gb is fine.

Links to specific products/place to purchase said products would be a bonus.

Thanks in advance...

tooki · Dec 25, 2003, 01:01 AM

The Cube has no unusual requirements. It's an ATA/66 bus without 48-bit LBA (so, in practice, a 120GB drive is the biggest it'll support).

As for quiet... get a Seagate. I just picked up a Seagate 80GB in retail for $50 after rebate. It's a 7200RPM, runs perfectly cool (just as cool as the 5400RPM drives from the Cube's era), and is very speedy. (You will notice a speed improvement.)

tooki

moki · Dec 25, 2003, 02:16 AM

Originally posted by tooki:
As for quiet... get a Seagate. I just picked up a Seagate 80GB in retail for $50 after rebate. It's a 7200RPM, runs perfectly cool (just as cool as the 5400RPM drives from the Cube's era), and is very speedy. (You will notice a speed improvement.)

ahh, so it is ATA/66, not ATA/100?

Do you have a link or specific brand name of the model you picked up?

saru boy · Dec 25, 2003, 06:09 AM

Tooki is correct in that Seagates are known for having rather quiet drives.

I have the Seagate Barracuda IV 80GB (ST380021A) in my Cube. It's probably hard to find that model since it's been replaced by the Barracuda V (ST380023A for the 80GB model). You can buy the 80GB Barracuda V at newegg for $84 shipped. For 5 bucks more you can get the 120GB model at $89 shipped.

Of course, you don't have to get a Seagate. You can go for a Western Digital, Maxtor, Hitachi or Samsung drive, just as long as they are ATA drives (not SATA).

chris v · Dec 25, 2003, 09:04 AM

I don't think you're going to get the Radeon 7000 in there without a significant amount of trouble. (followed the link to your fora) The only video cards that are known to work outside of the Rage 128 they shipped with (without modification, anyway) are the GeForce 2 and 3, and the original ATI Radeon. Also, good luck finding any of those 3, as the Cube modders have made them hard to come by.

CV

hodaddy · Dec 25, 2003, 12:30 PM

the 7000 is a tricky mod--tho not horribly difficult. i did it successfully in about 2 hours. but, it requires relocating the VRM board (need a hard-to-find 30 pin ribbon) and flashing the board with the mac rom.

relocating the VRM means intimate knowledge of the cube's innards....you'll need to remove the optical drive for certain. and, if you dont think you can weave the 30 pin cable under the logic board, around the harddrive, and up between the HDD and the optical drive, you'll feel easier dismantling the entire system.

here's a link to the the pix i took while doing the mod to give you an idea.

edit--FYI there is a version of the 7000 without DVI (vga only) that doesnt require moving the VRM. only flashing the rom required...then just plug and play. i can dig a link to that card up for you if you want it.

moki · Dec 25, 2003, 05:47 PM

Originally posted by chris v:
I don't think you're going to get the Radeon 7000 in there without a significant amount of trouble. (followed the link to your fora) The only video cards that are known to work outside of the Rage 128 they shipped with (without modification, anyway) are the GeForce 2 and 3, and the original ATI Radeon. Also, good luck finding any of those 3, as the Cube modders have made them hard to come by.

CV

hrm... this says that it will fit without such modifications:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...tem=2774432617

moki · Dec 25, 2003, 05:50 PM

Originally posted by saru boy:
I have the Seagate Barracuda IV 80GB (ST380021A) in my Cube. It's probably hard to find that model since it's been replaced by the Barracuda V (ST380023A for the 80GB model). You can buy the 80GB Barracuda V at newegg for $84 shipped. For 5 bucks more you can get the 120GB model at $89 shipped.

hrm... the first drive you link to seems to be a serial ATA drive? The second drive seems to be an ATA/100 drive -- will that work okay in a Cube, which apparently needs an ATA/66?

Scotttheking · Dec 25, 2003, 05:59 PM

Originally posted by moki:
will that work okay in a Cube

yes

tooki · Dec 26, 2003, 01:49 AM

Originally posted by moki:
ahh, so it is ATA/66, not ATA/100?

Do you have a link or specific brand name of the model you picked up?

I got the retail 80GB model, which is in fact the 80GB parallel ATA member of the Barracuda 7200.7 family of drives. (The retail box comes with mounting hardware and a cable, none of which you'll need, so if you can get the bare drive, you might be able to save some cash.)

Since ATA drives are backwards- and forwards-compatible, this ATA/100 drive will work just fine in your Cube. (The Sawtooth G4 was the first Mac with ATA/66 buses, the Mirrored Drive Door G4 was the first with ATA/100.)

Seagate drives are very quiet -- essentially silent. That said, the 7200RPM 40GB Maxtor I picked up a couple of years back is also very quiet. But some people have reported some of the newer Maxtors as being louder, so if noise is a big concern, stick with the Seagate.

tooki

Luca Rescigno · Dec 27, 2003, 01:00 PM

Why are you guys talking about putting a Radeon 7000 in a Cube? The Radeon 7000 (for Mac, at least) is a PCI card, and Cubes have no PCI slots, just an AGP slot. Besides, other than Quartz Extreme support, the Radeon 7000 is barely better than the Rage 128.

You must either be talking about a flashed PC Radeon 7000 AGP (don't know why you'd go to the trouble to flash a lowly Radeon 7000), or a Radeon 7500. The Radeon 7500 is probably the second best card that will fit in a Cube without modifications. The best is the GeForce 3. The GeForce 2MX is a lot slower, as is the original Radeon, but both are also much cheaper and support Quartz Extreme fine. Either one is good if you don't need to be playing any 3D games. I picked up a Radeon Mac Edition for about $50, and I use it in my PowerMac G4.

As far as hard drives, yes, I'd say go for a Seagate. The 7200.7 120 GB with 8 MB of cache is probably the best - it has the most storage that'll work in a Cube, it's very quiet, and it's very fast because of the extra cache.

tooki · Dec 27, 2003, 04:49 PM

::sigh::

Repetition # 24,862:

Yes, the drive is fast. No, it's not fast because of the cache.

On IDE drives, big hard drive caches only help with small writes. They don't help with big writes. They don't help with small reads. They don't help with big reads. They don't help the seek time. They don't help the access time. They don't help the rotational latency. They don't help the spin-up time.

Can we finally put that myth to rest?

Yes, cache=good. Yes, a bigger cache does make a difference. But it's not the holy grail some people think it to be. The reason they put in big caches now is that it costs basically nothing to do so.

(Note: on SCSI drives, which can re-order drive access requests to optimize speed, a bigger cache does make a difference.)

tooki

moki · Dec 28, 2003, 03:14 AM

Originally posted by Luca Rescigno:
You must either be talking about a flashed PC Radeon 7000 AGP (don't know why you'd go to the trouble to flash a lowly Radeon 7000), or a Radeon 7500. The Radeon 7500 is probably the second best card that will fit in a Cube without modifications. The best is the GeForce 3. The GeForce 2MX is a lot slower, as is the original Radeon, but both are also much cheaper and support Quartz Extreme fine. Either one is good if you don't need to be playing any 3D games. I picked up a Radeon Mac Edition for about $50, and I use it in my PowerMac G4.

Well, I don't care much how the video card performs, I'm just looking for a card that has a native DVI connector so I can hook it up to my TV. If you're aware of any other cards that might be better for this purpose, I'd love to hear it.

Can I just purchase a GeForce3 and stick it in there?

saru boy · Dec 28, 2003, 10:37 AM

Originally posted by moki:
Can I just purchase a GeForce3 and stick it in there?

If you mean can you buy any old PC GeForce3 (i.e., one made for PC's) and stick it in your Cube, then NO. Those cards do not have Mac roms and will not work in any Mac (though I guess you can always try to flash the card with Mac rom). Plus, it's likely that a PC GeForce3 card will not fit in a Cube.

The Apple OEM GeForce3 will work in a Cube. Good luck finding one though...I checked on eBay recently and it was selling for $400+. In comparison, for $450, you can get a PC Radeon 9800XT 256MB that will take that GeForce3 out to the shed and beat it silly.

Lateralus · Dec 28, 2003, 02:47 PM

Another recommendation for the 120GB Seagate 7200.7 8MB. Have had a few Seagates in the past year in various computers. Count me as one of the dedicated Seagate buyers. They're fast, ultra reliable, very quiet, and they look cool with their high polished case.

hodaddy · Dec 28, 2003, 03:02 PM

Why are you guys talking about putting a Radeon 7000 in a Cube? The Radeon 7000 (for Mac, at least) is a PCI card, and Cubes have no PCI slots, just an AGP slot.

there is an AGP version of the 7000 for p.c. all you need to do is flash the rom.

a) i think upgrading the stock card for QE is worth it. it makes the machine much more usable.

b) there is no fan on the 7000, keeping the cube silient.

c) its only $40

it is a nice upgrade. the only version you dont need to move the VRM for is the VGA only card. if you want the DVI version you have to relocate the VRM.

tooki · Dec 28, 2003, 03:37 PM

Originally posted by moki:
Well, I don't care much how the video card performs, I'm just looking for a card that has a native DVI connector so I can hook it up to my TV.

Whoa whoa whoa now -- every graphics card that shipped in/for the Cube has an ADC connector, which is DVI-I+USB+power. You can use a $40 adapter plug to extract DVI-D from it, which is what your TV should have on the back.

tooki

loh · Dec 28, 2003, 07:04 PM

Tooki, I just picked up that same drive at best buy with some xmas gift certs I got. I love seagate drives, I used to have one in my old PC, and I used this new one to replace my IBM 7200rpm OEM drive that came with my MDD. Soooo much quieter!

moki · Dec 29, 2003, 12:50 AM

Originally posted by tooki:
Whoa whoa whoa now -- every graphics card that shipped in/for the Cube has an ADC connector, which is DVI-I+USB+power. You can use a $40 adapter plug to extract DVI-D from it, which is what your TV should have on the back.

Right... and I picked up an ADC->DVI connector (Belkin, I believe), and it doesn't work with my TV. I'm assuming the video card in there simply doesn't support the res the TV needs (1280x768).

I hooked up the DVI cable directly to my Al PowerBook, and it worked fine, no problems at all.

typoon · Dec 29, 2003, 11:42 AM

Originally posted by moki:
Right... and I picked up an ADC->DVI connector (Belkin, I believe), and it doesn't work with my TV. I'm assuming the video card in there simply doesn't support the res the TV needs (1280x768).

I hooked up the DVI cable directly to my Al PowerBook, and it worked fine, no problems at all.

It could also be the resolution of the TV. If you TV supports something higher than you shouldn't need to do anything. I had a TV that did 640x480. There is NO way I'm setting my video to that even to get it on a 20 inch.

moki · Dec 29, 2003, 12:40 PM

Originally posted by typoon:
It could also be the resolution of the TV. If you TV supports something higher than you shouldn't need to do anything. I had a TV that did 640x480. There is NO way I'm setting my video to that even to get it on a 20 inch.

Alas, 1280x768 is the native resolution of the TV, so that's the best it'll do.

jedimstr · Dec 29, 2003, 02:32 PM

What video card do you have in your Cube... I had similar problems getting a Belkin ADC->DVI working (to a DVI LCD monitor) with my Cube's ATI Radeon 7500. I know it's not the Belkin Adapter's fault since it worked correctly with an ATI Radeon 9000 Pro in the same cube from ADC->DVI. The 7500 just doesn't seem to like the ADC->DVI conversion no matter what resolution.

<tangent>(I had to remove the 9000 since it drew too much power and caused random crashes - I also have a Powerlogix G4-1ghz upgrade that eats electrons like mad... I have tons of stuff like external hard drives on multiple firewire and USB hubs sucking up all the juice the Cube's got... the 9000 only worked well with everything disconnected... but that's another story)</tangent>