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You are here: MacNN Forums > Hardware - Troubleshooting and Discussion > Mac Desktops > SATA II compatible with PowerPC G5?

SATA II compatible with PowerPC G5?
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ursinus
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Nov 22, 2006, 06:17 AM
 
Hi all,

I am thinking of purchasing a new hard drive from a vendor, and majority of their stock are SATA II hard drives. I was told that SATA II hard drives are compatible with computers with existing SATA hard drives. My PowerPC is a dual 2.3ghz G5 mac. The hard drive I am looking at is a 320GB 16mb cache Western Digital SATA300 (SATA II). Appreciate your thoughts on my query.
     
mac128k-1984
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Nov 22, 2006, 08:29 AM
 
It should be, but the obvious answer is that its speed will be ratcheted down to SATAI speeds. That being the case why spend more money on something and not get the benefit. I'm sure you can find SATA I drives that will fit your needs
Michael
     
discotronic
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Nov 22, 2006, 10:02 AM
 
Originally Posted by mac128k-1984 View Post
It should be, but the obvious answer is that its speed will be ratcheted down to SATAI speeds. That being the case why spend more money on something and not get the benefit. I'm sure you can find SATA I drives that will fit your needs
SATA II is cheaper than SATA I now. Check prices at NewEgg or TigerDirect. It is like RAM prices. The newer technology becomes cheaper as supplies become more abundant.
     
ursinus  (op)
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Nov 22, 2006, 10:14 PM
 
Hi discotronic and mac128k,
thanks for answering my queries. Discotronic is correct, SATA II hard drive price has come down. SATA drive is becoming rare. I guess if SATA II is backward compatible, there's no reason to continue with SATA drive.
     
mduell
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Nov 23, 2006, 12:51 AM
 
     
NordicMan
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Nov 25, 2006, 08:44 PM
 
Ursinus, it would be worth your while to take a look at xlr8yourmac.com before you get a drive. Take a look at their hard drive compatibility database, and also do a search for G5 and SATA issues. Some people have had difficulty with newer SATA drives that have the II specs, from the SATA I that Apple installed in the earlier G5s. Yours was in the second run of G5s, I think, with AGP, and I don't know about the SATA, but with PCI-X, not the E.
     
NordicMan
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Nov 25, 2006, 08:45 PM
 
Accelerate Your Mac News Archive for Monday, Feb. 20th, 2006

G5 onboard SATA problems w/WD 400GB drives

These are two articles that are worth reading for G5 owners.

The answer, if one has any trouble, seems to be a SATA PCI HD controller.
     
NordicMan
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Nov 25, 2006, 08:48 PM
 
The drives in those articles are Raptors, I think, but other drives have also given difficulties, including newer WD drives. I don't know where your G5 fits in to this, or the drive you are interested in. Just thought it would be good to look at.
     
ursinus  (op)
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Nov 26, 2006, 06:26 AM
 
Hi NordicMan!

thanks for your timely advise! I didn't realise about the incompatibility issues with WD drives. I have used the WD Raptor 74GB as my boot drive for the last 1.5 year or so without any hickups.(still using it). The new WD SATA drive that I am looking into is this model which is not listed in the imcompatibility list:

320GB 7200rpm 16mb cache, WD Caviar SE16 SATA 300 MB/s Hard Drives (WD3200KS)

http://www.westerndigital.com/en/pro...sp?DriveID=196

It is a SATA 2 drive. I realise that another poster mentioned in your link that,

"A gentlemen I spoke with at WD said it was an issue with the backwards compatibility from SATA II to SATA I, and that sometime in the near future, EVERY new SATA drive that comes out either from them, or from maxtor, hitachi, seagate, and the few other manufacturers won't work at all with any of the power mac G5's."

The alarming thing is the backward compatibility issue there. But that's not verified in a clear way yet.

The following is my G5's spec summary, and I think its a PCI-X with the expansion slot.

CPU: PowerPC 970FX
CPU Speed: 2x2.3
Bus Speed: 1.15
RAM Type: PC3200 DDR
Expansion Slots: 64-bit 133 MHz PCI-X, 2 64-bit 100 MHz PCI-X
Video Card/Chipset: 8X AGP

Did you own a Western Digital drive as well? What did you decide to go for in the end? What's your G5 specs?

thanks again.
     
NordicMan
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Nov 26, 2006, 07:11 AM
 
Hello there.

I have a dual 2.0 Ghz G5. It was one of the first run, the one before yours, I think. So I have the early SATA that Apple put in to them, and mine has the PCI-X slots.

A WD drive, I do not have. My G5 came with a Maxtor, and it has worked fine. I was just wanting to put in another drive, and was thinking on a 74 GB Raptor drive, for its speed. I read on the Apple Support Forums, and in one reply, a fellow mentioned this as a problem. Another fellow answered my mention of this, and sent the WD note on the raptor drives and early G5s.

So I have not settled on a new drive. xlr8yourmac does not suggest what I was thinking on, a bigger raptor, (for my G5 that is)

But, with an SATA PCI card added on, the WD drives should work. Yours works. That is in line with what many folks at xlr8yourmac have reported, they have used the 74 GB. But that is one of the drives included in the updated WD note. There seems to have been varied experience with this. I don't know when Apple made any change to their SATA I, but since mine is early, I am going to be careful about it.

When I asked techs at Apple about this, one thought any SATA 150 device should work, and the other fellow would not comment at all about hard drives.

So, I am just looking in to this, and I am thinking about getting a PCI card, or else, like an old Mac tech said to me, the large Maxtor drives seem to have worked well with G5s.
     
ursinus  (op)
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Nov 26, 2006, 07:59 AM
 
Hi NordicMan,

cool. Which bay do you slot into when you use your PCI Card? The 133mhz or the 100mhz PCI-X slot?

Out of curiousity, do you do professional work on your mac? I am mainly using my mac for 3d animation project.
     
NordicMan
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Nov 26, 2006, 11:37 AM
 
I just wrote a longer response, but I got pitched out, and it disappeared.

It has gotten in to my head to get a 6800 GT, or Ultra for a gpu for the G5. That would cover the first and quicker slot. So I would use the second. Otherwise, if I were to get an X800, I would use the first, as I have no plans for any other snazzy card, as I am not a professional.

I run our family lumber business, and so software like you see on Architosh is of interest to me, things like Dr. FRame 3D, or Dr. Beam, or SketchUp. I think it is that one, there are two Sketch softwares, and I get them switched about some times.

What programmes do you use in this 3D?
     
ursinus  (op)
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Nov 27, 2006, 01:36 AM
 
Hi NordicMan,

would been great to read the longer post, accident happens . Nice setup and softwares. I got the NVIDIA 6800 Ultra card 256mb myself, a good card, good enough for my project for the moment anyway. Just the other day I had a session with a research scientist and he had order a PC with a NVIDIA 8800 series or something, with 768mb ram! That's insane by comparison, but that's how technology goes with the pace of improvement. Hopefully there will be more NVIDIA medium range cards coming through for mac users.

I use Maya for the moment for my work. It has been a good software but fill with frustrations at the same time because of its complexity. I also use After Effect alot for compositing work. But the most taxing stuff on the the mac is the test rendering and the final batch rendering session. The dual 2.3ghz g5 can handle them nicely at the moment.
     
NordicMan
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Nov 27, 2006, 09:31 AM
 
Hello Ursinus,

Good to hear about your work, it must be quite interesting. Yes, years ago I was amazed to hear about these Oxygen cards that even then had 512 MB of vram.

nVidia does a good job with their cards.

Well, what have you decided to do about your need for a hard drive?
     
ursinus  (op)
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Nov 27, 2006, 11:07 AM
 
It seems like there's no issue with the Western digital model which I was looking at, I will most likely go for this model which I posted before. What will be going for?
     
ursinus  (op)
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Nov 27, 2006, 11:54 AM
 
It looks like there's some twist and turn with WD hard drives. Some have no problem with it. This user have issues with his 2 WD 250GB drive:
http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=129832

He believe it has something to do with the SATA IO controller in Apple's G5. This user didn't clarify whether he was using a SATA 2 drive. He also claimed that when the HD have an intensive read/write session for over 10min, then things started to not work properly.

Then another forum contributor from another site recommended trying WD drive because it allows switching off of SSC switch (recommended the WD3200KS that I was after) where as the recent Seagate HD doesn't have that option.

Another user noted success using this WD drive. My conclusion for the moment is that some WD models might have compatibility issues but not all. I am not sure what to make of the IO controller switch issue.
     
ursinus  (op)
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Jan 23, 2007, 08:17 PM
 
well, just to update,
after I purchased the SATA2 WD 320GB Cavier 16mb 7200rpm for my external case, it worked fine. The casing can use USB2, Firewire400 and 800, and can host another drive. About a month ago I updated my second internal HD, replacing the Maxtor 250GB with another WD320. I use big file video capturing on that this drive and do compression work, so I do use it fairly intensively. It's working great, no issues. The only thing is that I noticed it takes a sec or two for the HD to wake up after a bit of idle.
     
BigBadBiologist
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Jan 24, 2007, 12:15 AM
 
(/OffTopic)
did (do) you go to Ursinus?
I love lamp! I love lamp...
     
ursinus  (op)
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Jan 24, 2007, 01:41 AM
 
Hi Bigbadbio,
didn't quite get your question sorry.
Robin
     
   
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