Does PPC G5 support SATA II internal drives?

Hello! Try reading THIS xlr8 site info on drives. There have been some G5 issues with some drives and this might help sort them out. generally SATA II drives are backwards compatible with SATA I . Tom

I've got an original series G5 1.6 Ghz single processor and I just added a Maxtor 500 GB drive that is SATA II as well as being backward compatible with SATA I as stated by OWC and the manufacturer of the drive.

I'm also using my 500 GB as my "digital audio drive" in my recording studio using MOTU Digital Performer and various other audio applications. I've kept my original 80 GB system drive in place for the moment till I can afford a larger, faster start up drive. I needed to get a large drive for the audio files first.

While I can't speak directly to the Western Digital drives, I can say that the Maxtor with SATA I/II interfaces is fine and seems to be working without any problems. To be completely candid, I've only had the new 500 GB Maxtor drive installed for a little over a week, but I have been using it without any problems so far.

So to answer the SATA II part of your question, I believe that shouldn't be a problem if the Western Digital drive is backward compatible like the Maxtor is. Most are from what I've seen, but I guess you should carefully read the specs on the WD drive to be sure it's backward compatible too.

Hope this helps a bit.

John

If you aren't using a RAID you could put the SE16 in there, which I like for its speed AND quiet (runs cooler than the two MaxLine Pros I have too).

http://www.wdc.com check their support articles and such. WD provides jumpers to force a drive to change settings (NCQ, power, SSC, 1.5Gbps mode).

The Maxtor's were EOL and I think the warranty begins when it was manuf'd, not when bought.

The drive that will not work in PCI-X G5s is 150GB Raptor.
http://www.macsales.com - where I buy all my drives lately.

I am also researching the same issue. The main issue here is whether or not the PPC G5 supports the 3gbs transfer rate. To be safe until uou find out from Apple the correct answer, there are pins on the drive to the right of the power and data plugs. The jumper comes from the factory on the right two pins which defaults the speed to 1.5gbs which is compatible with the PPC G5. I have Apple Care on my Quad G5 and intend to call them in the morning to find out the correct answer. For now I have left the jumper set at 1.5gbs. You should go to Seagate's website and check the proper jumper setting for your particular drive. Be careful to pay close attention to the drawing and the relation of the jumper pins to the power/sata plugs as it may be inverted.

The question still remains. Will my dual 2.3 support an SATA II drive at 300 or do I need to set the jumpers for 150. I'm getting ready to install a 500gig Seagate Barracuda.
Thanks!

Has anyone gotten a definite 100% yes or no on the SATA II with 300 transfer speeds? I am looking to toss a new drive in my Dual 2.7 G5 and would love any extra speed the SATA II might provide.

Hi-

All PPC G5's have a SATA-IO (SATA/150) compliant hard drive interface (Advanced Host Controller Interface) that supports transfer speeds up to 1.5 gb/s.

Drives that are the later SATA-IO (SATA/300 or SATA II) standard compliant, will have transfer rates of 3.0 gb/s, and with few exceptions, are backward compatible to the early SATA/150 standard, but will not achieve the later SATA/300 data transfer rate of 3.0 gb/s on an early SATA/150 compliant system.

The later SATA/300 compliant drives will operate within the limits of the G5 SATA/150 compliant controller, or have max. transfer rates of 1.5 gb/s.

http://www.serialata.org/namingguidelines.asp

So, the definitive answer is, No.
Drives that support 3.0 gb/s data transfer rates will not achieve greater than 1.5 gb/s in the PPC G5 due to the onboard SATA interface controller's being early SATA/150 compliant.

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