Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

phoenixsan

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Oct 19, 2012
1,342
2
Long history short: A visit passes by for my house and noted a MDD 1.25 G4 I have sitting there. Have 512 MB of RAM and two HDDs for a total of 40 GB. The visit wants to upgrade and buying it. Have a budget for upgrades of $150. But I am a bit lost about how to tackle the work. What do you think are the best uses for the $ 150? Airport card, more RAM, more HDD ? The buyer will be using it for file server/storage and for running some legacy apps in OS X 10.4 and 10.5

Please shoot me with your suggestions/advice/pointers. And I thank you all in advance....:D


:):apple:
 
Last edited:

kylera

macrumors 65816
Dec 5, 2010
1,195
27
Seoul
Long history short: A visit passes by for my house and noted a MDD 1.25 G4 I have sitting there. Have 512 MB of RAM and two HDDs for a total of 40 GB. The visit wants to upgrade and buying it. Have a budget for upgrades of $150. But I am a bit lost about how to tackle the work. What do you think are the best uses for the $ 150? Airport card, more RAM, more HDD ? The buyer will be using it for file server/storage and for running some legacy apps in OS X 10.4 and 10.5

Please shoot me with your suggestions/advice/pointers. And I thank you all in advance....:D


:):apple:

I can't say for the other upgrades, but I would put AirPort at the bottom of the list since speed would be of the essence for file transfers.
 

Macsonic

macrumors 68000
Sep 6, 2009
1,706
97
I am thinking upgrade the ram to 1g or up to 2g and bigger hard drives. I think a 512mb ram is only around $15 or less, I am not sure but it won't be that expensive.
 

rabidz7

macrumors 65816
Jun 24, 2012
1,205
3
Ohio
Long history short: A visit passes by for my house and noted a MDD 1.25 G4 I have sitting there. Have 512 MB of RAM and two HDDs for a total of 40 GB. The visit wants to upgrade and buying it. Have a budget for upgrades of $150. But I am a bit lost about how to tackle the work. What do you think are the best uses for the $ 150? Airport card, more RAM, more HDD ? The buyer will be using it for file server/storage and for running some legacy apps in OS X 10.4 and 10.5

Please shoot me with your suggestions/advice/pointers. And I thank you all in advance....:D


:):apple:

How about an X600Xt?
 

ihuman:D

macrumors 6502a
Jul 11, 2012
925
1
Ireland
How about an X600Xt?

It's for a fileserver and some legacy apps. :rolleyes: And anyway you can't install them in a PMG4, correct me if I'm wrong.

As it would be used as a fileserver/storage I would go for bigger hard drives first then upgrade the ram later if there's money left over (to at least 768mb if you're running Leopard - though other's opinions might be different but I'm running an iMac G4 with 768mb of ram in Leopard and it works fine).
 

Hrududu

macrumors 68020
Jul 25, 2008
2,299
627
Central US
Memory is cheap, and so is that AirPort card. Just recently got an APC off eBay for $9 shipped. RAM is really inexpensive now too. For that budget, I see no reason you can't get 2GB of RAM in there, an AirPort Card, and probably a cheap HDD.
 

Nameci

macrumors 68000
Oct 29, 2010
1,944
13
The Philippines...
This my recommended order of upgrade;
1. Up the RAM from 512MB to 2GB. RAM is cheap.
2. Get a decent 80GB 7200RPM PATA boot drive. Install tiger if you like or Leopard if you need.
3. Get a 4-port PCI SATA card.
4. Get 3 7200 RPM SATA drives and populate the drive bays.

Others may chime in, but I cannot remember anymore if it can read 1TB HDD thru the SATA card.

My 0.02.
 

Zotaccian

macrumors 6502a
Apr 25, 2012
645
7
Well, I think everything has been said already.

RAM upgrade and getting the machine to utilize SATA -hard drives are the most obvious upgrades in this case. Graphics card does not mean much in file server use and probably doesn't for those legacy apps either, depends of course what they are, but for graphics intensive apps the CPU (or CPUs if it's dual) is the limiting factor.
 

phoenixsan

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Oct 19, 2012
1,342
2
Sounds....

This my recommended order of upgrade;
1. Up the RAM from 512MB to 2GB. RAM is cheap.
2. Get a decent 80GB 7200RPM PATA boot drive. Install tiger if you like or Leopard if you need.
3. Get a 4-port PCI SATA card.
4. Get 3 7200 RPM SATA drives and populate the drive bays.

Others may chime in, but I cannot remember anymore if it can read 1TB HDD thru the SATA card.

My 0.02.

well tought advice. Thanks...! And thanks all for the input...:D .About the PCI card, what you will recommend? (sounds interesting to me, if can be done in the budget given).

Again, thanks all for reading and giving me advice.

:):apple:
 

phoenixsan

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Oct 19, 2012
1,342
2
After reading....

your suggestions and input, what I appreciate, I would do the following, based in the projected use, advice and budget:

1-Increase the RAM up to 2 GB
2-Install a new 80 GB boot drive
3-Find a PCI card for SATA and install it

So, I thank you all for the pointers/advice. Would report back with my bill of upgrades....

:):apple:
 

phoenixsan

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Oct 19, 2012
1,342
2
Bill of upgrades.....

so after the advice received, I done the following:

1-Upgrade the RAM to 2 GB : $35
2-Upgraded the HDD to a new one (80 GB): $25
3-eBay for a Sonnet Tempo PCI to add 2 SATA ports : $55
4- Install another new HDD (SATA 80 GB) in one of the SATA parts: $35

So right in the budget, with a one SATA port free to use and maxed out RAM. Thanks again all for the help, pointers and advice in tackling this project.:D

:):apple:
 

Lil Chillbil

macrumors 65816
Jan 30, 2012
1,322
98
California
so after the advice received, I done the following:

1-Upgrade the RAM to 2 GB : $35
2-Upgraded the HDD to a new one (80 GB): $25
3-eBay for a Sonnet Tempo PCI to add 2 SATA ports : $55
4- Install another new HDD (SATA 80 GB) in one of the SATA parts: $35

So right in the budget, with a one SATA port free to use and maxed out RAM. Thanks again all for the help, pointers and advice in tackling this project.:D

:):apple:

Do they still even make 80 gig hdds?
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.