Power Mac G4 Hard Drive Upgrade

Upgrading RAM makes sense. Replacing the CD drive makes sense. I'm not sure whether upgrading the processor makes sense for you or not - you have dual 867MHz processors according to previous post, and that's already fairly fast as G4s go. A significant upgrade would require going to dual 1.6 GHz or 1.8 GHz processors and they are pricey ($429 and up). Add in $130 for RAM and $30 for the DVD superdrive, and that's near $600. I've seen used G5s and Intel Macs for $500-800 which would maybe be a better bargain.

Ask your friend to look at this thread and see if we have your facts straight. He's actually seen your Mac and we haven't. For example as far as we know, your Mac should not have the 120GB drive limitation.

All the add-ons you are going to install would be easily done in a PC shop - even for someone who has never worked on a Mac before. Why drive 140 miles to a Mac repair shop ? The G4's are very easy to work on and a half decent tech would have all this done - extra ram , extra hard drives and new DVD drive installed in under an hour.
I'd buy all the stuff you need prior and ring up a few local shops and just say " how much to install this for me ? "
Just get the right Ram , IDE drives and correct DVD drive beforehand.
Easy.

Stewie

The only difference between you and a Mac technician is your fear of failing. The required self-confidence comes from doing these sorts of upgrades before.

When I learned to work on cars, it was when I was a college student with no money to pay others for repairs. My car was busted, and if I wanted to go somewhere, I had to take a chance and work on it myself. There was nothing I could possibly do to my old car that would make it worse than its current useless state. I read the procedures in the manual, and could decide whether the repair was something that was feasible -- I could not possibly raise the car on a lift to fix the springs, for example. Once I made some minor repairs and had some go well, and some go badly, I developed the self-confidence I needed to make more and more complex repairs myself.

Your old computers could be of great use to you. You could network them together and use them to hold specialized data. But they would have to be upgraded a bit to do that. Seize the opportunity to do upgrades on your old computer equipment yourself. There is no risk of breaking them, they are already inadequate for your needs. And there is some free "hand-me-down" equipment from your current computers that would make swell upgrades to your old ones.

Sometimes the service manuals are available online, but their availability changes as Apple tries to discourage flagrant posting of large collections of their manuals. If you post a request for a specific manual when you need it, readers may be able to find a working link for you. Manuals and strapping guides for Hard Drives may also be available online, but can be hard to find because the industry has undergone a lot of consolidation, and brands are not hosted where you expect them to be.

Hi Cornelia,
Glad you caught on to the fact that 'memory' and 'drive' are two different things. In very basic terms, memory (RAM), is temporary and 'helps' your processor (CPU) to operate more efficiently. You have two processors and they should be plenty 'fast' for your needs. CPUs are measured by speed; in your case both operate at 867mhz (new G5s operate at, for example, 1.5Ghz; which is faster). Drives (hard disk drive, hard drive) actually store our stuff. Hard drives have storage 'space'. For instance, one of yours has 57GB of storage space and is only using 23GB, less than half. Then you have optical drives: DVD, CD; you want a DVD/R/RW. There are several Mac-compatible models. But already having an external optical drive, you don't need another. But it can be done; again, fairly easily.

Grant's last post is cool; i.e. adding a HD and memory are easy...after you've done it once. Check out this video:
http://eshop.macsales.com/tech_center/index.cfm?page=Video/harddrive/g4mddata133 /g4mddata133h.html

Bop around at that web site>tech support>installation videos>choose ur machine>memory; for how to add memory.

And, as stated, our Macs are made for us to add drives, memory, graphics cards, PCI cards, and optical drives. Here's another link:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1815

So, Grant and I (and others) recommend that you up your memory and replace your 57GB hard drive. And, as stated, if a tech had to modify your machine to add the 250GB drive (shows as 237GB), something smells. And, correct me if I'm wrong, adding a SATA drive would require more than just a new connector. This might be another issue. There's dozens of places to buy RAM; but it has to be correct. You'll see many here recommend buying memory from macsales.com and crucial.com; but only because most that ask aren't knowledgeable enough to shop around for the correct sticks. OWC and Crucial do it for you. For now, one 512MB stick will do you some good; only about $17 at OWC.

Many of us run older Macs; we're almost averse to advising anyone to buy a new machine. As in your case, what you're trying to do with movies, your Mac is adequate and you don't need a new Mac nor a new CPU; unless you really want to go to the latest iteration of iMovie.

When you're ready, post back; preferably at the G4-MDD area. Good luck and please don't be afraid to open you lil ol Mac and at least take a look. Just don't touch anything...lol.

David, Grant and the others including me are right when we say that it is easy to do , but for someone who hasn't worked on a computer before , it can seem daunting at first. I still think with the plethora of guides out there to download and read , that anyone can do this sort of upgrade. These G4 Macs are the easiest in the world to work on. Drop the side door down and everything is laid out right in front of you. Just do your homework before you start and take your time.
You also won't be pouring a lot of time and money into this machine by the way, if all you are doing is upgrading the optical drive and memory either.
Four sticks of 512mb Ram + $ 100. Cheap in my book.
A new or secondhand DVD drive - $50. Also cheap.
hard drives - easy to install and $100 for a 300-500Gb drive. Cheap for the amount of storage it gives you.
If you were thinking of getting a G5 , you would probably want to upgrade the hard drives and memory as well, so either way you are looking at spending some money on upgrades.

Stewie

Cornelia my dear, it seems to me you need to cultivate a local Mac fan more than anything. Maybe there's a closet Mac head at the local PC shop or in your church. Maybe selling Mac stuff on Craig's List, which is a good place to look for G5s, at least here in Texas. I don't know where you live, but you need somebody closer than 70 miles and cheaper than $100 an hour. A friend who has worked on PCs can show you where everything is inside your Mac. He may not know iMovie or Final Cut, but he will recognize a RAM stick.

And as the gang has said, Apple's G4s are about the world's easiest computers to work on. You can install RAM yourself. If you can twirl a screwdriver, you can swap out that CD drive. If you should decide to try, you'll find help here - we'll be glad to get into the nitty-gritty. These machines aren't as delicate or mysterious as some people make them out to be. At least most of the time - I have to admit my Mac has done some pretty inexplicable things from time to time...
But then she's an artist as computers go! <grin>

Don't stress too much about the ideal computer. It's just a tool for making movies, after all. I do the same thing, thinking about the gear I'd like to have for recording this or that musical event, but the truth is my old G4 laptop and my old mics are perfectly fine. I just need to go do it. My ear is much more important than my computer.

Mystery to me, too. So far as I know, your model is no trickier than any other G4. Fortunately for you, it's a fairly late G4, so while it's not the fastest Apple ever made, neither is it a dog. For movie making, it could use more RAM (working room) and more disk space (storage). Beyond that, upgrading gets expensive pretty fast, and the cheaper route is a newer Mac. Movie making is about the most demanding task computers are used for nowadays.

Pardon me; on rereading my previous post, it sounds a bit flip. I meant it humorously.

The reason is exactly what I alluded to before -- self confidence and fear of failure. You (and your friend) need to get yourself on an upward spiral by doing simple repairs that are not show-stoppers if you fail. Then you can work up to more complex upgrades.

If you do a memory upgrade and it works, you feel better about the next one. People will say things about Hard Drive upgrades like, "It's only a little more complicated than a memory upgrade." There are guides online, and lots of folks here to provide suggestions. Go for it!

Following up on this question, I have a G4 Quicksilver from the 2001 production year (867 mHz and 1.5 GB RAM). Can I assume (hopefully not) that my machine does have an upper limit on the capacity of a second hard drive?

I had some pretty serious problems with my existing 60GB drive (self-inflicted, I'm afraid) in a too hasty attempt to upgrade to Leopard. Since I would like additional capacity anyway, I thought I'd install a second drive, make it the master and see if I can retrieve my files at my leisure from the now "slave" original drive. (I do have a new, purchased copy of 10.5.4 that would be installed on the new drive.)

I was hoping to go with a 250GB drive, but if 128 is the max, so be it.

Thanks.