I've got a G4 (AGP) and am trying to figure out which internal ATA drives I can buy. Appreciate a little help from anyone in the know. Here's what the owner's manual says (but this can often change due to firmware/software upgrade?):<br><br>The computer provides support for the following types of internal storage devices:<br>* ATA devices, including ATA, ATA-2, and ATA-3 devices<br>* Ultra ATA devices<br>* Ultra-66 ATA devices<br><br>So can I get away with buying an Ultra ATA 100 or UATA 133 drive? That seems to be mostly what I'm running up against. Also thought I read somewhere that it was only expandable to 100GB total, but can't find confirmation of that now - can I add an 80GB slave drive if I already have a 25GB master?<br><br>TIA for the help<br><br>

You should be able to add any drive..I put a 120GB in my old G4 (agp) ..2 of them in fact, for a total of 240GB<br><br>

...and I don't need to worry about the ATA 100/133 specs either?<br><br>

Nope..but with the ATA66 controller card in there you won't get the full speed of 100/133. And, someone correct me if I'm wrong, with that ATA66 you are limited to a max. HD size of 130GB or so? (something about it not recognizing it). This would be per hard drive..not total space.<br><br>One solution is to get an ATA133 card from someplace like OWC. If I find the link, I'll get it to you. I got one for $75<br><br>

Compatibility and reliability are more of an issue for me than speed is. Thanks for the info.<br><br>I'll probably head to Fry's Electronics tomorrow to pick up a drive on my way to Santa Clara to get some data recovered from a HD that crashed. Ick. Not looking forward to the minimum $500 to retrieve the info, but I got to have my portfolio back. I swear, I was about to back up too. I shut off the external FW drive on the beige G3 to move it to the G4 and when I turned it back on... "click, click, click, click..." I tried everything to get it going, but those little armatures are stuck or something. This is why the urgency for a new drive that will work internally.<br><br>

Yeah, I'm doing research here and there on this very subject- ATA 133 and 100 are backwards compatible- like OSXAddict said, you just won't get the speed of the 133 or the 100 drives...<br><br>But I'm sure it's minimal in the grand scheme of it all...<br><br>[color:red]Hold on, it's time for a </font color=red> <br>

Right, according to c|net, most "speed" specs don't make much of a difference for the average desktop user - that the performance of hard drives have hit a "plateau" in performance. They recommend $/GB to be the most important spec to look at. More here:<br><br>http://computers.cnet.com/hardware/0-1091-8-20069949-1.html?tag=st.co.1091.fs.1091-8-20069949-1<br><br>

I have an 80GB Barracuda as my slave drive running OS X with no noticable change in speed. My master drive (40GB) still has OS 9 if ever I need to boot up in the old OS.<br><br>

http://www.newegg.com has good prices on hard drives.<br><br>