[MikeD]

4 in their "normal" spots and one in the 2nd optical drive bay?

Mike

[superlarry]

i don't see why not.. of course, if what i've heard is true, 2 drives will run at ATA100, 2 at ATA66, and the one on the optical drive channel at ATA33.

[Camelot]

Originally posted by MikeD:
4 in their "normal" spots and one in the 2nd optical drive bay?

Mike

Yes. I have 5 drives installed in my G4. The only difference is that I added a SCSI card rather than using the IDE busses. As larry mentioned, the ATA bus that runs to the optical bay is an ATA-33 bus, so don't put your big data there.

[Simon]

Originally posted by Camelot:
Yes. I have 5 drives installed in my G4. The only difference is that I added a SCSI card rather than using the IDE busses. As larry mentioned, the ATA bus that runs to the optical bay is an ATA-33 bus, so don't put your big data there.

I just have one question. How do you tighten the 5th HD in the second optical bay? Do you need to buy a mounting frame or can you just screw the disk to the bottom of the bay? Just wondering...

[MikeD]

See I asked this beacuse I read that you could use the 4 regular drive bays to hold the new IBM 180GB drives and use a SCSI card to create a RAID system inside your computer that's fully capable of handling DVCAM/SD video. The 5th drive (optical bay) was the standard boot drive I think..

Mike

[G4ME]

as many as you can shove in the bit�h!!!

[tooki]

Can we say BAD IDEA?

No airflow around drives (or even electrical insulation between them!), and no physical attachment... well, don't try to move that machine!

tooki

[G4ME]

what are you talking about this thing is great I take it to lan parties and share my terabyte of porn with everyone there, its like a giant porn swap meet

[CIA]

PLEASE tell me that's a staged photo. If it's not.. oh man.. For once all those fans in the Mirror-door G4 actually have their work cut out for them....

Or does this computer sit inside a freezer while it's on?

[phidauex]

Ah, heat's no big deal! I've got an 8100 that looks a bit like that, and one of my pcs is so full of drives that the floppy drive (yeah, PCs still need those for boot disks ) is taped to the outside of the case with duct tape.

I say, if you aren't taking it to the max, you probably aren't very creative anyway. For instance, I bet you can get two drives into the 2nd optical bay on these new macs, assuming they are regular 3.5in size drives. And thats just the beginning.

Peace,
sam

[G4ME]

its not mine I saw it here a while ago and grabbed the pic, it is although I think in working order, and it is an older Sawtooth G4 not a Quicksilver, or Mirror on, I think heat wouldn't be a problem if the door is left open.

[Simon]

Originally posted by CIA:
PLEASE tell me that's a staged photo. If it's not.. oh man.. For once all those fans in the Mirror-door G4 actually have their work cut out for them....
Or does this computer sit inside a freezer while it's on?

I hate to break it to you, but it's even worse. This isn't a mirror-door PowerMac! The MDD PowerMacs have a full width and full height second optical drive bay bellow the one you see here (this one only has a Zip bay), they have a different PS (longer but narrower than this one) as well as the slots moved more to the upper end of the board. This is probably a Sawtooth.

Jeewiz, finally a machine with the amount of disks the MDDs have a fan for! Honestly, I don't believe running this sucker without additional cooling is a good idea. Oh yeah, btw, don't even think of moving the machine around. I once saw what happened when a HDD pounded against a motherboard. Outch!

But nevertheless, great picture! I almost fell from my chair laughing when I saw that one. I'd like to meet the owner.

[CIA]

I'm adding a few Hard drives to my quicksilver 800, (Via ATA 133 cards) will the powersupply in a dual 800 be able to handle 5 drives? I'm also adding a few extra fans to the case to keep things cool... How many 7200RPM drives and fans can a Dual 800's power suppply handle?
5 7200 Rpm drives
A gForce 3 video card fan
the stock system fans.
2 ATA 133 PCI cards
2 added small PC fans
1 "PCI" fan, that exhausts air out of an empty PCI slot....

The added fans all run off hard drive style power connectors. Figured a bunch of Y power adaptors would do the trick..... Will this work? Or am I gonna fry my powersupply?

[Avon]

Originally posted by CIA:
I How many 7200RPM drives and fans can a Dual 800's power suppply handle?

I have a sawtooth with 5 drives. It only has a 237 watt power supply. Probably wont be a problem..

You can shove at least one more drive on top of the cd rom. A nice way of doing it is to use a plastic drive sled off a 6100/7500/8500/9500 and velcro it to the top of the cd rom.

Looks like there is space for three more drives on top of the cd. Id install a fan though. Power is a concern with more than 5 drives of course, but to answer your question I dont think you will have a problem with 5 drives in a QS.

Is there anyone with 8 drives?????

It is possible, 4 on the botom, 1 in th zip and 3 on top, with an upgraded power supply. If you really wanted to get sick crazy, i can see room for one more with a bracket right over the AGP slot.

[Avon]

[CIA]

A few things:
Judging by that picture, you should clean the dust and stuff off your fan, looks pretty messy.... Also, you are powering something off the powerout on the back of the machine.. Moniter?
I forgot to list a few things, so here is the COMPLETE list of things inside the box that suck power, still safe?
1 Gforce3 AGP card with cooling fan
2 SIIG ATA-133 RAID cards.
5 7200 RPM drives,
1 zip 250
1 Superdrive
The stock fans + 2 small fans (like the size you would see in an external 5.25 firewire case, but 2 of em')
And finally...
One fan that fits in a PCI slot (well, over the slot) and vents out the back.
All the added fans are using hard drive style power connectors. A bunch of Y powersplitters will provide the connections.

Will this fry a Quicksilver Dual 800 powersupply?
(Un)fortunatly, quicksilvers can't power a device, like a moniter off the back of the machine, so one less thing to worry about.

[Secret Vampire]

there's 7 drives there, of which 5 are connected, I didn't have enough cable to hook the top two up, the case does close, just

With the top drives oriented the same way as the bottom ones, you can fit an extra one in towards the PSU provided you don't use the bottom two dimm slots (this is on a sawtooth, so you still get 2 that you can use)

In the bottom bays I could have had another drive, except the front one is 1.5" high, there's room for two standard height ones there.

The middle bay can only take one as the power connector on the motherboard sticks out where the second one would go, I got round that by resting the drive on top of the front and rear ones, but you wouldn't be able to do that if you had a reasonably sized PCI card in the bottom bay (I don't)

depending on the size of your PCI cards, you could probably set another on it's edge toward the back of the case...

and this is with fairly regular size drives, if you could get some of those slim Medalists that Seagate used to make (I don't know if they still do) you could fit at least 7 of them into the bottom without having to balance things like I did.

And people say the mac has no room for expansion

Just for the record, I don't run the system like this full time, usually it's just the stock 40GB drive, but I had to see how many I could fit, "for science"

[Avon]

Originally posted by CIA:

(Un)fortunatly, quicksilvers can't power a device, like a moniter off the back of the machine, so one less thing to worry about.

The monitor port on the back of powersuplies is switched (or unswitched) 110 V power. It's nothing to worry about, its not part of the "power supply"

The QS can power a monitor off the ADC. It has a 28V feed for it. This is something to worry about.

Also, leave my dust alone.



Good pic Vampire.. I stand corrected, 2 up top then...

[wapangy]

i have five drives internal, another external with firewire (440 gigs totoal), (also have superdrive and 2 gig ram...)

my original power supply (237W) started to die, it would flake out for an instant everynow and then, freezing the computer

so i got a new one, enermax 440W, expensive, but its nice, it has lots more power connectors too

[wapangy]

[CIA]

Originally posted by Avon
Also, leave my dust alone.

Just looking out for ya!

I'm not running an ADC moniter, just an old Sony 21" 520GS. (Still works like a charm though!)


wapangy Are you running your firewire drive off the bus power?

Also, how difficult was it to replace your powersupply? Do you think the original (Stock) powersupply died from all the stuff you added, or because it was just, well, gonna die anyway. (It happens)

[wapangy]

my firewire drive is not bus powered

i think my old powersupply should have been able to handle everything, after all, i just used all the bays the case had, and i didn't use all the pci slots.

it was probably just because its sort of cheap, the fan on it started to die months earlier, and i had to replace that

it wasn't too hard to replace, but you have to be carful, a normal atx power supply does not work, you have to splice some wires on the connecter and stuff, and its different for different models of the G4

the power supply on the MDD is insanly much more powerful, it would easily handle everything

[Cipher13]

Originally posted by CIA:
I'm adding a few Hard drives to my quicksilver 800, (Via ATA 133 cards) will the powersupply in a dual 800 be able to handle 5 drives? I'm also adding a few extra fans to the case to keep things cool... How many 7200RPM drives and fans can a Dual 800's power suppply handle?
5 7200 Rpm drives
A gForce 3 video card fan
the stock system fans.
2 ATA 133 PCI cards
2 added small PC fans
1 "PCI" fan, that exhausts air out of an empty PCI slot....

The added fans all run off hard drive style power connectors. Figured a bunch of Y power adaptors would do the trick..... Will this work? Or am I gonna fry my powersupply?

It should be okay.

My Sawtooth (237 watt) powers 3 hard drives internally, and two optical drives. The SCSI drive is external.

Along with that, it powers two additional fans.

It should be okay.

[CIA]

Thanks for all your help guys. Not counting the windtunnel power supplies, are the older G4 (quicksilver and back) power supplies all the same?

[Avon]

Guys, correct me if im wrong, but the new MDD macs only have 2 normal HD bays!

So I guess you can only install 3 hard drives by putting one into the 2nd bay with a 5.25 to 3.5" eclosure adapter...

[:XI:]

I think you can place two drives beneath the optical bays and two vertically beneath power supply, then a fifth could be placed in the spare optical bay.

hope the image loads too.

[Simon]

Originally posted by Avon:
Guys, correct me if im wrong, but the new MDD macs only have 2 normal HD bays!

Yeah, I'll have to correct you here. :XI: is right. You have four HDD bays and theoretically you could put in a fifth disk in the second optical bay.

[RayLuczak]

Hello:

I'd like a little clarification here.

If I remember correctly, the first pair of Ultra ATA drives on the new G4s are ATA-100, then the second pair of Ultra ATA drives would run off ATA-66, and IF we chose to put a fifth drive on the machine, it would run off ATA-33.

If this is true, how would this affect the PERFORMANCE of the second pair of 7200 rpm hard drives installed in this machine? Would it be better to use an ATA-133 PCI card instead and forego the ATA-66 connections altogether?

Just wondering.

Thanks.

[CIA]

In a MDD, use the ATA100 for drives & the ATA66 for drives as well (minimal difference). Just keep your system on the ATA100 bus! If you want a minor speed boost, slap another ATA100 or 133 card in a spare PCI slot and skip the ATA66 bus.
Avoid the bus for the 5.25" bays, I think it's ATA33.

I don't remember if there is room for another drive in the MDD. I think 4 drives and 2 optical is the limit.

[Secret Vampire]

It depends to an extent what you're doing though, and how fast your HDs are. Looking at the spec for the WD Caviar special edition, one of those could saturate ATA66, and if you're going to be hitting two drives at once, you don't want to put them both on the same bus (an example would be software raid.)

Out of interest, as my G4s HD is becoming full, and occasionally making sick drive noises, what are the IDE speeds in sawteeth? the cable suggests ATA66, but Apple could be using overkill to improve reliability.

[Mac Zealot]

k if I remember correctly the most you can stick in a qs tower is a high number:

You start by getting another dual drive holder, and stick that in the front/bottom.

Then stick 5 drives in the bottom bays (it will fit), and get these sonnet tech cards (I think sonnet makes them) that actually have a laptop hard drive plug on them (you can mount laptop hard drives onto the cards themselves).

fill up every PCI slot with one and you have 4 hard drives in the PCI slots alone, thus you have 9 drives in the computer

Then you can get away with sticking 1 in the zip bay and 1 on top of the cd drive.

There you have it, 11 hard drives in a quicksilver.

[RayLuczak]

Hello:

I have a different sort of question. Do I need a special PCI-133 card in order for my new G4 (1.25-GP) to recognize internal hard drives above the 128 GB limit in OS X 10.2.2?

It seems that internal hard drives above 120 GB are becoming more and more common, and I want to make sure.

Thx!

[Deal]

The 100mhz ATA standard should see drives larger than 128MB. So the MDD Macs are safe from needing an additional PCI card.

As for the previouse posts, why limmit yourself to 66mhz (or 33mhz ack!) when you could buy a Wiebtech: Super Drive Dock
http://www.wiebetech.com/products.html#sdd

Given this fits in your case, plug the drive into this and plug that into the internal firewire port.

Viola Full 200GB ATA drive inside your case and not limmited to 2 drives per channel!

(not that I have tried this but I am dying to hear from somebody who has)

[RayLuczak]

Hello:

Thanks for the reply, but it's unclear whether you say that I could plug in this Super Drive Dock into an INTERNAL FireWire port--yeah, but WHERE is this internal FireWire port INSIDE the G4 case? I'd like to be able to lock the G4 case shut.

Just wonderin'. Thanks.

[Deal]

Look on the mainlogic board. There should be an internal Firewire port there.

[RayLuczak]

Something else's occurred to me.

If the ATA-100 should see drives larger than 128 GB, then what's the max for ATA-66? 80 GB? 100 GB? 120 GB?

Thanks again, guys.

[Simon]

Originally posted by Deal:
Look on the mainlogic board. There should be an internal Firewire port there.

The MDD PowerMacs don't have internal FireWire ports. As far as I know, the internal FW port was dropped pretty soon after they first appeared in PowerMacs. Check this Apple document for the MDDs:

http://developer.apple.com/techpubs/...ire_Ports.html

[Deal]

COWER AND MOURN!

Why would they remove that? I thought for sure that would soon native firewire hard drives and push the bar!

Now your upgrade would also have to include a PCI firewire card too. Oh what the hell. Buy a bunch of external drives and glue them to the outside of the case

[2far]

Originally posted by RayLuczak:
Something else's occurred to me.

If the ATA-100 should see drives larger than 128 GB, then what's the max for ATA-66? 80 GB? 100 GB? 120 GB?

Thanks again, guys.

Actually, only ATA-133 is guaranteed to see >128GB, AFAIK. ATA-100 does it with newer generation LBAs. Older ATA-100 and ATA-66 see only up to 128GB.

[Cipher13]

Originally posted by Simon:
The MDD PowerMacs don't have internal FireWire ports. As far as I know, the internal FW port was dropped pretty soon after they first appeared in PowerMacs. Check this Apple document for the MDDs:

http://developer.apple.com/techpubs/...ire_Ports.html

I believe the Sawtooth was the only system to have internal FireWire. They dropped it on Mystic.

[Britney F.]

Originally posted by 2far:
Actually, only ATA-133 is guaranteed to see >128GB, AFAIK. ATA-100 does it with newer generation LBAs. Older ATA-100 and ATA-66 see only up to 128GB.

Actually according to this document the MDD's busses fully support drive larger than 128GB as long as they are formatted with the Disk Utility in 10.2.

Britney

[OreoCookie]

Originally posted by Britney F.:
Actually according to this document the MDD's busses fully support drive larger than 128GB as long as they are formatted with the Disk Utility in 10.2.

Britney

Don't think so. The 128 GB limitation solely depends on the ATA version. AFAIK, the MDDs have one ATA133 bus, one ATA66, and one ATA33. Only the newest one (ATA133) is able to handle HDs larger than 128 gigs.

[Britney F.]

Originally posted by OreoCookie:
Don't think so. The 128 GB limitation solely depends on the ATA version. AFAIK, the MDDs have one ATA133 bus, one ATA66, and one ATA33. Only the newest one (ATA133) is able to handle HDs larger than 128 gigs.

The MDDs have one ATA100 bus, one ATA66, bus and one ATA33 bus. There is no ATA133 bus in the MDD unless you add a PCI card. Both the ATA100 and ATA66 bus will handle drives larger than 128GB (actually 137GB, 32-bit LBA's limit). Go to Apple's Store and Built-to-Order any one of the PowerMac configurations. Click on the "Learn More" text next to the hard drive selection. The last half of the second paragraph states:

The new Power Mac G4 features two hard disk interfaces - one ATA/100, offering maximum data throughput of 100MB per second, and a second ATA/66, offering maximum data throughput of 66MB per second. Each interface supports two ATA hard drives in primary/secondary configuration for up to four internal drives, or 720GB of internal storage. All drives are compatible with both the ATA/100 and the ATA/66 interface.

To get to 720GB they use 4 180GB drives, 2 on the ATA100 bus adn 2 on the ATA66 bus.

My understanding is that ATA100 and ATA66 can both support 48-bit LBA but the firmware in most ATA100/66 cards doesn't. Apple just modified their firmware in the MDDs so that both the ATA100 and ATA66 support 48-bit LBA which gives the ability to address drives larger than 137GB.

Britney

[Akarso]

Originally posted by G4ME:


as many as you can shove in the bit�h!!!

holy crap! haha, man that's intense!