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Quicksilver G4 HD and expansion

H

henryaj

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Hi,

I have a 733mHz Quicksilver G4 that has a built-in 40GB HD. I want to add another (or possibly many more) hard drives so I can use this computer as a file server and a backup server (if there is such a thing). I read another post saying the biggest HD my computer can take is 128GB, due to the fact it has ATA/66. I am unsure as to whether all Quicksilver G4s have ATA/66, but I can't seem to find out in Apple System Profiler (for some reason). Anyways, assuming I can't install a hard drive bigger than 128GB inside the machine, presumably I can use a PCI card to add more drives? If I wanted to add an ATA/100 drive, could I use an ATA/133 card or would they not be compatible? And will any old ATA/133 card work, or do I have to get a Mac-compatible one?

Many thanks!
 
henryaj said:
Hi,

I have a 733mHz Quicksilver G4 that has a built-in 40GB HD. I want to add another (or possibly many more) hard drives so I can use this computer as a file server and a backup server (if there is such a thing). I read another post saying the biggest HD my computer can take is 128GB, due to the fact it has ATA/66. I am unsure as to whether all Quicksilver G4s have ATA/66, but I can't seem to find out in Apple System Profiler (for some reason). Anyways, assuming I can't install a hard drive bigger than 128GB inside the machine, presumably I can use a PCI card to add more drives? If I wanted to add an ATA/100 drive, could I use an ATA/133 card or would they not be compatible? And will any old ATA/133 card work, or do I have to get a Mac-compatible one?

Many thanks!
Click to expand...

You need to use a Mac compatible ATA/133 or 100 PCI controller card.


Lethal
 
henryaj said:
Hi,

I have a 733mHz Quicksilver G4 that has a built-in 40GB HD. I want to add another (or possibly many more) hard drives so I can use this computer as a file server and a backup server (if there is such a thing). I read another post saying the biggest HD my computer can take is 128GB, due to the fact it has ATA/66. I am unsure as to whether all Quicksilver G4s have ATA/66, but I can't seem to find out in Apple System Profiler (for some reason). Anyways, assuming I can't install a hard drive bigger than 128GB inside the machine, presumably I can use a PCI card to add more drives? If I wanted to add an ATA/100 drive, could I use an ATA/133 card or would they not be compatible? And will any old ATA/133 card work, or do I have to get a Mac-compatible one?

Many thanks!
Click to expand...

best best is to buy a MAC ATA PCI card, sonnet sells them, with one you can add as much as 400GB with the new IBM drive. I'd recommend going Serial ATA at this point and forget ATA100/133. So your hard drives will work in new machines including G5s. They sell mac serial ata cards for as low as $60 and you can add 2 more internal drives, so two of those IBM drives and your 40GB and you've got a 840GB of space. Pretty nice for a 3 year old machine.

Tyler
 
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