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SirCastor · Oct 26, 2007, 11:40 PM

I've got a working Pismo with no hard drive. I've got a decision to make though.

The pismo has no IDE cable in it: So on top of a new hard drive, I need to buy a cable.

The other option is to buy a cardbus CF adapter and a Compact Flash card to use in place of a hard drive.

Both options cost about the same, The downside of the CF option is that the card is only 4GB.

So my question What is the smallest OS X installation I can put together? I'm not doing anything that requires much space. For the moment at least, it's only going to be a writing machine. I'm probably going to be running 10.2.8, but all ideas are welcome

thanks

mfbernstein · Oct 27, 2007, 12:52 AM

You'd really be better off with OS 9 if you want to use the CF card (with OS X it'll be slow, and the continual disk accessing will shorten the CF card's life). Nominally, 10.2 can install on a 2GB drive, but I wouldn't advice anything under 5GB. Old disks should be pretty cheap anyways (try eBay for instance).

Eriamjh · Oct 27, 2007, 03:48 PM

With OSX, be sure to select "Customize" and deselect all the languages, printer drivers, and other junk you won't be needing. you can get OSX down pretty small (maybe 2GB or less).

One can get an 80GB HDD for $60 now. If you bought a 40GB or smaller on Ebay (not really recommended), you can get away with even less. You'll probably pay more for the IDE cable.

scoot · Oct 27, 2007, 04:47 PM

There are currently 12 auctions on eBay for Pismo drive cables, most of them include the bracket/sled as well. Buy-it-now pricing in the US$5 to $15 range.

Throw in an 80GB drive, and you're all set, still under 100.

mduell · Oct 27, 2007, 05:51 PM

Originally Posted by Eriamjh

One can get an 80GB HDD for $60 now.

For another $10 you can get 120GB. That's getting up to the point where it would be useful as an external drive even after the Pismo dies.

Or if you're really going the low-cost route, 40GB for $47. That's getting close to the price of a 4GB CF card ($37) for 10x the space. And cheaper than an 8GB CF card.

Simon · Oct 28, 2007, 03:32 AM

Whatever you do, don't go for the CF card. It's expensive, it's slow and its lifetime will be short.

mduell · Oct 28, 2007, 11:43 AM

Originally Posted by Simon

Whatever you do, don't go for the CF card. It's expensive, it's slow and its lifetime will be short.

Does OS X support any wear-levelling filesystems? I'm guessing no.

Simon · Oct 28, 2007, 04:13 PM

Even if it did - still no reason to go with CF since HDDs are cheaper and offer more capacity.

romeosc · Oct 28, 2007, 06:17 PM

Get cheap external firewire 2.5" drive! you can boot from it and also later use on a newer computer

Waragainstsleep · Nov 2, 2007, 07:19 PM

I can't speak for the Pismo, but I tried to boot a Lombard from a PC card flash disk. It wouldn't do it. I actually wanted it as a swap partition but the drivers didn't load early enough in the boot process for it to work. Maybe it was just the card, but I suspect the Lombard's PCMCIA slot isn't bootable. Are you sure the Pismos is?