Q: SSD Drives for Older PowerMacs

Any SSD will work in your G5. It will make a very significant improvement in how smooth the machine feels and responds, especially compared to the antique HD your machine came with.

Make sure it has a Sandforce chipset & can slow down to the G5's 1.5Gb/sec speeds.

To expand on what BDAqua is saying, you'll do best to find a SATA Rev. 2 SSD if you wish to use the native controller of the G5. The native controller will auto-negotiate data rates with SATA Rev. 2 SSD drives but will NOT with most commonly reported SATA Rev. 3 SSD drives.

The drive won't be "seen".....

IF you wish to use the most current SATA rev. 3 SSD drives, you will also want to install a PCI SATA controller to connect the SSD to.

In doing so, you will lose some of the boot time benefit due to delays on teh PCI bus, though once running, will have full data throughput performance.

As always, thanks for your expert input jmac!

That is false information.

I have 3 SATA-III SSDs in G5 machines, in a G4 with a SATA-I card and a MacBook 2.16 with SATA-I.

The only issue I ever had was a POS Patriot drive that mounted to install the OS  and would not mount again except in a USB case (which PowerPC machines can't boot from).

I have 3 SATA-III SSDs in G5 machines,

What Make, model of SSD and how are they connected?

And, how is "false information" decided? By you? Who are you?

Did I say ALL SATA Rev. 3 drives?

No, I didn't.

IF you had more experience and time on this forum, you would know that there have been many posts regarding this issue, and that several commonly sold SATA Rev. 3 SSDs have been reported to NOT work with the G5 native controller.

Rather than spend so much effort trying to find fault with information, how about researching your claims and then provide substantiated information on top of your experience?

THAT would be helpful.

in a USB case (which PowerPC machines can't boot from)

That is false information.

There are many PPC machines that can boot from external USB drives, USB 1.1 or USB 2.0.

Apple New World ROM PPC machines are those that do support USB boot.

G4's are also PPC machines and all that I have and have ever used can or could boot from USB drives.

There are also some that can't, notibly the G5.

False information is determined by the fact your information is false.

Did I say ALL SATA Rev. 3 drives?

You said most, which is false.

IF you had more experience and time on this forum

I'm sorry about having a life, I don't sit in front of a computer screen all day as you do.

you would know that there have been many posts regarding this issue

There have been many posts about G5's LCS leaking, does this mean its a common problem or that several individuals out of the tens of thousands sold have wandered onto the Internet to report their problem?

I have owned three with zero issues.

Rather than spend so much effort trying to find fault with information, how about researching your claims and then provide substantiated information on top of your experience?

You should heed your own words.

There are many PPC machines that can boot from external USB drives, USB 1.1 or USB 2.0.

Correct, they require the user to manually change the boot order in openfirmware. That is not native booting, a drive cannot be used as a normal boot disk in that manner.

There are also some that can't, notibly the G5.

The G5s are specifically ones that CAN boot from USB using the method mentioned above.

Can't we all just get along ??  .....  to quote Rodney King.

I could be wrong, but I seem to sense some ruffeled feathers.

Ohmmmmmmmmmm, ....  Watttttttttttttttttttttt, ....  Volttttttttttttttttttt, ....  Ampssssssssssss ....  repeat.

Your G5 has SATA-I.

Dave, Sandforce chipset is sort of the brains of the SSD...

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

Many SATA-II devices can step down to SATA-1 speeds, Most SATA-III devices can step down to SATA-II speeds, & some to SATA-I speeds also.

I thought everyone was saying that you can only get SATA-II and SATA-III SSDs and that of the two I should opt for SATA-II with Sandforce

That is absolutely correct.