Which sata card will WORK! with a Mac G4 MDD Dual 1gb

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Level 1

9 points

Which sata card will WORK! with a Mac G4 MDD Dual 1gb

I have a G4 dual 1gb and the OS is 10.4.11.
I want to put a sata card that will WORK, in this machine. I have tried an Acard 6293m, and it showed in the system profiler, but I couldn't see the hard drive. Is there ANYONE who has been successful with any sata card in this machine? Booting would be great but not necessary.

Any help is greatly appreciated!!

G4 Dual 1GB, Mac OS X (10.4.11)

Posted on Mar 4, 2009 11:04 AM

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Answer 1

Best reply

japamac

Level 7

24,400 points

Mar 4, 2009 2:36 PM in response to Glen Miller2

Hi-

Which port did you try to use?
What drive did you connect?

There are all kind of cards that work in G4s:
SATA Controller Cards

I think the best results come from Firmtek.

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Answer 2

Glen Miller2 Author

Level 1

9 points

Mar 4, 2009 2:49 PM in response to japamac

The card was an Acard 6293M pci card. I installed it in an empty pci slot in my machine. The drive was a Maxtor 1Tb drive, which I connected to to the sata card with a sata connector. What port? I didn't know you had to select a port? Never heard of that with a pci card.

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Answer 3

japamac

Level 7

24,400 points

Mar 5, 2009 2:26 AM in response to Glen Miller2

I didn't know you had to select a port? Never heard of that with a pci card.

The Acard 6293M has an internal IDE drive connection, an internal SATA connection, and an external eSATA connection.
That is why I asked what port (OK, connector), and what drive.

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Answer 4

Mar 5, 2009 6:03 PM in response to Glen Miller2

I have a SeriTek/1S2 SATA Controller PCI card running in my G4 Dual GB. It's a Firm Tek card and it ran well on OS 10.4.11 before I upgraded to OS 10.5. I do boot from the SATA drive linked to this card. I believe it was purchased at OWC computing.

Hope this is helpful.

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Answer 5

MyKidsDad

Level 2

335 points

Mar 12, 2009 11:46 AM in response to Bob Murray Iii

I'm interested in this same expansion on my G4 MDD (867MHz DP). Is your answer to say that it stopped working with Leopard? I'm unclear about this. I not only need more storage but I need to install & boot Leopard.

Message was edited by: MyKidsDad

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Answer 6

Glen Miller2 Author

Level 1

9 points

Mar 12, 2009 12:02 PM in response to MyKidsDad

I purchased a Macsense sata card. I got mine at Frys. Here is the link to Macsense. http://www.macsense.com/product/storage/sua-100e.html This card does work in a G4. It will handle 2 internal or 1 internal and 1 external sata drives, and also had 1 ata 133 connection as well. I bought 2 1TB sata drives, hooked 1 up internally and the other externally. I partitioned the internal and run Leopard on one partition. The other partition is used for storage. It's working fine, actually boots a little faster. I never heard back from Acard, so I passed.

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Answer 7

MyKidsDad

Level 2

335 points

Mar 12, 2009 2:22 PM in response to Glen Miller2

Thanks! I will check into it. A quick google yielded a user experience with the Macsense:

www.xlr8yourmac.com/feedback/Macsense SUA-100Ecard.html#storytop

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Answer 8

Mar 12, 2009 5:20 PM in response to Glen Miller2

I have the Sonnet Tempo, that is, as previously mentioned, the FirmTek 1S2 which is bootable in my G4 MDD dual 1.25. I have two internal SATA drives hooked to it a WD Raptor 150MB for OS and Apps and a WD 1TB for mostly music and movies. It works great, I couldn't be happier! I also run a slot cooler & CHUD nap mode and have NO heat issues(right now it's running at 41℃ after an hour).

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Answer 9

MyKidsDad

Level 2

335 points

Mar 13, 2009 7:26 AM in response to TJPDenver

Thanks also for that info! It's nice to know there's at least a couple options to look into. I find myself with yet another year of not being able to buy a new computer, so I'm trying to expand as inexpensively as possible while "limping along" with the old workhorse I have.

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Answer 10

Mar 13, 2009 5:39 PM in response to MyKidsDad

You're very welcome. The SATA/Raptor install made probably the biggest difference in performance of the many upgrades I have made to the MDD. The difference, while never quantified, was tremendously apparent on boot times and on apps (loaded on that drive) opening. I would not hesitate to make that investment again.

For what it's worth, as a frame of reference I bought the MDD second hand. Prior to that I had been using a QS933 since new. I was disappointed at the time I got the MDD in what I perceived as a performance difference (or lack thereof) between the QS933 and the MDD's Dual 1.25's. That upgrade was not as noticeable, to me, as was the SATA/Raptor combo. It was a couple hundred bucks well spent.

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