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Arkham_c · Aug 28, 2003, 09:54 PM

Look at this picture and tell me if it looks like the G5 might be able to hold 3 drives in the drive bay:

Conscript · Aug 28, 2003, 09:58 PM

maybe, but don't think it matters since there's only two SATA controllers and you can only have one drive per.

Hydra · Aug 28, 2003, 10:01 PM

Originally posted by Arkham_c:
Look at this picture and tell me if it looks like the G5 might be able to hold 3 drives in the drive bay:

Look at the right side. The drive at the top has a latch (far right) labeled "A" and the latch on the bottom is labeled "B". A drive added would take over the entire area on the bottom. There is no room up there for another drive- nor are there cables.

-Jerry C.

Peter753 · Aug 28, 2003, 10:57 PM

Yeah only 2. I looked at the Giant Poster thing of the insides of a G5 at my apple store and it had both bays full totaling only 2 drives.

awcopus · Aug 29, 2003, 12:41 AM

You guys are a little late to the party....

http://forums.macnn.com/showthread.p...hlight=Editing

But no doubt someday in 2004 or 2005 Apple will find a way to fit more stuff in there in some future revision. It's a big box, the processors are going to get smaller (theoretically), yadda yadda yadda....

Actually, if they can make an XServe with a dual G5 config and preserve its FOUR HD bays, that would be pretty sweet. Actually, Super Sweet.

blade · Aug 29, 2003, 09:35 AM

Each drive uses two of those half circle slots. You can only see the bottom half of the top drive. Note how the bottom of each pair has the plastic hooks to hold the drive in.

You can also see the plastics tabs on the right. Note that the top one is down, and the bottom up is still up.

So it appears they have custom rails, and only room for two drives.

At least it has Firewire for external storage.

tadd · Aug 29, 2003, 10:52 PM

It looks from the photos like there is room under the CPU for another HD. I could see bolting one to the bottom of the chassis and then adding a SATA card. Is this unreasonable?
I have 3 HDs in my G4/400 (520GB total) and would like to see 4 or more.
It's too bad they didn't make the cabinet just 4" taller!

Simon · Aug 31, 2003, 08:57 AM

Maybe you think three drives would fit because of the three pairs of mounting rails you see.

The real deal is that you need two rails to mount the upper drive. As you can see the upper drive is partly behind the metal casing, so you slide it into the middle rail and then tilt it at an angle to slide it into the upper position. The lower rive can be slid in horizontally.

If you look at the back of the picture you see how the middle rail suddenly connects to the top rail. That is where the drive slides into its correct place.

So, to sum it up: Top and middle rail are used to mount the upper (pre-installed) HD. The lower rail is for mounting the lower drive. The two tabs to the right retain the two drives.

That's all. No space for a third drive.

MDA · Aug 31, 2003, 10:09 AM

Originally posted by Arkham_c:
Look at this picture and tell me if it looks like the G5 might be able to hold 3 drives in the drive bay

I was in the Apple Store in Minneapolis yesterday and I asked the sales guy what the area pictured above was for. He told me it was the graphics card. I think they need to go over the G5's with the sales staff a little better.

MDA