2nd hard drive for G5 tower?

[alexf]

Hi Everyone,

I want to buy a 2nd internal hard drive (160 - 200 GB) for my G5 tower to use for digital video files and have two questions:

1) What should I buy? (I am looking mainly for quality, but also price. Quietness is much more important than speed)

2) The computer is VERY quiet now. I am concerned that a 2nd hard drive would add to noise levels. Would I notice a difference?

Any other tips on installation, etc.?

Thanks in advance for any help! 🙂

 

[crazzyeddie]

This Western Digital 250GB SATA drive is only $30 more than the 200GB version, with an 8MB cache.

Link

 

[Chaszmyr]

This Western Digital 250GB SATA drive is only $30 more than the 200GB version, with an 8MB cache.

Link

Sounds like a good deal.

 

[freiheit]

Samsung

I bought a Samsung SPC160 (I believe is the part #) 160GB S-ATA hard drive to put in my G4 tower. Since I have a G4, I had to also buy an S-ATA card, but your G5 will take S-ATA natively.

The Samsung is an inexpensive drive (probably because it doesn't have the name recognition within the hard drive arena that Maxtor, Hitachi or Western Digital enjoy). It's quiet and runs incredibly fast. I use it for doing DV editing with iMovie and also as a high capacity storage for various files that I don't want to mix in with my boot drive.

 

[dejo]

I picked up a second 160GB Seagate Barracuda (same model number even as the first internal drive) from, of all places, dell.com for less than a hundred bucks.

http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/productdetail.aspx?sku=A0114731&c=us&l=en&cs=19&category_id=2999&page=external

Now listed as $101.66

It's just as quiet as the first drive, only make noise when accessed, and installation was simple.

 

[alexf]

Thanks everyone for the adivice...

What about noise? Will I notice a noise difference with a 2nd 7,200 RPM drive?

As I wrote, the computer is exceptionally quiet now.

 

[CanadaRAM]

Thanks everyone for the adivice...

What about noise? Will I notice a noise difference with a 2nd 7,200 RPM drive?

As I wrote, the computer is exceptionally quiet now.

Well clearly there will be more noise because there will be two drives spinning. Can you put your hard drive to sleep with Energy saver? That will allow you to compare what the idle noise level is. You'll have double that with the second drive. Plus potentiall a bit more fan action as the second drive will generate heat.

Whether you will notice it is purely up to the location of the computer relative to you, the ambient noise and acoustic properties of your location, and what your perception is.

Seagate has the reputation of being the quietest, Maxtor in the middle and Western Digital the noisiest, but it will vary model to model.

 

[alexf]

Well clearly there will be more noise because there will be two drives spinning. Can you put your hard drive to sleep with Energy saver? That will allow you to compare what the idle noise level is. You'll have double that with the second drive. Plus potentiall a bit more fan action as the second drive will generate heat.

Whether you will notice it is purely up to the location of the computer relative to you, the ambient noise and acoustic properties of your location, and what your perception is.

Seagate has the reputation of being the quietest, Maxtor in the middle and Western Digital the noisiest, but it will vary model to model.

Thanks CanadaRAM; this is helpful advice.

One more question: if I have the "put hard disk(s) to sleep when possible" option checked in my system preferences, does that mean that if I only store very infrequently accessed files on the new hard drive (e.g. backup), the drive will be sleeping for most of the time and I won't hear it at all?

 

[freiheit]

if I have the "put hard disk(s) to sleep when possible" option checked in my system preferences, does that mean that if I only store very infrequently accessed files on the new hard drive (e.g. backup), the drive will be sleeping for most of the time and I won't hear it at all?

Yes, that would generally be true. Typically that setting puts the drive to sleep if it's been inactive (no reads or writes on that drive) for some period of time. If you go for 3 days without copying a file to it, and you don't read any files from it, it would spin down and "go to sleep" and make almost no noise at all.

 

[dejo]

...it would spin down and "go to sleep" and make almost no noise at all.

Almost no noise while sleeping? It doesn't snore a little, does it? 😀

 

[jywv8]

Thanks everyone for the adivice...

What about noise? Will I notice a noise difference with a 2nd 7,200 RPM drive?

As I wrote, the computer is exceptionally quiet now.

I just added a 400GB Seagate drive to my G5 tower (also have the original 160GB Seagate in there), and I haven't noticed any extra noise, although I tend to work with the TV on. I don't have the "put hard disk(s) to sleep when possible" option on.

After some bad experiences with Maxtor and Hitachi/IBM, I'm a big Seagate fan.

 

[BakedBeans]

ok, ill try not to hilack your thread--- but i thought i would drop it in here instead of starting a new thread

in contrast to the original question, what is the fastest hd not worring to much about noise (within reason)

 

[alexf]

Maxtor or Seagate?

OK, so it's down to the Seagate Barracuda 160GB SEAST3160827AS or the Maxtor 160GB MAX6Y160M0 (which is exactly the same drive that my Rev. B G5 shipped with, and thus is already in there).

The price is about the same, and the specs are essentially identical (both have 8MB cache, etc.)

As I noted, the Maxtor 160GB already occupies HD slot #1; I'm wondering if there is any advantage to having two identical hard drives in the computer...

So, I propose a vote: Maxtor or Seagate?

 

[freiheit]

only beneficial for RAID-1

The only real benefit I can see to having 2 identical drives is if you plan to use them as a RAID-1 with mirroring (which gives you greater reliability and possibly better read performance, but you'll only have 160GB of usable space because the 2nd drive will just be a mirror of the first). If you intend to use them as 2 independent drives to store different files, then there's no real advantage there. Since it sounds like you want them to be independent drives, the choice is entirely yours to make. Both Maxtor and Seagate have good reputations. As long as they're both S-ATA drives you shouldn't have any problems.

 

[Hoef]

Does anyone have experience with a raptor as application/OS HD? Is it really faster?

 

[CanadaRAM]

ok, ill try not to hilack your thread--- but i thought i would drop it in here instead of starting a new thread

in contrast to the original question, what is the fastest hd not worring to much about noise (within reason)

Great -- the last two words "Within reason" negate any objective comparison and throws it back into the subjective... 😀

The fastest IDE/SATA drive is the Western Digital Raptor series of 10,000 RPM 3.5" drives. They are low in capacity (36 or 72 Gb), expensive, hot and noisy. I do not recommend these except for the speed-obsessed and budget-loose.

The Hitachi Deskstar 7K series were tested by Barefeats.com to be marginally faster than the Maxtor Plus 9 series, which was marginally faster than the Seagate Barracuda BUT; each test shows that a particular drive may be faster than the rest on some tests and slower on others. And drive models are updated over time - the new 300 Gb Maxtor DiamondMax 10 with a 16Mb cache is supposed to be significantly faster than the 9s. Then, a drive that works well internally may have different results in different Firewire enclosures. And, performance can vary depending whether it is plugged into a SATA card (and which brand) native SATA, IDE or Firewire. So it's difficult to impossible to say what "the" fastest drive is.

Also, the data transfer performance of every drive slows down as you use the innermost tracks of the drive, where the track velocity is lower -- about half as fast as the outside tracks. That is the argument behind partitioning a drive; your fastest tracks are the outside ones, that is the first partition(s) to be created. I put my System and scratch drive space in the first two partitions, and my archival data on the last, where speed isn't important.

For general use, the Seagate Barracuda 7200.7s are my recommendation. They may be a fraction slower than the fastest drives, but they are quiet and reliable. Whichever drive you get, make sure you get the version with a three year warranty instead of 1 (and get that in writing before laying down your money). It's worth the extra 10 - 20 dollars.

Thanks
Trevor
CanadaRAM.com

 

[CanadaRAM]

Does anyone have experience with a raptor as application/OS HD? Is it really faster?

Barefeats recommends a single Raptor as the fastest boot drive.

 

[tersono]

Hi Everyone,

I want to buy a 2nd internal hard drive (160 - 200 GB) for my G5 tower to use for digital video files and have two questions:
1) What should I buy? (I am looking mainly for quality, but also price. Quietness is much more important than speed)
2) The computer is VERY quiet now. I am concerned that a 2nd hard drive would add to noise levels. Would I notice a difference?
Thanks in advance for any help! 🙂

I recently installed a Maxtor 200gb in my G5, moving the original 80gb into the second bay. I've really not noticed ANY increase in noise levels, and that's with the G5 sitting on my desk around 18" from my right ear 😛

 

[Blue Velvet]

Barefeats recommends a single Raptor as the fastest boot drive.

I would second that. That's my boot/apps/scratch drive in my dual 2.5 G5 at work. Although, I'm not particularly concerned about booting or launching apps (the machines are always on and 10 or so core apps are always open).

The difference is very noticeable when opening & saving large Pshop files and the scratch partition is very very nippy. Did I say it was nippy?

 

[Hoef]

The difference is very noticeable when opening & saving large Pshop files and the scratch partition is very very nippy. Did I say it was nippy?

I guess nippy is pretty good ... 😉

 

[BakedBeans]

CanadaRAM

thanks for your feedback to my question 🙂

sorry about the subjectivness 😉

 

[alexf]

One more question...

Why did Apple switch from using Seagate to Maxtor drives in the PowerMacs anyway?

 

[justinshiding]

OK, so it's down to the Seagate Barracuda 160GB SEAST3160827AS or the Maxtor 160GB MAX6Y160M0 (which is exactly the same drive that my Rev. B G5 shipped with, and thus is already in there).

The price is about the same, and the specs are essentially identical (both have 8MB cache, etc.)

As I noted, the Maxtor 160GB already occupies HD slot #1; I'm wondering if there is any advantage to having two identical hard drives in the computer...

So, I propose a vote: Maxtor or Seagate?

Seagate. They have a very good reputation for making long lasting reliable drives...maxtor....not so much. From what I've heard at least.

Justin

 

[CanadaRAM]

Why did Apple switch from using Seagate to Maxtor drives in the PowerMacs anyway?

$$.

There is not enough intrinsic difference between brands to make much of a difference in performance. Apple contracts with several suppliers and will install the brand that they get the best deal on. Same with memory. If you ask Apple to specify what brand of hard drive will ship in your Mac next week, they will decline to say -- they have always had a policy of not committing to the brand of their component parts, and will switch without notice.

It's only an issue if there is a defective design that is discovered later, like the bad batch of voltage regulators in the beige G3's, the hard drives with "stiction" in the early Macs and the IBM "Deathstar" 75-series hard drives.

Thanks
Trevor
CanadaRAM.com

 

[alexf]

Thanks everyone for your input / advice...

It's nice to know I can rely on the MacRumors community for knowledgeable advice when I have to make a purchasing decision. 🙂

I decided on the Seagate and should have it in a few days. Installation looks pretty straightforward, but is does anyone who has installed a hard drive in their G5 have any helpful tips/advice on installation?

Thanks again,
Alex