HD upgrade help

[rotuts]

Hello

Id like some help in upgrading my HD’s in my main faster slots on one of my G4dual 1gz. In the info it says I have a ATA-3 bus ( two cd/dvd’s there) and a ATA-6 bus, with two drives in there. The ATA-4 bus is empty.

I was thinking of some ATA-133 in the faster ATA-6 bus, but on the ads for the drives it says they are for ATA-7.

Therefore, what is the fastest ATA (EIDE) drives I can put in the ATA-6 bus on this computer? Is ATA-133 too fast for this bus?

its the mirrored door G4 windtunnel but not the last one where the ATA bus is I think faster.


Thanks

rotuts

[Case]

Therefore, what is the fastest ATA (EIDE) drives I can put in the ATA-6 bus on this computer? Is ATA-133 too fast for this bus?

ATA-3: upto 16.7 MB/s, no ATAPI (optical/tape drive) support
ATA/ATAPI-4: upto 33.3 MB/s (I'm pretty sure your optical drives are on this bus)
ATA/ATAPI-5: upto 66 MB/s
ATA/ATAPI-6: upto 100 MB/s, 48 bit addressing, large drive support
ATA/ATAPI-7: upto 133 MB/s for parallel ATA.

Note that SATA (Serial ATA) is part of the ATA/ATAPI-7 specs as well, which is split up in 3 parts (hard disk commands, traditional parallel ATA interface, SATA-1 interface).

Parallel ATA devices are backwards compatible: an Ultra ATA/133 drive will run fine on a ATA-6 bus.

[terryj]

rotus,
we have the same machine at home,
here is what I have done:

ATA-6 bus ( Back DRIVE TRAY): 2 WD 320GB ATA 133 HD DRIVES
ATA-4: PIONEER SD (DVR-109), SAMSUNG 48XCDRW
ATA-4 SECONDARY CHANNEL: (under Optical Drives slot)
two WD 200GB ATA 100 hard drives

No problems with bottle necks or slow throughput, as Case said, the ATA-133's are backwards compatible.

I have also talked to other "custom builders", and one
guy has two 320GB drives in the back cage,
one 250GB in the under optical tray, and then has a
400GB drive that is attached to a Tempo Trio ATA/133
that just resides in the under optical tray only.

Thats 320+320+250+400=1.3 TB!!!

[rotuts]

chase and Terr: is what this really says is that with my machine, the ATA-6 bus will NOT benefit from a ATA-133 drive, as it will really be transferring at the rate of the computers bus, at ATA/100 speeds?

I have several ATA/100 drives and will use them if I get no speed up with replacing them with ATA/133 with 16MB buffers, ie 300gb drive. Ill use the ATA/100 drives at back up outside the computer on removable firewire connection for occational back ups.

in other words, Id rather save the $$ for new 133 drives if I gain nothing or very little in this machine with them over the 100's I have.

of course don't know what the 16MB buffer will do for me in a boot HD.

Ill be getting an IntelPowerMac ehn the dust clears and the top of the line qyads come out and are evalutated here and at MacNN

cheers and why is it I get much more detailed responses here than MacNN.? thankks even if a little off topic ( not really--- those drives have video on them!!!)

rotuts

[terryj]

Rotus:

1. if you want ATA-133 roundtrip throughput, you'll need
to get a PCI card for that. I reccommend Sonnet Tech's
Tempo Trio Card, it works fine in Dual MDD PowerMacs.
otherwise, yes, the throughput will be the native ATA's
advertised bus speed, not the HD's.

2. As to MacNN vs. Us, alot more of us care here?
We tend to test more stuff? I don't know...
but you are welcome regardless.

[willrob]

My dual G4 1Ghz has
2 ATA-100 bays "in the back"
2 ATA-66 bays in the front (beneath optical bays)
2 ATA-3 optical bays (I'm not sure where you guys are finding ATA-4, it clearly says ATA-3 on my motherboard)

While the bench marks prove the ATA-66 bus is slower, in my day to day use I don't notice much difference. When I transfer video files to external firewire drives I then notice a considerable lag, but this is usually at the stage when I'm done with a project and have the patience.

[rotuts]

Will maybe you have the mirrored door thats a year younger than mine:

Hardware Overview:

Machine Model: Power Mac G4
CPU Type: PowerPC G4 (2.1)
Number Of CPUs: 2
CPU Speed: 1 GHz
L2 Cache (per CPU): 256 KB
L3 Cache (per CPU): 1 MB
Memory: 1.25 GB
Bus Speed: 167 MHz
Boot ROM Version: 4.4.7f1

it doesnt say the year but it might be 2002, then there were ones with a faster buss in 2003 I think.

Ill ahve to mull over a 133 card and see.

thanks rotuts