Dual G5 spring(fall) cleaning?

Hello and welcome ..

You really need to clear out some of the unwanted files (photo, movie, documents etc.) also dump any programs you don't use.

Sorry meant to say there is still plenty of life in your G5.

I heard leaving 10% of your HD space is a good idea - in your case, 16GB. Access of the disk will be a lot slower. Maybe get a 500GB to whack in there and tide you over?

koobcamuk said:

I heard leaving 10% of your HD space is a good idea - in your case, 16GB. Access of the disk will be a lot slower. Maybe get a 500GB to whack in there and tide you over?

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...Or even more space. I seem to remember reading articles and MacRumor's posters quoting data, pertaining to HD space vs. performance, that was around 33% or more free space is good to have. Maybe get another disk to store files?

Another thing you may want to try is to sleep your Mac instead of shutting it down. Unlike Windows, Macs wake from sleep quite nicely. Also, programs start more quickly because they are cached from the last time you used them.

You didn't mention how much RAM you have. I wouldn't run a basic machine with less than a gig. Add more for big programs or if you have a penchant to run a ton of apps and widgets at the same time. Personally I don't know anyone working with photos, video or CAD with less than 2 GB of RAM. Seems like 4-4.5 GB is common. I know 4.5 sounds wierd but that's usually people who had 512MB and added 4GB later.

I hope your system speeds up for you. Even though my trusty old DP G5 2.7 gets spanked by the new MacPros it still has plenty of oomph to get the job done.

A dancing hula girl or bobble head seems to add speed also.

It has plenty of life in it yet! Get rid of all that stuff you don't need on your hard drive! Move it to an external drive and give your computer more RAM as suggested above. You'll be surprised at the difference.

If you get yourself another, drive as a secondary storage drive and clear out your boot drive you will see a world of difference.

This is Ryan said:

Thanks everyone!

I'll get to work on clearing some stuff up--yeah I'm running 1gig of RAM, I suppose more wouldn't hurt it, especially when I upgrade to Tiger. Cheapest place to buy?

Any suggestions on where to look for program files that might be hiding?? After 3 years and a few different roommate users, I don't know if I might miss something.

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You should still have one open drive slot. I suggest purchasing a second drive, doing a fresh instal and migrating your files over as you need them.

Eventually when you are certain that you have copied over all your important files, you can format the old drive and use it for storage/backup.

That way you will get rid of ALL of the unnecessary items.

With needing more space, and a new OS in your future. (you're getting Tiger now? - granted, I'm going back to it, but most everyone else is moving to Leopard) Why not get a new drive - install the OS fresh on that, and drag over the files from your old drive. This way here, you have more space, and a new beginning. Not to mention, should you keep the old drive - you have something for Time Machine. (if you get Leopard)

That aside, dumping excess files from your HD and repairing permissions might help a bit. The advice on adding ram seems pretty sound, too.

Now, everything said - My previous Tiger install (just over a year old) got slower, and I was seeing more and more beachballs / bouncing dock items. I had 3GB ram, and less than half of my HD full. Repairing permissions didn't do anything. A fresh re-install made all the difference.

(#*$, see what I get for using the bathroom mid-post. I got beaten to it. Oh well.

All your programs will be in the Applications folder, just drag any you don't want into the trash.

Regarding adding extra ram, it will certainly speed things up. I always buy my ram from Crucial, perhaps not the cheapest but I've never experienced any difficulties.

Fitting an extra hard drive as suggested by a few people above is also a great idea ..

I have very nearly the same machine with the 160gig HD. I bought a Hitachi internal 500gig to use as the boot disc. The speed difference is phenominal. I had no idea how slow that stock 160gig drive was until the Hitachi was in there.

Also, I have 2GB RAM and an ATI 9800 256mb video card. My machine feels and responds faster than my Dad's Intel iMac. These machines have a lot of life left in them.

Do a little spring cleaning, get a new HD and life will be good.

fanbrain said:

I have very nearly the same machine with the 160gig HD. I bought a Hitachi internal 500gig to use as the boot disc. The speed difference is phenominal. I had no idea how slow that stock 160gig drive was until the Hitachi was in there.

Also, I have 2GB RAM and an ATI 9800 256mb video card. My machine feels and responds faster than my Dad's Intel iMac. These machines have a lot of life left in them.

Do a little spring cleaning, get a new HD and life will be good.

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I'm in the same situation as you guys. I bought my G5 (dual 2GHz) in August of 2004, and it's been feeling kinda slow lately.

I was thinking about getting a new HDD from newegg (something around $60-100 from western digital: 16-32MB cache, 250-500GB, 7200rpm… or maybe even spring for a raptor) and was wondering if it was worth it. It seems like like it is, especially considering the improvement you noted.

I already have 2.5GB of RAM and an ATI 9600 w/ 128MB video card. Should I throw in an additional 1.5GB of RAM and upgrade my GFX card? I really don't do any gaming, but would it make Leopard's GUI feel faster?

Upgrading the optical drive for about $50 (OEM from newegg) made a huge difference with disc related activities.

With 3GB of ram on my end, Leopard never uses much over 1GB by itself (even that's a stretch on my machine). I think your 2.5GB should be more than adequate, and jumping another 1.5GB likely won't speed Leopard up enough to be appreciated. Unless you use hugely memory intensive apps, and/or like opening everything at once.

I think the HD and GPU would be of benefit - I'm not sure if your GPU itself supports Core Image/Animation, Quartz or Quartz Extreme. (update - it does support it) But if it does not, likely moving to a GPU that does will help out with the visual candy. Have the 7600GT seems to make my experience more fluid than my 7300GT brethren. (256vram opposed to 128) Granted, there are other variables between the machines, so this is not heavy fact.

Edit: From MR itself: http://guides.macrumors.com/Core_Image

just02 said:

I was thinking about getting a new HDD from newegg (something around $60-100 from western digital: 16-32MB cache, 250-500GB, 7200rpm… or maybe even spring for a raptor) and was wondering if it was worth it. It seems like like it is, especially considering the improvement you noted.

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Get the biggest drive you can afford. The less full the hard drive is, the faster it'll perform. I think they write data to the outside of the platters first, then work their way inwards. Also I think the perpendicular recording provides a big speed boost.

Raptors are a waste of money for everyday general use. So unless you have a very specific need, don't bother. You'll just notice a faster boot time, and not much else. A graphics card upgrade would give you better GUI performance in leopard.

And considering the time of year, you might as well wait for black friday before you buy anything just in case some big sale happens.

Go an get a new HD a 500GB or 750GB with 7200rpm as long as they are still available because eventually new drives will be limited to SATA and IDE will get more and more expensive. (I assume that a G5 will need an IDE drive, right?)

Right now you can buy a

750GB IDE drive for 190€
500GB IDE drive for 100€
750GB SATA drive for 170€
500GB SATA drive for 85€

There are 1000GB SATA drives but no 1000GB IDE drives. So now is the right moment to buy one or two of these large drives. It will make a huge impact on performance because those drives are a lot faster than the 160GB you have!

Install the new drive as your main boot drive and then copy your old files over.

deadkenny said:

I assume that a G5 will need an IDE drive, right?

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No. All PM G5s use SATA.

9Charms said:

A graphics card upgrade would give you better GUI performance in leopard.

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Seriously? I had doubts initially, especially for ~$250 for an X800. But if it gets rid of the occasional stutter in dashboard and other GUI goodies, and smooths things out a bit, then I'd be happy.

So a large 7200RPM drive (such as a 500GB 7200rpm drive) and an additional drive for storage/Time Machine would be the best for money/performance?


Thanks

just02 said:

No. All PM G5s use SATA.

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All PM G5's actually can use BOTH SATA and IDE. The IDE bus is used by the optical drive. You'll need to get a longer IDE cable with 2 connectors, but it'll work. The Mac can boot from any installed drive. I don't remember, but I think there was some caveat against putting a HD and optical drive on the same bus... In my case, I removed the optical drive all together and have 2 IDE drives in that area of my PowerMac G5. (I have an external Firewire burner).

just02 said:

Seriously? I had doubts initially, especially for ~$250 for an X800. But if it gets rid of the occasional stutter in dashboard and other GUI goodies, and smooths things out a bit, then I'd be happy.

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Get a used 9800 Mac Edition card. Much cheaper especially on eBay ($150).

This is Ryan said:

I was reading some of you guys saying that you use 1 drive for apps and the other for music and photos...how do I do this? Do i need to erase the old drive and then re-load music and photos onto it? Or can I just direct itunes and iphoto to point towards that drive?

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You need to erase the old drive if you want to use it as storage. You can tell iTunes to keep your itunes folder on the other drive. I'm not sure, but I think you need iPhoto buddy to do the same thing with iPhoto.

Personally, I'd keep all your stuff on the 500gig and use your 160 as a time machine backup.