Why is the g4 better for storage?

500GB = 1/2TB

Originally posted by markjones05
so why the extra drive bays in the g4?

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I don't know, but probably when they were made there weren't 250GB drives, so the only way to get up to 500GB (if that is in fact the limit, I have no idea) would be to install 4 x 125GB.

Huh? I can load 4 HDs at 250 GB a piece (well, 1gb = 1000MB crap....so 232GB) into my G4 MDD. I havent done it, but I know there's room for them, which would equal over 900GB. I have an 80 and a 250GB in there right now and I plan on putting another 250GB by the end of the year, which would put me over the half a terabyte range.

The G5 only have 2 bays? I didn't know that....


In a quick answer to your question about why the G4 has more than the G5, I dunno.

The G4s have more drive bays but that doesn't mean better or more storage. You can't use a drive bigger than about 135GB on the G4's IDE controller. Of course you can add a 3rd party IDE controller and overcome that problem.

One of the issues on the G5's is that each drive requires its own Serial ATA port (i.e. you can't daisy-chain them like IDE drives). I would assume that more ports relates to more design work on the board.

I have no idea what the maximum capacity is per port on the G5, but newer 300GB drives are coming out, so it's possible that it could support those now, or in the future with a firmware update.

If you need more than 900GB, get an external drive or five. If you need it fast, invest in a RAID. What's the problem, here?

I do a lot of video editing. The documentary I'm working on is taking up a ton of space because of all the footage I was working with.

As for the G4 not taking over 136GB drives, it's true on the model pre-MDD (i.e. quicksilvers and earlier)

I was actually looking into a RAID setup as well.

As others have said, when the G4 towers were made HDDs were small and external solutions weren't as cheap and common as they are today so having room for many internal drives was required. Now that HDD capacity is much, much higher and using external FW drives is common place the need for loads of internal drives isn't critical. Also, have you seen the inside of a G5, where the heck is their room for more drives?

Originally posted by DreaminDirector
I do a lot of video editing. The documentary I'm working on is taking up a ton of space because of all the footage I was working with.

As for the G4 not taking over 136GB drives, it's true on the model pre-MDD (i.e. quicksilvers and earlier)

I was actually looking into a RAID setup as well.

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Do you work w/DV only or do you also deal w/uncompressed? If you are DV only, a RAID setup is overkill and not worth the added risk IMO.


Lethal

the single G5's have all kinds of room, not a very good design when you think about it. to much wasted space. The dual G5 is another matter. i dont see why Apple wasted so much space on the singles maybe they are planning the enclosure to only house dual G5's in the future?

Originally posted by Dont Hurt Me
the single G5's have all kinds of room, not a very good design when you think about it. to much wasted space. The dual G5 is another matter. i dont see why Apple wasted so much space on the singles maybe they are planning the enclosure to only house dual G5's in the future?

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I'm sure it was a cost and expandibilty (in terms of CPUs) based decission. It would cost too much to have differently designed cases, and possibly mobo's, for the single and dual chip towers. And, like you said, I wouldn't be surprised if starts offering more dual proc configurations in the future.


Lethal

the ATA/100 spec has 42 bit interconnects that allow for the same amount of maximum hard drive space recognition as the maximum theoretical G5 memory (G5 has a 42 bit memory address). I believe that it reaches into the double digits of terabytes.

So, you could easily put some big hard drives in the MDD PowerMac and be on your way.

250GB+80GB= 330GB +250GB + 250GB= 830GB

Thats enough storage for almost 75 hours of straight from tape DV footage.

Re: Why is the g4 better for storage?

Originally posted by markjones05
The Power Mac G4 has four drive bays in which you can add up to nearly half a terabyte of storage.


The Power Mac G5 features next generation Serial ATA support with two drive bays for up to 500GB of ultrafast storage.


Why do the G4's have so much more drive space and storage capacity?

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Well, Mark, let me tell you a little story.

[mod. edit - Unnecessary. The point has already been made. No need to post flamebait.]

While we're on the topic of DV storage...

I saw a chart somewhere that shows how much space various formats of video take up on disk per minute of video. Does anyone know where I can find that?

Originally posted by Rower_CPU
While we're on the topic of DV storage...

I saw a chart somewhere that shows how much space various formats of video take up on disk per minute of video. Does anyone know where I can find that?

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well, it isnt exact, but it tells you what you wanted to know:

http://www.ulead.com/learning/video2/page1.htm

Originally posted by G5orbust
well, it isnt exact, but it tells you what you wanted to know:

http://www.ulead.com/learning/video2/page1.htm

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Thanks. That's close enough.

Actually the MDD macs are a wierd beast:

1x ATA-100 (up next to processor)
1x ATA-66 (under optical carrier)
1x ATA-33 (opticals only)

Now the ATA-66 bus is known to be limited to 137GB whilst the ATA-100 is believed to have 42bit addressing.
I have not tested this.
Also your drives are ordered ont the desktop as follows:

for the onboard connectors:
ATA-100 M
ATA-100 S
ATA-66 M
ATA-66 S
ATA-33 M
ATA-33 S

for PCI-connectors:
ATA drives
SCSI drives
FireWire/USB

external drives:
FireWire
USB