[SSebeny]

Hi,
I have an old 7200/90, which has had SCSI problems since the day I bought it. I would love to buy a PCI card with internal ATA ports on it so I could add a cheap Maxtor ATA/66 drive. Does anyone know where I can get a card like this that will work in a 7200? Also, is there space to run the IDE cables from the card to the drives? And will the ATA drive be bootable? Thanks for any help anyone can give me!



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Stephen M. Sebeny
ssebeny@neo.rr.com
ssebeny@woodridge.summit.k12.oh.us

[Gregory]

Have you been over on xlr8yourmac to check for entries in the drive upgrade database?

I've seen a bundle with Sonnet Tempo, Firewire/USB and pre-order for G3/G4 - all from Sonnet. So talk to them, but should be fine. Ultra Cables has high quality 18" IDE if you need extra. The IBM Deskstar 75GXP has to be the quietest 7200 as well as fastest IDE.

Expect to pay $88 Buy.com for the Sonnet Tempo but all of the PCI IDE are based on Acard, are pseudo SCSI (look like SCSI to Mac and in Drive Setup). I would definitely get a copy of Drive Setup off 9.0.4 update to use to format any drives. And yes, they are bootable (but not viewable or bootable from OS X or Linux).

Gregory

Yes, as Gregory says there are a few cards out there. I am using the old (ATA/33) TurboMax card in my PowerCenter 150 (which is essentially a 7200) and it works great.

It's bootable, it's fast, it's cheap.

The only glitch with running PCI IDE/ATA cards in the 7200 is that you can't play audio/video (that is, say, MP3/QuickTime) from the IDE drive without serious stuttering and dropouts, due the motherboard architecture being a bit screwy (and not designed for IDE in the first place). I've kept a SCSI drive as my boot and use the IDE drive for data and apps, making sure to put my mp3s and QT content on the SCSI. Works fine.

You should definitely check out the drive database at www.xlr8yourmac.com, it's full of entries from folks trying out every conceivable drive/Mac combo.