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Level 1

30 points

Do SATA-III 6Gb/s SSDs work in PowerPCs?

Hi,

I found differing information.

Will a SATA-III SSD work in my ibook G4 or/and my Powermac G4 (SATA-PCI-card)?

Since there is only 1,8" (microSATA) or a "Module"-SSD (mSATA) fitting in the ibook G4. I decided to select a Crucial m4, CT256m4ssd3 (the one ending with modelnumber SSD3, is like 1,8", it is a module). I will use this adapter http://www.ebay.de/itm/Convert-Adapter-for-PCI-E-MSATA-SSD-50MM-3-3V-to-2-5-IDE- 5V-44PIN-SSD-/321189716985?pt=DE_Computer_Sonstige&hash=item4ac86623f9

I read that some have pins to jumper them as SATA-II and they will work. Some will be SATA-III and have no jumpers but will work (only!) in the lower slot of PowerMac G5s.

Thanks!

PowerMac, Mac OS X (10.4.11), PowerMac G4 AGP or Gigabit Ethernet

Posted on Sep 30, 2013 1:04 PM

19 replies

BDAqua

Level 10

239,363 points

Oct 15, 2013 6:34 PM in response to lime-iMacG3

Pins 5&6 are what WD drives use to limit speed, I'm not sure if the SATA IIIs are slowed to SATA II, or SATA III to SATA I & II compatabolity, but that's the jumper you should try.

http://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.wdc.com/en/library/eide/2579-001037.pdf&s a=U&ei=YetdUsD4JsfxiwKf04DYDA&ved=0CBgQFjAA&usg=AFQjCNH6AJP769Uu6OTvAcxWmG0DKFcb tA

Oct 19, 2013 3:20 AM in response to lime-iMacG3

lime-iMacG3 wrote:

on A) Because manufacturers do not care about older Macs, they just produce a version that will be compatible with Windows Vista, 7 and 8 and Mac OS 10.6 upwards.

Hard drives are OS independant. It doesn't care if its attached to OSX, Windows 8, Linux or OS 10.0 Beta. There is nothing for them to "be compatible" with the OS unelss they include some sort of software bundle, such as backup or RAID. Even then, they can be formatted for use with ANY OS.

on B) as you say, there are dozens, not possible to test all. SO why do you not tell me which one you have and I will buy it, and I will not have to buy with trial and error.

Because you will make up a ridiculous argument as an attempt to invalidate the tests.

Oct 19, 2013 3:36 AM in response to lime-iMacG3

lime-iMacG3 wrote:

Why does my WD6000HLHX SATA-III (Western Digital Velociraptor) not work in my PowerMac G5 2,3GHz Dualcore (late 2005)? You said all, will work.

You say all recent drives work? How recent? My Velociraptor is from March 2013.

Actually, the WD6000HLHX Velociraptor is an antique released in 2010. Being a legacy drive, you must jumper pins 5 and 6 to enable PHY.

http://www.techarp.com/showarticle.aspx?artno=685&pgno=3

"This is a Serial ATA hard drive, with native support for SATA 6 Gb/s. However, it is backward-compatible so you will have no problem using it with SATA 3 Gb/s or even SATA 1.5 Gb/s controllers."

lime-iMacG3 Author

Level 1

30 points

Dec 8, 2013 6:45 AM in response to DieselFuelForLife

So, I bought an SATA-III SSD, a Crucial M4 256GB, 1,8".

It is mSATA and I use a mSATA-SATA connector.

Funny thing. The SATA-ports on my AGP-G4's PCI cards won't see it, but it is seen on the IDE BUS of one of the SATA-PCI cards.

(so: mSATA--> SATA---> ATA-133 ---> PCI)

I can only format (partition) it under 10.5 and I have to disable "install OS 9 drivers". So I partitioned it to HFS+ under 10.5 and then started into 10.4, it was shown on the desktop/Finder, but partitioning it resulted into having an unmounted "mounting point".

I then booted into OS 10.5 again and partitioned it with "install OS 9 drivers" enabled. It resulted in the same. I did it again without OS 9 drivers and I got a mounted Drive again (you can see the Info "Mounting Point: activated" in Disk utility).

I then booted into 10.4, I started copying 300MB to it. It started and then said it could not complete the task, because it it unable to read or write the file.

When I open the Disc, I can see the folder, I copied, but it hangs up, when I open the folder.

The PCI cards:

it is very interesting,

the Macally combined SATA/ATA-PCI-Card:

is capable of reading SMART data. (System profiler sees it as SCSI device). On the SATA Port it does not recognized all drives (I have a lot of different HDDs), on the ATA-port it can see every SATA-drive with an adapter and read all SMART data. It supports boot for some drives.

The Sonnet SATA-PCI card:

can not read SMART, sees all drives, but allows no drives bigger than 2TB (they work, but get damaged headers and filesystems), and is bootable.

A "PC"-card, 4x SATA, SIL3124:

is not bootable, sees all drives, can handle 3TB without corruption, can see no SMART.

THE SSD:

does does work

not under 10.4!

under 10.5 not on the Macally Card, it works on the SIL3124 "PC" card (that seems to be very forgiving on a lot hardware anyway and shows drives as externally connected, (orange icon)), can read from and write to it. Same for the Sonnet-2xSATA-Card.

BUT! it has to be formatted under 10.5 via the IDE BUS.

Hm, I have to think about it, if I want to try that SSD in my ibook via mSATA-IDE adapter, where I have 10.4 installed... given how big an effort it is to open these ibooks.

Do SATA-III 6Gb/s SSDs work in PowerPCs?