hey guys I'm looking to max out my G4 this spring/summer seeing as it has been proving very useful while at college (served as a backup when my iBook went down for 2 days:)). Right now it is driving a Sharp HD TV and has been great for watching movies, I would like to keep copies of all my ripped movies right in the computer so I don't need to use my eternal HD and keep my external exclusively for backups. So what I want to do is install a SATA controller card and two 1.5 TB HDs or two 750 giger IDK yet. which is the best option for a SATA controller? also would booting from a SATA drive connected to a PCI SATA controller be faster than using the ATA bus?
I'm pretty sure that if sonnet says its for a g4 its for a g4. The first one looks nice, definitely want one myself, rock 4TBs in my quicksilver, who needs a mac pro.
Anydangways, stuff like that always worked in my G4, good luck
Sonnet makes parts just for macs. If the card is PCI it should work just fine. Sata will be faster than ata100/133. Whether or not its necessary I cannot say, but it is the way to go. I ran sata Raids in my Macs in the part and it was great. Can't remember the brand....not sonnet....I did write an article on it somewhere here on MacMod. PCI does limit drives at this time, but four of them in RAID should be just fine. The Mac softRAID has always worked for me. Find the cheapest Mac compatible card you can. Most are based on the same chip and even have the same board...some pricier than others. Had three Quicksilvers my self, great machines, but touchy motherboards. Also, if you plan a cpu upgrade, full ram, a good video card with molex, Raid card and a bunch of drives, don't forget about the power supply. It is limited on how much it can handle.
The cards I have always used in Macs are Firmtek Seriteks as they actually make their own cards. I have had a great relationship with them and support is great.
thanks everyone. I actually am taking my ugrades process a little more seriously now because I have to hold off on my Macbook Pro 17" until the summer/fall (its hard to get student loans big enough for both tuition and a laptop). So I'm gonna use money I have in hand to upgrade my tower so I have more computing power in my dorm as I don't really need to do as much intense work on the run as I would at my desk. so heres the plan: CPU http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Newer%20Technology/MAXG48S1800/ $ 359.99
this is all for a QS tower that I got for 50$ I plan to keep this computer for a very very very long time seeiing as when I finally do get my Macbook Pro in the fall, I will need a Mac OS 9 capable machine for working with Forge and running old school software/games that have yet to be ported to OS X.
what is your input?
also How do you think Doom 3 would run on this rig? (My video card is an ATI Raedeon 9200 Pro 128MB and I have 1.25 gigs of RAM)
I really don't care for Doom 3 that much, just wondering how it might run is all. I plan to upgrade the QS and not buy a G5 because a G5 cant boot into OS 9 it can only use classic and I need the capability of booting OS 9. Right now my QS is used for watching movies and playing Marathon and all the Marathon conversions.
something Just occurred to me about upgrading the processor to dual 1.8 Ghz, the Powermac G4 QS 733mhz 2001 model is notorious for heat issues and is known as apple most problematic desktop as far as heating issues go. Should I cut holes and put fans in it? get a PCI slot exhaust fan? liquid cool the CPU GPU and RAM?
Most likely I'm gonna be running Logic Express 8 on here for mixing purposes.
along with some Unreal Tournament 2k4, Halo, and of course my beloved marathon collection.