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Level 1

4 points

SSD Drives for Older PowerMacs

Hi,

I've seen that you can buy SSD drives for older Macs. I didn't even realise this could be done until I saw OWCs website.

I'm wondering if anyone has tried them in a G5 PowerMac? Is there any real noticeable increase in performance?

I have a 2005 Dual 2Ghz G5 Powermac with 4GB RAM and running Leopard 10.5.8. It takes an age to start up, in fact it's that long I go and make a cup of tea while it boots up!! Generally it feels slow too. Would an SSD Drive make it boot faster?

Kind Regards

Dave

G5, Mac OS X (10.4.9)

Posted on Oct 26, 2012 3:26 AM

Best reply

LordZedd

Level 1

70 points

Posted on Oct 26, 2012 7:01 AM

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.

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21 replies

japamac

Level 7

24,400 points

Oct 30, 2012 5:35 PM in response to mandarcy

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3677456?start=0&tstart=0

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1350382

http://forum.corsair.com/v3/showthread.php?t=105598

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1300730

http://tigerosx.wordpress.com/2011/12/23/a-word-of-warning-beware-ocz-ssds/

http://www.patriotmemory.com/forums/showthread.php?1459-PowerMac-won-t-see-SSD

BDAqua

Level 10

239,435 points

Oct 30, 2012 10:10 PM in response to LordZedd

Some might, but not all... did you ever report which ones you have that work? 🙂

LordZedd

Level 1

70 points

Oct 31, 2012 3:50 AM in response to BDAqua

All brands of modern SSDs will work. The oinly one I had trouble with was an early generation Patriot.

japamac

Level 7

24,400 points

Oct 31, 2012 5:03 AM in response to BDAqua

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1160653

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3677456?start=0&tstart=0

http://kaneko-design.blogspot.jp/2012/02/g5.html (SATA Rev. 3 Crucial M4 not recognized)

In my machines, an OCZ Agility 3 and a Corsair Force 3 (both SATA Rev. 3) were not seen by a DP 2.0 GHz G5.

Both drives were seen, formatted and usable connected to Seritek PCI controller in a G4, and both were fine on native connections to X58 and X68 Gigabyte motherboards.

Both the G4 and the DP 2.0 GHz G5 were able to use the OWC SATA Rev. 2 SSD drives.

As with here, other Mac sites show reports of SATA Rev. 2 drives of various makers are successfully used in G5 machines, almost without exception.

mandarcy Author

Level 1

4 points

Oct 31, 2012 6:04 AM in response to japamac

Both the G4 and the DP 2.0 GHz G5 were able to use the OWC SATA Rev. 2 SSD drives.

That's great! 🙂 Thanks to everyone for contributing! 😉

Kind Regards

Dave

May 27, 2015 11:16 PM in response to mandarcy

I know this is old, but you don't even need an SSD with these things. I threw my 1TB WD Blue in my G5 and it runs really fast for what it is. Now for a GPU and RAM upgrade..

SSD Drives for Older PowerMacs