Best IDE cable type

This is a bit of guesswork on my part but here goes. Even though they look similar the pin assignments are different. I don't think you can use the 40/80 cables in older computers that originally came with 40/40's. The reverse would also apply. It's been a while since I opened my G3 but I doubt the round cable would fit. I had to replace a cable some time ago and the flat cables were hard enough to get into place. A check with Pioneer might be a good idea to verify if the 40/40 would work.

Hello rainforest,

If you are having trouble removing cables from hard drives, visit your local NAPA auto parts store and purchase a (#3121 NAPA service Tools) Hook and Pick Set, probably for somewhere around $10.It makes working inside your Mac much, much easier. Or visit your dentist and see if he has any spares in his tool drawer.

Regards.....Jon

For speeds up to 16.7 MB/sec (the limit of the Beige G3) a 40-wire cable on a 40-pin cable can be used. It is a good idea to keep cable lengths under 18 inches if possible, but some users have gone a little longer without a problem. Some users swear by round cables because they say airflow improves.

For actual transfer speeds above 16.7 MB/sec, an 80-wire cable on a 40-pin header is used. The header connects the roughly five existing grounds so that each signal has a ground between it and the next signal. High-tech plastics like teflon are sometimes used to more carefully control capacitance between conductors.

Just having a drive rated faster that 16.7 MB/sec does not mean it will transfer at that rate in a beige G3. Almost all drives are backward-compatible, and will transfer at the rate of the slowest device. In the beige G3, that is the built-in controller's top rate of 16.7 MB/sec, and therefore you do not need the fancier cables.

If you take that same highly-rated drive and connect it to a Controller capable of ATA-66 or faster, you suddenly need the 80-conductor cables for the same drive.

Faster cables often have a key or blocker installed in one position. This is intended to help us not use the wrong cable, but it is brain-damaged. The better cables generally work fine with the older drives and controllers, and this keying method does not lock out old, inadequate cables from being used with faster drives and controllers.

And to think that for over a decade, PC IDE cables had red tracer dots to identify pin one instead of the registration notch used from day one on Macs. Talk about brain damaged.

im one Beige G3 owner with the 40 pin/ 80 wire cables and can say it boosted my transfer rate from 12mb/sec to 16mb/sec and i seen this improvement useing Macbench 5.0 and xbench in OS X 10.2.8