ATA/IDE hard drive for Power Mac 8600

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Level 1

5 points

ATA/IDE hard drive for Power Mac 8600

Hello all. This may seem like a dumb question, but is there any to install an ATA/IDE hard drive for a PowerMac 8600/200? I know it's a SCSI system with SCSI hard drive but I am just wondering. if it is possible, I would like to be able to install ATA/IDE hard drives for the ease of finding 20 or 30 GB hard drives for a low cost which are plentiful on ebay. SCSI drives are hard to find and those that are available are expensive. Also, are there any CD-RW OR DVD-RW drives out there for the same 8600? Thanks in advance. John

PowerMac, Mac OS X (10.3.x), G3 B&W, 8600 OS 9

Posted on Apr 23, 2011 8:44 PM

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Answer 1

Kappy

Level 10

362,007 points

Apr 23, 2011 8:50 PM in response to john nyto

You would need to find a PCI card compatible with the computer to which you can connect ATA drives. You might check Sonnet (www.sonnettech.com) to see if they have a compatible card. Yours is an old model so you may find that locating a suitable card will prove difficult.

Another option would be an external enclosure supporting ATA drives that you can connect via Firewire (I don't remember if your model supports Firewire.) USB would not work since your model only supports USB 1.x.

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Answer 2

Apr 24, 2011 12:07 AM in response to john nyto

John,

I noticed that you have a Blue and White. The very reason Apple changed from the platinum G3 to the B&W is because so many Mac users wanted to be able to use the low cost IDE drives available to PC users. Low cost, built in USB device support and highly interchangeable parts but the convenience of a Mac user interface. That was the goal of the B&W.

Yes, you can find a PCI card for the 8600 that will let you do what you want to do. But, depending on where you live, you can also find G4 computers for as low as $25 US. Networking the 8600 to the B&W G3 and to a G4 would give you the best of the old world computing and access to OS X, large and affordable drives for storage, and the internet.

Just a thought.

Jim~

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Answer 3

Jeff

Level 6

12,328 points

Apr 24, 2011 12:17 AM in response to john nyto

The least expensive ($25) option for adding an IDE/EIDE hard drive to an older SCSI-based PCI Power Mac is the Acard AEC-6260M Ultra ATA-66 Controller Card. It will support up to (4) hard drives, but I don't think it supports ATAPI optical drives. You're not going to find a SCSI DVD-R/RW drive, but you could find a used SCSI CD-RW drive. The other option is to install a FireWire PCI card. Keep in mind that the newer, third-party disk burning programs that support current DVD burners require a version of OS X. If your 8600 is running OS 9.x, Toast 5.x is the latest supported version, which has good CD-RW drive support but predates modern DVD burners.

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