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Power Mac G4 Hard Drive Upgrade

What is the largest available hard drive for a Power Mac G4 with the following specifications?

Hardware Overview:

Machine Name: Power Mac G4
Machine Model: PowerMac3,6
CPU Type: PowerPC G4 (2.1)
Number Of CPUs: 2
CPU Speed: 867 MHz
L2 Cache (per CPU): 256 KB
L3 Cache (per CPU): 1 MB
Memory: 768 MB
Bus Speed: 133 MHz
Boot ROM Version: 4.4.6f2
Serial Number: XB2 ***MUM
Sales Order Number: M8787LL/A

Once I know the size, availability, and price of upgrading this machine, I will look into whether it's worth buying a new hard drive (or drives, since this has a slave drive and it's still inadequate!) or just buying a whole new machine! Thanks!

<Edited by Moderator>

Power Mac G4, Mac OS X (10.4.11), Hard Drive 57.26 GB, Internal Slave Drive 232.86 GB

Posted on Dec 2, 2008 10:09 PM

Best reply

Limnos

Level 10

411,241 points

Posted on Dec 2, 2008 10:51 PM

We were just talking about something similar [here|http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=8562745#8562745]. Your bootROM indicates you can use >128GB drives. I don't know what the upper limit is. I am sure there is one, and it probably depends upon OS, but for OSX it is probably something incredibly huge that you don't have to worry.

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50 replies

Dec 22, 2008 2:00 AM in response to William Spragens

Okay, I don't have a digital camera. The way I've been putting video on the computer is to run it through a Canopus ADVC 110 and then into iMovie. I usually fill a DVD with 2-4 hours of material, and using this method, even with iMovie 03, 15 minutes used up an unbelievable amount of hard drive space, plus the program behaved in unaccountable ways--something would work perfectly on one try, and then never again despite long hours of agonizing frustration trying every possible combination to try to produce the desired results. It became like the lost chord to ever make it work again! I struggled for 4 months to produce that 15 minutes and ended up buying a DVD burner from Radio Shack which throws video onto quickie DVDs. Of course, there is absolutely no way to make titles or edit footage, so if anything is wrong with picture or sound, or God forbid there is ANY distraction when I have to push the button to stop recording, it will go on recording material I don't want or blue space which, being DVD and not VHS, there is NO WAY TO RECORD OVER!

Obviously I'd be using iPhoto for still pictures. I do have a digital camera but don't have a memory card reader unless you count one that came with my Epson Stylus Photo RX500 printer which I've been afraid to try. Again, I've been going to family, friends, or professionals every time I have a bunch of images on a memory card, to get a DVD burned, which has also created some stress.

Since it seems iLife 07 doesn't exist and iLife 08 is not usable with my equipment, obviously I'd have to use iLife 06. It would probably be a good idea to just buy a copy--they seem priced pretty reasonable.

As far as the internal memory, a friend who has offered to work on my Mac told me there was some device costing around $300 which would do something to the motherboard and greatly increase speed. This friend is HARD to get hold of, but I could TRY asking him what the thing is and whether he'd still recommend it. It could be the same device you discuss above.

Thanks again for your input.

Dec 23, 2008 2:38 PM in response to Cornelia Shields

Oh, I also want to download audio, some of it book-length, on an iPod. I'm not even bothering to buy an iPod until I'm sure I have a computer capable of doing this.

Bottom line is, four years ago, between things to make the video compatible with the computer, things to improve the computer, and installation, I ended up spending $1,100--in other words, about what a new computer would cost now--and STILL didn't get NEAR being able to edit a full-length movie! So I'd either have to be able to WAY upgrade my current computer for WAY under that, or just buy a new one and use my current one only for writing.

Are they even making the Power Mac G series anymore? If not, what has replaced it? Thanks.

Dec 23, 2008 6:53 PM in response to Cornelia Shields

I think you should look at buying a new digital movie camera with a FireWire connection. Today's cameras will pre-digitize the video and deliver it in a standard editable form to your Mac over FireWire.

Many users find iMovie is all they need for almost everything. iMovie's biggest selling point is that it is fairly easy to use. If you need high-end special effects, Final Cut Pro is available to grow into. The Final Cut Manual for version 3 was half a foot thick, and casual users find it too complex.

I think the computer you have is just fine for what you want to do, but I suggest you upgrade its RAM memory to the maximum 2 GB it can hold.

Dec 23, 2008 10:18 PM in response to Cornelia Shields

I'd still like to know what you mean by "edit a full-length movie". Are you wanting to digitize movies off TV or old video tapes, or are you making your own films? How long is full length, and are there multiple takes? How much total video time (of all takes) do you need? Your Mac would be suitable for making DVDs of video tapes, though perhaps not of MacroVision copy-protected commercial movies.

If you are trying to shoot a feature film, you can do it with your Mac, but you'll have to do it scene by scene. It will be tedious work, with the Mac chewing away overnight on transitions, encoding, etc. for weeks.

A new Mac will be maybe 10X faster, but still nowhere near real-time. As mentioned earlier, video production will use up all the power of the fastest computer you can afford. You can do anything George Lucas can, but he has 1000s of the latest $4000 Pro Macs at his disposal and techies to run them, so he can do it faster. And he doesn't have to know all the gory details of how to run the software.

Since I have only a vague general idea what you are trying to do (edit a movie), I can only offer vague general ideas of what equipment you will want. If there's an Apple Store near you, check and see if they offer training sessions on video production. Many stores have free training seminars, and that's a good way to find answers.

As for audio books downloaded off the internet, your computer and an iPod will handle that easily.

As for upgrading your machine, get more RAM. Maxing it out with 2GB from Other World Computing will cost about $130, and should speed it up considerably. Beyond that, upgrading the old girl gets expensive, and a new or newer Mac makes sense. The G5 was the last of the Gs. Apple switched to Intel CPUs about 3 years ago, and new Macs have multiple Intel processors.

Dec 24, 2008 2:36 AM in response to William Spragens

Okay, thanks. If I get a chance, I will ask my friend if upgrading the RAM was what he was talking about.

As for editing movies--I have GOBS and GOBS and GOBS of analog footage, mostly 8 mm tapes from my video camcorder, but some old home video on VHS tapes. Yes, the actual movies do have multiple takes and I will want to take them scene-by-scene or at least do some editing to correct sound (like if lighting was perfect but someone flubbed a line or there was some other sound distraction.) I also want to make beginning and end titles and have extras such as outtakes on the DVDs, as well as make Power Point mixed media (stills and moving footage) and music videos.

Dec 25, 2008 9:26 PM in response to Cornelia Shields

Thanks for clarifying. Assuming your films (DVDs) run 60-90 minutes, with an average 2 to 1 ratio of raw footage to finished film, and you edit scene - by -scene and then assemble edit the film, your Mac can handle it. Even with the slave drive, you won't have enough room to hold 3 or 4 hours of uncompressed video, so you'll have to do it in chunks. Your drive has to hold the source files, the working edit, and the finished edits at one time. You could get a larger slave drive and make your current 200GB slave drive the main drive in order to hold more at one time. Alternately, you could increase the compression on your unedited takes, which will allow more time to fit on a drive, but it will hurt video quality. Depending on how many crossfades and effects you use, which all have to be computed frame by frame, it will take an hour to a few hours per 10 minutes of film. Your dual CPUs will help. An external FireWire hard disk would be a good idea to back up your work and provide extra storage.

If you are looking at a new machine, it will have more storage space and faster processors. I would still max out its memory and consider an external hard drive as large as possible to hold backups and work in progress. Anyway, it sounds like fun, and you'll probably learn a lot more in the process than you really wanted to know - I certainly have with my projects.

Merry Christmas!

Dec 26, 2008 1:49 AM in response to William Spragens

Merry Christmas and thanks for taking the time to reply to my question.

Would I gain anything in particular by replacing my main hard drive with one that's even bigger than my slave drive, or is it not possible to replace a main drive?

And, my CD drive has to go--it's been doing weird things. Can I find one which will fit this machine and do CDs and DVDs both, or not? I do have an external DVD burner just in case.

Dec 26, 2008 9:46 PM in response to Cornelia Shields

Yes, the main drive can be replaced. What you do is copy everything to the new drive and set it to be the boot drive in System Preferences > Startup Drive. You could make your current "slave" drive the main (boot) drive, or add a new larger drive (500 GB PATA drives are getting cheap) and make it the main one. Your box can hold 4 internal drives, and any of them can be the main drive.

You can get a CD-DVD burner which also serves to read both formats to replace your flaky CD drive. OWC sells them for about $30, which is a bargain! It should be a bolt-in replacement. I'm getting one to replace the original DVD read-only drive in my G4.

OWC (www.macsales.com) is a good place to look for upgrade hardware. Click the "Upgrades" tab, pick out the picture of your Mac, and you can see what's available for it. Remember though, it doesn't make sense to spend near the purchase price of a more powerful machine.

Dec 26, 2008 11:59 PM in response to William Spragens

Thanks for all the information! It's beyond me how four drives could go in there, but if true, I would like to get one big enough to not have to worry about to use as my main drive, and still keep my original drive as an extra drive for a total of three, which should be able to hold me for the time being. That's really great about the CD/DVD drive being available!

Dec 27, 2008 10:17 AM in response to Cornelia Shields

In a Mirrored Drive Doors G4, one or two two drives can be stacked and installed "standing up" in the rear drive carrier position. That is the Bus with the fastest transfer rate. When you open the door and look inside, you see the top plate of the top drive.

Two additional drives can be installed "lying down" in the frontmost drive carried, again stacked fairly tightly together. That Bus is reasonably fast, and will generally not be a bottleneck for any but the fastest premium drives. When you look at those drives, you will see the rear of the drive, since the cable-end of the drive is next to the motherboard.

It is perfectly safe to open the side door and look inside, and there is no interlock. But if you leave the door open too long with the unit on, it will begin to heat up, and the fans will shift up to a higher speed -- telling you the cooling is not working so well with the door open.

Dec 27, 2008 10:59 PM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

Oh, how scary! So that round thingy on the side is a door handle? I guess I always assumed it had to be unscrewed by someone who knew how! Will this still work even given the situation described above--that it was built with pins to plug the drives into, and the new drives are made with different connectors, requiring adaptors?

Dec 28, 2008 10:32 AM in response to Cornelia Shields

If it scares you, you can shut off your Mac before you open the door. There is no reason why you cannot open the door and look inside at the drives.

As originally designed, no tools were required to change out the drives. It appears that on some units, the drive carriers rattled, so a single Phillips screw was added to each carrier.

Dec 28, 2008 2:51 PM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

Practically EVERYTHING scares me. I am lucky to be computer-literate at all. You people are so, so good to me.

Dec 31, 2008 3:21 AM in response to Cornelia Shields

Hey, I heard from my friend! I will try to repeat the main points of what he said as accurately as is possible (for me.)

1. I need two things, one to increase memory and one to increase speed, which I should purchase here: http://www.macsales.com/
I think the thing to increase speed is called a processor and costs more than the thing to increase memory--little hazy on this.
I can also get a CD/DVD drive to replace the defective one I have.

2. There were several reasons (besides that earlier versions of iMovie probably sucked) that things did not work well even after I added a large internal drive:
--I didn't understand that drive space and internal memory are two different things.
--I thought 232 GB internal drive space actually MEANT 232 GB, but my friend says this machine is fixed not to use more than 120 GB on an internal drive no matter HOW huge of a drive you shove in. If I need more memory, I need an external drive. Thing is, I knew my computer had so little memory by the time it found anything external it would have forgot what it was trying to do in the first place, so I avoided and feared anything external...not to mention my desk is COVERED in cables now!

3. He says iLife 08 DOES SO work on a G4! That he has a machine just like it and it works fine on his! Only thing is, a few aspects of iLife 08 won't work without Leopard.

4. We agreed that I should have the drives switched--make the 232 GB my main drive and the 57GB my slave drive, and then after everything else is done see if I still need an external drive.

Dec 31, 2008 5:13 AM in response to Cornelia Shields

Well as the others have already stated , your friend is incorrect when he says your computer can only use 120Gb drives.You can install 250, 500,750Gb hard drives in there and your computer will see and use the total amount.

Stewie

Power Mac G4 Hard Drive Upgrade