[DimeTech]

I want to put a new hard drive (at least 120GB+) into my Cube. Any suggestions for one that hasn't had any problem or anything?

[Drakino]

128gb is going to be the limit for a G4 Cube.

See this FAQ for more info.

[DimeTech]

I read about that before. I'm perfectly fine with a 120GB, because I have a 120GB external also....I read somewhere that someone made a driver for the older macs to be able to support more than the 128GB cutoff....I'll chack it out. I'm just not sure what would be optimum for the cube. Would any ATA drive work?

[chris v]

Either the Western Digital or Seagate 120 GB 7200 rpm with the 8mb cache is about the best you're going to be able to do. They're both pretty quiet and have good track records overall. I've got the WD 120 GB in my Cube and it's been fine for the month I've had it. I can't hear the drive at all over the fan on my GF3.

CV

[DimeTech]

thanks chris...just one more question then im out..haha...when i purchase the harddrive I need to buy the mounting bracket also, correct?

[D'Espice]

Originally posted by chris v:
Either the Western Digital or Seagate 120 GB 7200 rpm with the 8mb cache is about the best you're going to be able to do. They're both pretty quiet and have good track records overall. I've got the WD 120 GB in my Cube and it's been fine for the month I've had it. I can't hear the drive at all over the fan on my GF3.

CV

He will never notice the difference between a harddrive with 8MB cache and one with 2MB cache. There is however one thing that would make me buy the 8MB version as well: 3 year warranty vs. 1 year warranty.

The WD however is pretty noisy compared to other harddrives. I would suggest the Samsung Spinpoint 7200rpm 120GB or 80GB. There's so silent, that you won't even hear them in a fanless computer that is standing right in front of you. And they're really fast. I bought the 80GB Spinpoint 7200rpm few months ago and put it in my (almost) fanless Opteron - it's totally inaudible now. I never thought it was possible to have a harddrive even more quiet than the Seagate Barracuda IV but Samsung really did it. 0.2 Sone is quite convincing, don't you think? Plus, you'll get the full 3 year warranty even with the 2MB version

[stuffedmonkey]

Stay away from the western digital! They start off ok, but will end up Very noisy after less then a year. I've had fantastic experiences with seagate drives. very quiet, no problems...

[DimeTech]

Thanks for all the input. I think I'm going to go with a seagate 120GB....one question, If I buy the bare drive, do I need to buy a mounting bracket also?

[saru boy]

Originally posted by DimeTech:
Thanks for all the input. I think I'm going to go with a seagate 120GB....one question, If I buy the bare drive, do I need to buy a mounting bracket also?

Use the mounting bracket that's attached to the drive that's already in your Cube.

[DimeTech]

ahhh....thanks a lot.

[jrramsey]

I've got the Seagate and it works great. (Fast & Silent). You might consider setting the ATA at 66 max...especially if you upgrade the processor. I have the PL1.4 and had some occaisional Kernel panics until I changed the ATA to max out at 66.

There is a program on the Seagate site that allows this to be changed if the drive is put into a PC first.

Good Luck

Seagate 120Gig 7200.7
PL1.4Gig
ATI9000
Clear Cube
832MB RAM

[driven]

Originally posted by D'Espice:
He will never notice the difference between a harddrive with 8MB cache and one with 2MB cache.

When I upgraded my drive from a 2MB Cache drive to a WD one with 8MB cache it felt like a processor upgrade. It was an unbelievable difference.
(Both drives were 7200 RPM)

[Lateralus]

I keep wondering why D'Espice is an opponent of 8MB drives when every other geek on the planet says that they are worth the $5-10 premium.

Makes no sense.

[Spliffdaddy]

because the benchmark numbers don't show a significant performance increase with 8MB cache. Certainly not anything worth $10.

The massive speed increases that most folks experience are the byproduct of platter density - that is, more bytes are passing the read/write heads. Fitting 80GB in the same surface area as 40GB results in a doubling of the disk's density. It stands to reason that at the same rotational speeds, the denser platter will present more bytes to the read/write heads...twice as many.

( I tried to keep the explanation simple. Lots of variables weren't addressed. Hard drives can have several platters, etc. )

[cenutrio]

Four months ago I did install a seagate barracuda 120 GB 8Mb buffer in my cube. The system is much faster now (Xbench score improved from 63 to 81), and is virtually noiseless. A big jump.

The HD costed $90, a good value too.

[Faxe]

Originally posted by DimeTech:
I read about that before. I'm perfectly fine with a 120GB, because I have a 120GB external also....I read somewhere that someone made a driver for the older macs to be able to support more than the 128GB cutoff....I'll chack it out. I'm just not sure what would be optimum for the cube. Would any ATA drive work?

its from Intech

http://www.speedtools.com/ATA6DL.html

havi it since about three weeks working flawlessly in a Cube
with a Maxtor 4A250J0.

Maxtor 4A250J0:

Kapazit�t: 233.76 GB
Modell: Maxtor 4A250J0
Version: RAMB1TU0
Seriennummer: A805ESHE
Wechselmedien: Nein
Absteckbares Laufwerk: Nein
BSD-Name: disk0
Protokoll: ATA
Einheiten-Nummer: 0
Socket-Typ: Intern
OS 9 Treiber: Ja

osx_cube:

Kapazit�t: 127.86 GB
Verf�gbar: 40.87 GB
Beschreibbar: Ja
Dateisystem: Journaled HFS+
BSD-Name: disk0s10
Mount-Point: /

data_cube:

Kapazit�t: 105.65 GB
Verf�gbar: 102.41 GB
Beschreibbar: Ja
Dateisystem: Journaled HFS+
BSD-Name: disk0s12
Mount-Point: /Volumes/data_cube

tom

[tooki]

Originally posted by PowerMacMan:
I keep wondering why D'Espice is an opponent of 8MB drives when every other geek on the planet says that they are worth the $5-10 premium.

Makes no sense.

I am another geek who doesn't believe that 8MB caches are this magic bullet people keep harping about.

D'Espice's explanation is right on the money: when people upgrade drives, they're upgrading from a slow drive mechanism to one that is inherently faster (RPM is just one variable in the equation). But since most of the really important variables are rarely printed on the box (they are on the websites), people latch onto the three variables they can identify: spindle speed, access time, and cache size. The fact is, the raw media data rate (which is never printed on the box) is the one that makes the biggest difference in transfer speed. Access time (which is a factor of the spindle speed) makes the drive feel "snappy". Cache size, well, doesn't really do much at all on IDE drives.

In fact, comparisons of the SAME MODEL with 2 and 8MB show very little difference, if any.

My hunch is that the reason they're putting in 8MB now is because RAM is cheap -- the difference in cost is probably pennies, but pennies that pay off big-time in marketing.

If we were talking about SCSI drives, it would be a different matter, because SCSI drives have "smarts" that let them re-organize commands, and more RAM helps with that.

When all is said and done, would I pay $20 extra for the large cache? No. $3? Sure, why not, that's peanuts. But that's in the past anyway, all the new models have 8MB caches anyway.

tooki