Installing larger SCSI drive(s) on Power Mac G4 graphite

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Installing larger SCSI drive(s) on Power Mac G4 graphite

I was reading this thread and thought I would pose a very basic question. My Power Mac G4 server currently has 2 mirrored Seagate 40 Gig hard drives. They are about out of space. Can I replace them with larger drives? Can I add a single new 40 Gig drive and set up a striped RAID array and get more usable space from the three drives? Does this all depend on the controller board?
Any help would be appreciated.

Powermac G4 server, 500 MHz, Mac OS X (10.4.10), Graphite case, gigabit ethernet

Posted on Jul 21, 2007 3:49 PM

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Answer 1

japamac

Level 7

24,400 points

Jul 21, 2007 9:35 PM in response to Bill Lovallo

Hi-

Welcome to Discussions!

You are refering to a 500mhz Gigabit Ethernet G4, correct?
You said SCSI drives- are you connected through your SCSI card? You can install larger drives, up to 120gb. If you are referring to the ATA bus, you can also use two, up to 120gb drives. To add a third ATA drive (or fourth), a controller card would be needed. Rather than use an ATA controller card, a more economical, and higher performance method would be to use a SATA controller card, and then you could use drives as large as you want, and have better performance than the ATA drives.
If indeed you are referring to SCSI, you can add another drive, using another controller card.

Regardless of the drive type, if you want to use a mirror, fine, striped, also fine. If you want to use a 0+1, or 1+0 RAID, you will need 4 drives minimum. the ability to do such will require a controller card that supports RAID (most do). For more on RAID:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID

G4AGP(450)Sawtooth, 2ghz PowerLogix, 2gbRAM, RaptorSATAATA, ATI Radeon 9800 Mac OS X (10.4.8) Pioneer DVR-109, 23" ACD, Ratoc USB 2.0, QCam Ultra, Nikon Coolscan

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Answer 2

Bill Lovallo Author

Level 1

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Jul 22, 2007 11:51 AM in response to Bill Lovallo

I was reading this thread and thought I would pose a
very basic question. My Power Mac G4 server
currently has 2 mirrored Seagate 40 Gig hard drives.
They are about out of space. Can I replace them
with larger drives? Can I add a single new 40 Gig
drive and set up a striped RAID array and get more
usable space from the three drives? Does this all
depend on the controller board?
ny help would be appreciated.

Greetings Japamac!

Thanks so much for the helpful advice.
I am using a .500mhz Gigabit Ethernet G4. This was an early implementation of a server platform during the OS X beta days and it came with a SCSI controller and a 40 Gig SCSI drive. I later added a second drive and simply run Carbon Copy Cloner once a week to mirror them.
Based on your input, I think the simplest solution for me is two 120 Gig SCSI drives. It will quadruple my capacity and keep the machine working into the foreseeable future.
Thanks again.

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Answer 3

Jeff

Level 6

12,328 points

Jul 22, 2007 8:56 PM in response to Bill Lovallo

The controller card must support a RAID setup. Your existing SCSI card doesn't have a 120 GB limitation for individual hard drives connected to it - but your wallet might. Large capacity 68-pin, Ultra-Wide SCSI drives are quite expensive, compared to their parallel ATA and SATA counterparts. You could install an ATA-133 RAID controller card like this one, and connect two or more inexpensive ATA-100/133 hard drives to it. Your total expense would probably be less than a pair of 120 GB (or larger) Ultra-Wide SCSI drives would cost. For that matter, if you don't need a RAID setup, this Acard ATA-133 controller card and a pair of 160, 250, or 300 GB ATA-100/133 hard drives would more than serve your needs. As mentioned, you can connect a pair of 120 GB (or smaller) ATA-100/133 hard drives directly to the motherboard's slower IDE bus. A good sale price for these drives is 50¢/GB or less, so check your local electronics, computer, and office supply stores' weekly specials.

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