Firewire and USB PCI Upgrade for PowerMac G5

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Level 1

120 points

Firewire and USB PCI Upgrade for PowerMac G5

Firewire and USB PCI Upgrade for PowerMac G5

I am looking to add more Firewire 400 and USB 2.0 ports to my Dual 2.7 PowerMac G5. I don't need a combo card (two separate cards is fine). I was wondering which brand card works well with my Mac and OS X. I had a FireWire card that I moved from my Dell to my PowerMac but had a number of problems with a couple connected HDD's and Final Cut Pro. The card which I think was from Belkin was listed as OS X compatible on its packaging.

Thanks for any guidance.

- Lou

PowerMac G5 Dual 2.7GHz & PowerBook G4 12 1.5GHz, Mac OS X (10.4.9)

Posted on Mar 28, 2007 3:40 PM

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Answer 1

The hatter

Level 9

60,990 points

Mar 28, 2007 4:50 PM in response to Lougle

Check out OWC/Macsales. Usually can't go wrong with Sonnet or an OWC "house branded".
http://www.macsales.com

Check out user reports for PCI G5 Compatibility
http://www.xlr8yourmac.com

I've used OWC FW800, Aaxeon PCIe, and a number of Sonnet USB2 (and combo).

Depends on how many USB2 ports, but for FW400 and USB2 combo should do fine. With FW800 I'd go for independent cards.

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Answer 2

MarekO

Level 2

335 points

Mar 29, 2007 5:46 AM in response to The hatter

With FW800 I'd go for independent cards.

Do you mean that one FW800 external HD should be connected to one port on the card, and the next ext. HD to another card?

Doesn't the FW800 ports on one card work separately?

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Answer 3

japamac

Level 7

24,400 points

Mar 29, 2007 5:56 AM in response to MarekO

Hi-

I believe the meaning of "independent cards" would be a non combo card- firewire 800 only, not fw800 and usb 2.0 or fw800 and fw400 on the same card.

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Answer 4

japamac

Level 7

24,400 points

Mar 29, 2007 6:00 AM in response to Lougle

Hi-

After reviewing the xlr8yourmac site on PCI compatibility (in The hatter's post), if you aren't sure about possibility of success with USB 2.0 cards (rather "iffy" I think), a powered USB 2.0 hub would give you all the added ports you may need, without the possibility of issues.

G4 AGP(450)Sawtooth Mac OS X (10.4.8) 2ghzPPC,1.62gbSDRAM, ATI9800, DVR-109,(IntHD)120&160,LaCie160,23"Cinema Display

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Answer 5

The hatter

Level 9

60,990 points

Mar 29, 2007 6:05 AM in response to MarekO

RAID is different than the original question, but yes, there is only ONE channel on the card. Same as the native FW ports. If you want a full native RAID speed, one drive per card.

My comment was more about FW800 + USB2 combo controllers. They cost more, you don't want both on one card.

Sonnet has had a triple interface, but even they admit it costs in slow performance on all three interfaces and just the cost of having all that on one board.

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Answer 6

MarekO

Level 2

335 points

Mar 29, 2007 6:06 AM in response to japamac

I believe the meaning of "independent cards" would be
a non combo card- firewire 800 only, not fw800 and
usb 2.0 or fw800 and fw400 on the same card.

I hope so. Because one ext. HD to one FW800 card - it will be really exaggeration.
And in G5 we don't have too many possibilities of card's extension.
In MacPro it looks much better.
Marek.

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