[Etnier]

I just am asking for confirmation here: given the plug-in nature of the drive slots in the MacPro, there's no way to install older PATA drives. right? I would assume that the various PATA>SATA adaptors on the market just won't fit.

Correct?

[OreoCookie]

No, it won't fit into one of the harddrive bays.
I'd get an external harddrive case instead.

[reader50]

Put it in the spare optical bay. No adapter needed there, the optical bays have PATA connections.

[Xyrrus]

Originally Posted by reader50 

Put it in the spare optical bay. No adapter needed there, the optical bays have PATA connections.

I am doing this and it works fine - OS X and XP see the drive fine (I'm using it for my boot camp drive). Only problem is that the drive is just sitting in the optical bay w/o being screwed into anything. Also, the optical cage is a rather tight fit in there. Somebody sells drive cages that replace the stock optical bay cage, but I can't seem to find them now.

-Xy

[BigDogDaddy]

I had a 300 gb drive laying around from a retired PC that I put into the spare optical drive bay of the Mac Pro. The IDE cable and power connector reached fine but its definately not nearly as nice as the SATA drive sleds.

You can purchase a 3.5" to 5.25" bay adapter. Myself, I had a broken CD ROM that I emptied the guts out of and screwed the Hard Drive into the shell.

Overall it worked fine but it wasn't particuarly fast. I eventually ended up yanking it out and putting it into a 30 dollar NAS case to share between multiple machines.