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You are here: MacNN Forums > Hardware - Troubleshooting and Discussion > Mac Desktops > G5s and Hard Drives

G5s and Hard Drives
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turk.o
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Sep 20, 2003, 02:02 PM
 
ok, so my dual is very (very) slowly becoming a reality, and now that it is i have to get some real answers for my questions as i will need to make these purchases pretty soon.

I know that apple sometimes uses different hard drive manufacturers, even for the same size hard drives, even in the same machines, but regardless, i was hoping that those who have received G5s with 160GB drives in them could report what manufacturer made them. if nothing else, this will give us all an idea of what to expect, and what not to expect.

the reason i am interested is because when i researched what drive to get for the second slot (i am looking at another 160GB) i found that the general concensus was that the Maxtor Diamondback was defnitely a superior drive in terms of both speed and loudness, and also a longer warranty. the most conplete review is here where they also compare it to the Seagate Barracuda. i am pretty sure the maxtor is what i am going for.

so, firstly, i am curious if these are what apple uses, and secondly if not, and apple supplies a slower, louder drive, can anyone see any technical problems with me switching the drives locations physically so that the maxtor will be the master and primary drive? anything i need to know abou this?

secondly, i have a bunch of back-up questions. i have always been paranoid about backing up and like to have at least one bootable back-up of my entire computer, and one seperate backup of all of my data files. this paranoia became even more extreme when i read the slashdot article on the decay-rate for CDRs.

up until now i have been making a bootable back-up to an external firewire drive every other day with Carbon Copy Cloner (CCC), an app that i absolutely love and has saved my ass no small numbers of times. however my new plan with my dual is to use the main 160GB drive for everything (apps, system, files, etc) and install a second 160GB drive purely to back-up the first. my questions are: can i use apples disk utility to make a mirror raid set-up with this configuration? also, will there be a performance hit with the drives set-up to mirror? how exactly does raid mirroring work?

i am trying to decide if i should use mirror RAID or just continue to auto-schedule CCC to make a bootable back-up. does anyone have any ideas or experiences they could share?

thanks in advance,

t.o
     
Hydra
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Sep 20, 2003, 02:14 PM
 
I system profiled my dual G5 and it shows the 160 GB drive as ST3160023AS. I googled it and found it is the # for a Barracuda 7200.7 SATA. Hope this helps. I bought an OEM version of the WD SATA 250 GB from Newegg for $299 (it is less right now) and it comes with a 3 year warranty.

I have had a Maxtor fail on me before but never a WD or IBM. I would buy a Maxtor anyway, I just think when a drive is gonna fail its gonna fail. Most drives are pretty reliable these days IMHO. I got the WD because it was the best deal at the time.

-Jerry C.
     
sibellc
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Sep 20, 2003, 02:19 PM
 
I'm fairly certain the G5's that have shipped use the Seagate Barracuda. But since the G5 uses serial ata (SATA) there is no such thing as master/slave. Each drive gets it's own channel. Just plop the new drive in, and there's nothing to worry about.

If backing up is what you want to do, then RAID is a bad idea. Yes, Disk Utility will mirror you drives if you want, but that only protects you agains drive failure. If one drive fails, then you can still use the other one. However, it doesn't protect you against doing something stupid, like accidentaly deleting something you really need, or mucking around in the system folder, or the tons of other things that users do from time to time that they really wish they hadn't. With mirroring, you've just made a mistake on two copies of your data!
( Last edited by sibellc; Dec 18, 2006 at 11:46 PM. )
     
Hydra
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Sep 20, 2003, 02:40 PM
 
Originally posted by sibellc:
I'm fairly certain the G5's that have shipped use the Seagate Barracuda. But since the G5 uses serial ata (SATA) there is no such thing as master/slave. Each drive gets it's own channel. Just plop the new drive in, and there's nothing to worry about.
Yup I forgot to mention I did no jumper setting and just plopped the drive in in all of 2 minutes and that's it. SATA has no master-slave. Sibellc is right, each drive has its own channel.

-Jerry C.

See my thread on my G5 shipping. I posted some pix of the whole HD install.


http://homepage.mac.com/jerrycube/PhotoAlbum18.html
     
turk.o  (op)
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Sep 20, 2003, 02:59 PM
 
thanks jerry and cody! i love how fast you can get answers on the macnn forums. looks like the raid idea is out the window, which is fine as long as i have my trusty CCC. and i guess that seagate that comes with the machine will be fine since it will only be my back-up drive. the no master/slave aspect of SerialATA is sweet. thanks again!

t.o
     
rlmorel
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Sep 21, 2003, 12:33 PM
 
I suggest you steer clear of Maxtor. I have had three of their drives fail on me! I have IBM and WD drives, and they have given me no problem. My Maxtor drives have been a complete disappointment.

Granted, I had a 30 GB drive that failed, and when I sent it back, they sent me an 80GB drive as a replacement, but that one failed also.

I and I was under the impression that Apple was using the WD2500JD Raptor drives in their new G5's...someone on this board said that is what came in his new mac...

"An argument isn't just saying 'No it isn't'!" "Yes it is!" "NO IT ISN'T!"
     
GeoMac
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Sep 21, 2003, 01:00 PM
 
Originally posted by rlmorel:

I and I was under the impression that Apple was using the WD2500JD Raptor drives in their new G5's...someone on this board said that is what came in his new mac...
that's probably true, as I think WD is the only one to come out with a 250gb SATA drive so far. The Wd's are the best performers, but also louder than the seagates.
iBook G3 800 MHz/640mb RAM/30
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Waldo
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Sep 21, 2003, 06:51 PM
 
I have to disagree with anyone wanting an IBM (Hitachi) drive. I help support 400 IBM's at work (how sad for me) and 200 of those have IBM drives (pre-Hitachi). We've sent back almost 50 of those IBM hard drives ranging from 15-30 GB.

I had also bought a 80 GB Hitachi/IBM drive in May for my G4. Within three months it bombed, taking my 3500 song iTunes library with it. I'll never buy another one.
     
rlmorel
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Sep 21, 2003, 09:45 PM
 
Waldo,
I could agree with you, but in my case, I have had no problem with my IBM drive...

Of course...as the saying goes...

Your mileage may vary! I must have got one of the good ones!

"An argument isn't just saying 'No it isn't'!" "Yes it is!" "NO IT ISN'T!"
     
denim
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Sep 22, 2003, 01:36 PM
 
Some people seem to be forgetting something: all drives fail. No exceptions. The question is, how much use do you get out of them first?
Is this a good place for an argument?
Peace on Earth, Good Will Toward Me
     
Hydra
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Sep 22, 2003, 01:54 PM
 
Originally posted by denim:
Some people seem to be forgetting something: all drives fail. No exceptions. The question is, how much use do you get out of them first?
Exactly. That's why I try to back-up religiously and always say they will fail when they fail (it's not a question of if).

-Jerry C.
     
CatOne
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Sep 22, 2003, 02:24 PM
 
Originally posted by denim:
Some people seem to be forgetting something: all drives fail. No exceptions. The question is, how much use do you get out of them first?
The MTBF on many of the drives these days (160 GB and up) is 1 million hours. If you're having drives fail in 6 months of use, math shows that should be an outlier, and there may be problems with the drives in large batches.

I don't believe failures on 15-30 GB IBM drives predicts anything about the more recent IBM/hitachi drives... that's something that happened on drives that are at least 4 years old and I'd guess those particular issues would have been addressed by now.

I've had very good luck with recent Hitachi 180's in Xserve and Xserve RAID... 200 running 24/7 for 6 months without a failure.
     
denim
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Sep 22, 2003, 04:48 PM
 
Originally posted by CatOne:
The MTBF on many of the drives these days (160 GB and up) is 1 million hours. If you're having drives fail in 6 months of use, math shows that should be an outlier, and there may be problems with the drives in large batches.
The MBTF is a play number with about as much relevance in reality as Apple's demos with Photoshop. You spends yer money and you takes yer chances. Seriously.
Is this a good place for an argument?
Peace on Earth, Good Will Toward Me
     
   
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