I've got an AGP Quicksilver 733hz which was created/shipped in 2002. It's a long story but I guess it's a 2002 that's not a 2002. When I ordered it I had Apple install a SCSI card to use some SCSI periferals which are now dinasaurs/boat anchors.
Anyway it's got a 50 pin slot on the underside of the card for internal devices.
I've maxed out the 40GB master drive and a little 10GB I threw into position 3.
What I want to do is toss the 10GB, and add two more drives with as much speed and capacity as I can get.

The Apple tech specs say the following about what I can put in it:
Three 3.5-inch (90 mm) hard drive expansion bays:
-One ATA drive preinstalled on standard configurations
-Support for up to two internal ATA drives
-Support for up to three internal SCSI drives
-Support for a combination of internal SCSI and ATA drives (up to one ATA and two SCSI)

It doesn't say I can put in 2 ATA and one SCSI, however. Why not?
I heard there's some controversy about G4's not being able to handle drives larger than 128GB. xceller8yourmac has some entries on that issue but I'm still scratching my head about that. Apparentyl some folks haven't had any problem whereas others end up with unmountable drives.
What can I do? Can I put in a 200GB ATA and SCSI of whatever size I can afford? Do they both have to be under128GB if I still use OS9?

I would stay away from SCSI on the basis of cost, even though its faster than the ATA/66 that you have now. I would suggest that you purchase a 160 or 250 GB ATA drive. They are incredibly cheap these days. I purchased my 160 hitachi for around $60 after rebate, but even better deals can be had these days. You won't be able to get a SCSI drive at 250GB for SCSI at any price because they don't make em anymore that i know of. If it comes down to speed, take a peek at the Firmtek Seritek Internal SATA PCI interface and get yourself an SATA drive.

http://store.yahoo.com/firmtek/seseatahoadf.html

[img]http://store1.yimg.com/I/firmtek_1833_1319477[/img]

As far as the support for 2 ATA drives, that is incorrect. Extend the ATA connection for the Zip drive and you can add a 3rd ATA HD. I did it for quite some time in my AGP Sawtooth and it worked just fine. Don't make my mistake tho....make sure you cool your HDs properly :ermm:

Post edited by: krusher117, at: 2005/03/14 22:03

to keep costs low DO NOT buy a pci card. get yourself 2 7200rpm drives with 8mb cache and you'll be good to go. they will be cheap and the same spec drive made a huge difference for me performance wise over my slow ata33 bus so a 66 will do just dandy.

the mac mini pretty much discounts any large upgrade costs to systems. if you were to buy a pci card and a couple drives you would be with in 150 of a mac mini.

upgrades should serve 2 purposes.
1. to be cheap
2. to get the most performance you can out of the least amount since the pont of upgrading is to save money over a new system. I sure wish the mini was around before I spent about 1000 in total on all the upgrades my system has.

something to think about.

Post edited by: zenstate, at: 2005/03/14 22:34

yea i was just offering that up as an option, but I endorse a high quality ATA drive as your best bet also

I hear ya about keeping it simple and cheap. I guess I'll just get one or two ATA's. But I can't seem to find any ATA 66's that are big enough to even bother. I guess there aren't that many still being sold. Can I put a 120GB ATA 100 in? The number just represents the seek time, right?

As far as, getting a Mini goes. I hear on that too. But I'd need more that a 80GB drive. Oh and there is my Audio input card with a midi connection, and buying ram to get it up to less than I have in my G4 now. I couldn't trade in my G4 now because the Mini wouldn't be able to do everything I need, so I guess I'd have both which might be cool. But then I guess I'd have to run out and get a KVM switch to use the same monitor and keyboard for both. It starts to add up to about $1000-1100. I ran the numbers on upgrades vs. the Mini and it's almost even. In a way I guess you'd have to look at is as buying a second computer and split activities between the two. Kinda like having two wives, it always sounds tempting in theory but who needs the hassel. I'm an old fashioned monogamous guy. I've got too much invested in the old girl now to go out and get a mini that only does part of the job.

yes an ATA!00 is backwards compat with ATA66

yep. I use an ata 100 drive on an ata 33 bus.

Okay, here is the best advice I can give you about HD's. Did you read my PCI SATA card
articles. First I would say especially since you will be doing video you need a good set of
hds. Trust me, this setup is proven. Your main drive can be kept on ata66. Only put your OS and apps on it. A seritek sata raid 0 is the way to go for the next drive. You can
get this card and 2 sata drive for less than two hundred bucks. It will be about 3-4 times
faster than your standard drive. This is used for scratch disk and storage. Think of ata 33
as a straw, ata 66 as a hose and ata 100 as a pvc pipe- a sata raid 0 is a drainage pipe. Now think of data as water. This water must go back and forth and both ways at the same time. I would not go less than the pvc pipe. Anyway, the sata cables are small and make
case airflow better. Besides when you upgrade to a g5 you will still be able to use them.
-maestro

"Hard drives are the biggest bottle necks in a computer system."

Maestro:
I didn't read your article, but I will look it up right after this.
I knew raids were a good idea, but thought them to be very expensive.
Once again, good solid advice. You're batting 1000.
I smell a brownie point.