4x IDE Drives in PowerMac G4 (Dual 1GHz QS)

[sarthak]

Looking to add more storage to my PowerMac G4 Quicksilver (2002) with Dual G4 1GHz chips.

Currently has the following;
G4 Dual 1GHz
NVIDIA GeForce 4MX
ATI Radeon 7000 (Flashed) 
Drives two 1080p displays.
Runs great on Tiger.

Hard Drives:
Samsung 160GB 7200RPM with Tiger
Maxtor 80GB 5400RPM

Both drives are IDE. Was wondering if there is a way to add two more IDE drives. Perhaps, unplugging the Optical Drive from the board and routing a IDE -> 2x IDE cable (standard IDE cable) manually to the drives.

I could not find any information on this. All I see is adding SATA or SCSI drives with PCI card installed. But nothing on adding two more IDE drives in slot 3 and slot 4.

I have a few 80GB+ IDE drives no longer in use. Would be wonderful to make them work in the QS G4.

 

[RedCroissant]

Looking to add more storage to my PowerMac G4 Quicksilver (2002) with Dual G4 1GHz chips.

Currently has the following;
G4 Dual 1GHz
NVIDIA GeForce 4MX
ATI Radeon 7000 (Flashed) 
Drives two 1080p displays.
Runs great on Tiger.

Hard Drives:
Samsung 160GB 7200RPM with Tiger
Maxtor 80GB 5400RPM

Both drives are IDE. Was wondering if there is a way to add two more IDE drives. Perhaps, unplugging the Optical Drive from the board and routing a IDE -> 2x IDE cable (standard IDE cable) manually to the drives.

I could not find any information on this. All I see is adding SATA or SCSI drives with PCI card installed. But nothing on adding two more IDE drives in slot 3 and slot 4.

I have a few 80GB+ IDE drives no longer in use. Would be wonderful to make them work in the QS G4.

I don't know if the one cable and power will provide enough for two drives. I don't see why it wouldn't work with one connected though. You might be better off getting a lower cost SATA PCI card though because you can get one for less than $80 and be able to connect 2 drives and still maintain your current drive configuration.

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Sonnet%20Technologies/TSATA/

In fact the description of the Sonnet card says: "Sonnet's Tempo™ Serial ATA PCI adapter card enables you to connect the latest Serial ATA (SATA) and parallel² ATA hard drives to your older Macintosh® computer."

I know that's not exactly the answer you were looking for but I hope it helps.

 

[sarthak]

I don't know if the one cable and power will provide enough for two drives. I don't see why it wouldn't work with one connected though. You might be better off getting a lower cost SATA PCI card though because you can get one for less than $80 and be able to connect 2 drives and still maintain your current drive configuration.

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Sonnet%20Technologies/TSATA/

In fact the description of the Sonnet card says: "Sonnet's Tempo™ Serial ATA PCI adapter card enables you to connect the latest Serial ATA (SATA) and parallel² ATA hard drives to your older Macintosh® computer."

I know that's not exactly the answer you were looking for but I hope it helps.

I guess I'll have to experiment with it. Routing an IDE -> 2x IDE cable from the ODD IDE connector on the Logic Board to the additional 2x IDE Hard Drives. Then routing a Molex extender from the ODD Molex cable to the two drives.

I'll try with one drive first and report back how this goes.

I am using 3x 2TB WD Green and 1x 4TB Black in my Mac Pro with file sharing. I don't have any extra SATA drives and the SATA card seems quite expensive for the G4 QS unit. However, I have plenty of IDE Drives which are 80GB+ sitting unused and better to make use of them than recycle them.

 

[RedCroissant]

I guess I'll have to experiment with it. Routing an IDE -> 2x IDE cable from the ODD IDE connector on the Logic Board to the additional 2x IDE Hard Drives. Then routing a Molex extender from the ODD Molex cable to the two drives.

I'll try with one drive first and report back how this goes.

I am using 3x 2TB WD Green and 1x 4TB Black in my Mac Pro with file sharing. I don't have any extra SATA drives and the SATA card seems quite expensive for the G4 QS unit. However, I have plenty of IDE Drives which are 80GB+ sitting unused and better to make use of them than recycle them.

Yeah, sorry if that wasn't much help. I just recently acquired an upgraded 2001 QS(CPU upgraded to 1 GHz) and only know a little bit about them. I'm actually trying to sell it as well but that's not going as well as I had hoped. Anyway, good luck!

 

[sarthak]

Yeah, sorry if that wasn't much help. I just recently acquired an upgraded 2001 QS(CPU upgraded to 1 GHz) and only know a little bit about them. I'm actually trying to sell it as well but that's not going as well as I had hoped. Anyway, good luck!

I appreciate it. I didn't think about the power issues until you mentioned it.

 

[Intell]

If your machine has enough Molex connectors for the amount of drives you want to install there shouldn't be any problems with the power draw.

 

[sarthak]

If your machine has enough Molex connectors for the amount of drives you want to install there shouldn't be any problems with the power draw.

Installed an 80GB Maxtor by adding a standard IDE -> 2x IDE cable manually to the drive. Had to disconnect the ODD cable from the board to accommodate the drives. The QuickSilver has 3x Molex Connectors. I will be installing another (4th IDE) drive by way of a Molex Y-Splitter.

Now the system has;
Samsung 160GB 7200RPM
Maxtor 80GB 5400RPM
Maxtor 80GB 5400RPM

All drives set to Cable Select jumper setting.

Overall, you CAN run 4x IDE drives if you are willing to give up the ODD.

Is it possible to boot from USB on the QS 2002 for installing Leopard?

 

[bizzle]

Not totally related but I used to run six in my MDD by eliminating the optical drive and using it's space for two more drives. Between that, an over clocked dual CPU set up and the 9800 Pro, the thing was drawing so much power that if I plugged in a bus powered Firewire hard drive, all the fans would slow down, but it kept chugging. Somehow I managed to never blow it up.

The power supply in the QS is smaller (if I remember correctly), but it should be able to handle 4 drives and no issues with a molex splitter.

 

[Intell]

Is it possible to boot from USB on the QS 2002 for installing Leopard?

Yes.

 

[sarthak]

Yes.

The install would be quite slow from a disc or a USB so instead, I imaged the disc onto the 3rd empty 80GB drive I installed (temporarily disconnected a different drive). Booted from the 80GB drive with Leopard installer and did "Archive & Install"...

Leopard is remarkably fast and works quite well with newer software. I am running it on 640mb RAM and it works as great as Tiger. Using Safari now over TenFourFox 24 beta.

I am waiting on receiving 2x 512MB sticks in the mail for a total of 3x 512mb Sticks or 1.5GB RAM.

 

[sarthak]

Second drive mysteriously disappeared. Changed the Jumper Setting. Leaving it off overnight will be the real test.

BOARD MAIN HEADER
- IDE Samsung 160GB set to MASTER
- IDE Maxtor 80GB set to Slave

BOARD ODD HEADER
- IDE Empty
- IDE Maxtor 80GB set to MASTER

 

[sarthak]

Works just fine. Getting another IDE drive, real test will be with 4 Drives with Y-Molex splitter and Master Slave, Master Slave jumper settings.

If the QS 2002 can handle a ODD and a Zip Drive off a single IDE header on the board then it should be able to handle two IDE HDDs.

 

[Cox Orange]

If you want to go SATA the cheap way some time in the future, there are "PC"-SATA-PCI-cards, that work under Mac OS X, if you install drivers. They are cheaper han the Sonnet/Firmtek/ACARD/Macally ones, but are not bootable. Search for Cards that have the Silicon Image Chip SIL3124, they will work, you can find the drivers online. Ask, if you need help or further information. Also, better get a 64bit PCI card, instead of a 32bit (like the short Sonnet one), because you will have 60MB/s throughput instead of 40MB/s.

If you need a stronger PSU go to atxg4.com to find how to turn a PC power supply into a Mac one - or look here (easier to understand) http://www.jcsenterprises.com/Japamacs_Page/Blog/EA215F16-F592-4CF7-AA8A-496D5323F6BC.html

You will want to find a PSU, that has only one rear fan (unless you want to cut a hole in the side of the case). Such models are:
Thermaltake TR2
Sharkoon SHA-350-8P or -450-8P
Antec neo (or neopower) or green (be careful, there are some with the same name, that have a side fan)
Antec Earthwatts

The Quicksilver one has 344W (if I am correct).

Maybe you can calculate it on your own looking at what it says about the 12V rails on the PSU itself, if it is sufficient. In my AGP G4 I had a conflict with an additional fan an one hard drive that would cause another drive not to appear after startup, because the fan and the other fan were the first two devices in the chain and so the last one did not get enough power to run stable (at least that is my explanation; I am no electrician), without that fan or without that special drive, the last drive would mount normally.

 

[sarthak]

If you want to go SATA the cheap way some time in the future, there are "PC"-SATA-PCI-cards, that work under Mac OS X, if you install drivers. They are cheaper han the Sonnet/Firmtek/ACARD/Macally ones, but are not bootable. Search for Cards that have the Silicon Image Chip SIL3124, they will work, you can find the drivers online. Ask, if you need help or further information. Also, better get a 64bit PCI card, instead of a 32bit (like the short Sonnet one), because you will have 60MB/s throughput instead of 40MB/s.

If you need a stronger PSU go to atxg4.com to find how to turn a PC power supply into a Mac one - or look here (easier to understand) http://www.jcsenterprises.com/Japamacs_Page/Blog/EA215F16-F592-4CF7-AA8A-496D5323F6BC.html

You will want to find a PSU, that has only one rear fan (unless you want to cut a hole in the side of the case). Such models are:
Thermaltake TR2
Sharkoon SHA-380-P or -450-P or -450-P
Antec neo (or neopower) or green (be careful, there are some with the same name, that have a side fan)
Antec Earthwatts

The Quicksilver one has 344W (if I am correct).

Maybe you can calculate it on your own looking at what it says about the 12V rails on the PSU itself, if it is sufficient. In my AGP G4 I had a conflict with an additional fan an one hard drive that would cause another drive not to appear after startup, because the fan and the other fan were the first two devices in the chain and so the last one did not get enough power to run stable (at least that is my explanation; I am no electrician), without that fan or without that special drive, the last drive would mount normally.

Thanks for the information. The QS 2002 is quite loud by today's standards, could definitely use some tweaking or a new quieter PSU.

Unfortunately, I have plenty of IDE drives that are sitting unused (80GB+).

 

[sarthak]

Finally got the RAM upgraded to 1.5GB. What a difference it makes in Leopard.

Still waiting on Y-Molex to install the 4th drive.

 

[Pepper030]

Is the 4th drive in place with the Ysplitter?
Im planning on doing something similair to my powerpc g5 server. I also removed the optical drive and have a 3th drive in place. Tommorow ill try to install a 4th. Also using the Y molex.

Wonder what you expierienced!

 

[sarthak]

Is the 4th drive in place with the Ysplitter?
Im planning on doing something similair to my powerpc g5 server. I also removed the optical drive and have a 3th drive in place. Tommorow ill try to install a 4th. Also using the Y molex.

Wonder what you expierienced!

Haven't installed the 4th drive yet, it's sitting there. Waiting for splitter and other parts to also arrive.

Try with a Y-Splitter or a Molex extender cable. In the QS, it's possible to use an extender from the ODD and spare Molex connectors to two additional drives below along with two primary Easier way would be a splitter since there are three Molex leads in the drive area.

Recently, I was changing PCI cards. Upon boot, the second drive disappeared. I reconnected it and pressed the CUDA button and it came back.

In the QS, You can configure it like this:
- Drive 1 on Main
- Drive 2 on Main

Molex Splitter and new IDE cable from Logic Board (odd IDE)
- Drive 3 on ODD Board
- Drive 4 on ODD Board

 

[Cox Orange]

Is the 4th drive in place with the Ysplitter?
Im planning on doing something similair to my powerpc g5 server. I also removed the optical drive and have a 3th drive in place. Tommorow ill try to install a 4th. Also using the Y molex.

Wonder what you expierienced!

I guess you have already seen, where the optical drive molex-cable comes from, but if you need pictures, search for: Sonnet G5 Jive manual pdf. There they show how to route the cable. You can also see, that the G5 allows to connect a 4x-splitter to connect to the optical drive molex connector.

In the QS, You can configure it like this:
- Drive 1 on Main
- Drive 2 on Main

Molex Splitter and new IDE cable from Logic Board (odd IDE)
- Drive 3 on ODD Board
- Drive 4 on ODD Board

Isn't there space left on the bottom of the case? Next to the stock drive.

If you use the optical drive IDE BUS instead of that on the PCI-Card, you will get 16MB/s, theoretically, because it is ATA-3 (not ATA-33). Maybe enough for OS 9. Would be interesting how it behaves under OS X. Did you recognize any slow downs in everyday usage?

Btw. I made some observations. If you connect a 3TB Toshiba to a Sonnet SATA-Card in a G4 and boot into OS 9 and afterwards boot into 10.4 again, you can't access some data and you are required to repair the disc header. If I connect that drive to the non-apple specific SIL3124 card and switch back and forth between OSes, there seem to be no problems so far.

 

[Pepper030]

Thanks Mseth and Cox,

Mseth, Im also still waiting on parts. I expected the drive to come in today, it didn't. I'm still curious how your setup will workout, so ill be patient and watch this thread.

Cox orange:
Thanks for the Bennet Jive. I Looked it up and they connect 3 drives + odd. So i'll worry no more about power draw.

I added a picture on how I'll install it in my G5 .
Maybe I inspire you on how to install the drive in the G4

 

[Consultant]

My PowerMac G4 have 6 drives: 2 IDE + 4 SATA (using PCI card)

Bottom = 4 drive slots
Optical drive = 1 slot
Under optical drive = 1 slot

I probably got some power splitters but I set this up years ago so I don't remember.

 

[Pepper030]

Succes!

My Drive came in, and i fitted it in the OD-bay. It works like a charm!
Still wondering what the limits might be.

 

[Cox Orange]

So, I decided to put that together for you and meassure the watts.

I used a PowerMac G4 "AGP", 500MHz Model (with Sonnet 1,2GHz installed, which uses 20-40W more).

I have managed a total of 7 drives. Didn't want to get further, but one can imagine, that you can put 2 additional drives in the optical bay, if you like.

If I connect only 6 drives and start from the internal IDE Drive, I get a peak of 156W at start-up, which gets down to 105W after having loaded the OS completely. (7th drive not connected).
If I start from the 7th drive via FW. I get a peak of 184W. (the FW-drive gets its power via the FW-cable)

The PSU of this G4 has 237W and the bumper says you should not exceed 128W over long durations. (I have an ATI Rage 128 Pro in it, btw. wouldn't want to test it with a card that draws more power.)

SET-UP:
external FW400-Drive = Startvolume
Drive 1 = 120GB WD1200BB IDE Drive
Drive 2 = Toshiba 3TB SATA
Drive 3 = Hitachi 1TB SATA
Drive 4 = WD 2,5TB SATA
Drive 5 = Hitachi 1TB SATA
Drive 6 = Samsung 2TB SATA


When I browsed through the folders or clicked with the mouse on the desktop the consumption would go up to 114W. Doing nothing the consumption went down to 93W.

In another test (some time ago, without the drives) I noticed that this Apple PSU causes more power consumption, when it gets hot. I did an iMovie export and the export startet at 90-100W, after the fans got loud it got up to about 110W.

Also, I found out that the Apple PSU (this one at least) does not have a good PFC. I tested all components in my room and found out that it was the PSU.
I can make my TV show the channel info, if I click "play" in iMovie. The devices are not connected, only that all powercords go to the same powerline on the wall. I also can stop a recording in iMovie when I put on the light in my room.
This evening with the 6 drives, I could force my SAT-Receiver-Box to go to standby clicking on the drive name of another drive, the drive is connected via FW externally (not the one that is shown above).

Further thinking:
I would not do this Drive craziness with the stock drive without additional cooling, if I may suggest something.
The other possibility is to be more save and use another PSU. Also I did not test, what happens when the ODD bays are occupied by a 8th and 9th drive.

The Quicksilver G4 has something like 347W (right?). The CPU is a 7455, like my Sonnet, so the base consumption should be around 90W and additional drives should work. But I did not do the math on the speperate 12V lines in the PSU, though! So still, beware! I will not be held responsible for damage to you or your hardware.

Picture: (scroll down to end)
Look at the picture for the setup. (I routed the internal FW out through one PCI-Slot cover. Oh, I forgot to look at the temperatures...

I had to slice the picture, because it was to big, but otherwise you can't read the notes I made. You have to download the pictures and place them besides one another... 😀


Temperature protocol in °C:
- 120mm fan in front of PSU not activated!
(I am browsing through the drives and copying files)
0min =
27 (Drive1)
27 (Drive3)
27 (Drive5)
10min = 26, 30, 31
20min = 28, 35, 35
30min = 34, 38, 38
40min = 34, 39, 39
42min = 34, 40, 40
46min = 36, 40, 41
50min = no change
56min = 36, 41, 41
63min = 36, 42, 42
70min = no change
80min = 37, 42, 43
92min = 37, 43, 43
104min = 38, 43, 43


The G4 has no temperature sensors, but the IDE BUSes and the Macally SATA-Card support SMART on the Drives, so I got the temperatures from the Drives own internal temp sensors.
The three drives with sensors are on the bottom, above them are the big drives, that are connected to the SIL3124 non-Mac specific card.

 

[sarthak]

The Quicksilver G4 has something like 347W (right?).

That is intense and a great use for the G4 if anyone has one sitting in storage.

I am doing further testing as I previously could not get 160GB + 80GB and 80GB + ODD drives working without one magically disappearing due to power (I think).

 

[eyoungren]

That is intense and a great use for the G4 if anyone has one sitting in storage.

I am doing further testing as I previously could not get 160GB + 80GB and 80GB + ODD drives working without one magically disappearing due to power (I think).

Yeah, I had that happen too. Even with what I have going now I still have power issues. I have three main drives (2 SATA, 1IDE) and 1 optical drive. The IDE drive is using the ZIP drive bay and I have no drives connected to the main IDE drive cable.

I do however, have a USB 15GB stick mounted internally, 2 USB 2.0 drives (Time Machine backups) and 1 FW drive. I could add another FW drive but I don't see a point as I'm having trouble maximizing the use of all the drive space I have right now. Both my SATA drives are 1TB for a total of 2TBs and the IDE drive is 200GB. Both USB drives are 500GB (although really, that space is reserved for the TM backups) and the FW drive is partitioned as a DiskWarrior boot drive and one 150GB empty partition. So, I've basically got loads of GBs to spare. For the moment anyway.

Really need to get that ATX PSU conversion going for my QS.

 

[Cox Orange]

That is intense and a great use for the G4 if anyone has one sitting in storage.

I am doing further testing as I previously could not get 160GB + 80GB and 80GB + ODD drives working without one magically disappearing due to power (I think).

Mind I did this with an AGP G4 (aka Sawtooth, that has only 237W!!!).

I had the disappearing drives issue at the beginning with just two IDE drives connected via the stock IDE controller, when I had a MacAlly and Sonnet SATA-card installed at the same time (no drive used!!! there).
I then put out the cards and the dirves won't disappear. I put the cards back and tried disabling "set drives to sleep" in the energy savings option and the issue was solved with the cards being installed.
The only thing that is allowed to go to sleep now, is the monitor.

It was reported, before that people had especially sleep problems with the MacAlly card. Maybe, it is with other cards, too.

There is another user here robertdsc, who has 8 drives in a QUICKSILVER and he has NO ISSUES. see here https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1713461/ for the last upgrade see post #43 (but the rest is also interesting, I also added some links to compatible SATA-cards there).

Also, mind, in my post above I said, the PSU of my older than your's G4 is 237W (can take 128W over longer durations) and mind I have a Sonnet 1,2GHz 7455 upgrade in it (which is about like a stock Quicksilver CPU) and had 6 or 7 drives in there. MIND the peak of 156W was only at boot, after that it went down to 107W. SO theoretically a Quicksilver PSU with 337W (or what it was) should be easy coping with this. Unless the PSU is flakey or something different is wrong.
Try disabling sleep first.

Erik has a big CPU upgrade and other PCI cards in there, so his call for more power is somehow justified. But, if my Sawtooth can handle it (with 3 SATA-PCI cards and 6-7 drives and a low CPU Upgrade) your's might stem the load. On the other hand a Dual 1GHz might be different and coming nearer to Eriks set-up. Though Erik, still will have more PCI cards, than you.

It happens often that Macusers have different experiences with the same model (see reports at xlr8yourmac.com about the MacAlly card or even the 2port Sonnet card) and I come to think that there must be some minor, tiny differences that have an impact, Apple often used different components (chips) on the same series, especially, when it was at the verge to a new model or the new model was on the market and they just finished getting rid of old parts.
Remember the two versions of the last Quicksilver model. The OS 9 lives forum has the exact model number of the two mainboards (one has a 128GB HDD limit on the stock IDE ports, the other not).