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Helpful answers
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Sep 5, 2014 6:08 PM in response to Kirstin79by Kappy,Why don't you install another internal HDD in the computer?
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Sep 5, 2014 10:12 PM in response to Kirstin79by Glen Doggett,When considering your options you should research costs, performance, compatibility, and simplicity. Here are a few things to think about.
Not exactly sure which G4 model you have, but most of them can use an external FW 400 drive where you can install and boot OS X, might be hard to find those now since FW800 are more common, which should also work but you need an adapter, and I am not sure what the size limit is for 10.4. The read/write speeds for FW400 are in the ballpark of 40MB/sec, which is not too shabby.
You may have ATA66 or ATA100 interfaces built in to the G4 on the available internal drive interfaces, those are a little bit faster like 60 MB/sec range, but they are the older technology parallel ATA drives, not the current and more common serial ATA or SATA drives that you see in most retail stores.
You can find out what kind of drives are compatible with your particular machine and great tech support from Mac-knowledgeable people at OtherWorldComputing via mail order. I would just call them up and explore your options for external or internal hard drive expansion. they have a variety of videos on their support web site that show how to install a hard drive in many different Mac models, probably including yours. Most G4 Macs came with the cables in place so you could just install the drive and hook up the interface ribbon cable and power supply cable, maybe adjust the jumpers on the drive, and be ready to go. (I am not affiliated, just a long time customer)
internal IDE/ATA drives compatible with the internal hookups in G4s
http://eshop.macsales.com/search/3.5+Internal+IDE/ATA
I just bought one of these expansion cards so that I can install a faster SATA drive (about 100MB/sec) in my G4 MDD
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Sonnet%20Technologies/TSATA/
it comes with the interface and power adapter cables for installing one drive, but it has two ports so you can install another one later if you get another set of the SATA cables.
and your local Apple store might be helpful or they might have no idea what a G4 is since they have been discontinued for ten years or so.
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Sep 6, 2014 8:58 PM in response to Kirstin79by kahjot,It would help to know what G4 you have. Not sure what kind of drives you are looking at that have a minimum OS requirement.
OWC is the best place to look first. They probably still have some enclosures that have FW 400 as well as FW 800 and USB 2. You can get one of those enclosures and add a 1 or 2 TB SATA drive to it yourself.