Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Any more upgrades for my G5?

S

Sunfighter

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Sep 17, 2011
5
0
Hello everybody!


My GF and I are building an office (will post pics within a month) to help us collaborate on our imaging-related interests (photography, desktop publishing, etc.).

Right now she has a C2D 15" Macbook Pro and I have a 13" White (07) Macbook C2D with an SSD. We are both very happy with our laptops.

Our office is going to feature two primary machines.

A brand new Mac mini Server (quad-core i7) : we have already purchased this machine and opted for a 256gb SSD as the primary internal drive and a 756gb HD as the secondary (storage) drive. We are in the process of saving for a 27" Thunderbolt display. I wanted badly to track down a 30" Cinema display but feared it was a lot of money for such an old panel... this will be our primary machine for imaging work, etc.

Our secondary machine is my old Power Mac G5. It is a DP 1.8ghz G5 with 4gb of RAM, a TON of internal memory, a great 23" Cinema Display, Magic Mouse, keyboard, etc. I also just bought a used ATI 9800 XT graphics card for it as well.... I'm not really sure what to use this guy for to be honest... but it's been an amazing machine for me since I got it new in 2004 and really do not want to let it go... I'd like to eekkk every last ounce out of it but beyond the new graphics card, I'm really not sure what else to do...

I put the SSD in my 07 Macbook and the difference was NIGHT AND DAY... I have thought about putting 120gb SSD in the G5 simply as the boot/OS drive... for $100... would that be a worthy upgrade on such an old machine? I dunno if I'd see the benefits that I got with my Macbook...

Any other ideas?

Thanks!

Mark
 
A SSD as a boot drive in the G5 would work very well. But you must get one that has SATA 1 support. Most SATA 2 drives have SATA 1 compatibility. PowerMac G5's have poor compatibility with SATA 3 drives and SATA 2 only drives.
 
You may want to save some money and get a 60GB SATA II SSD instead of 120GB SSD. For the money you save, you could buy a 500GB HDD for your extra music, movies, pictures, etc.
 
tayloralmond said:
You may want to save some money and get a 60GB SATA II SSD instead of 120GB SSD. For the money you save, you could buy a 500GB HDD for your extra music, movies, pictures, etc.
Click to expand...

I wouldn't bother with an SSD personally, I would go with a SSD-Hybrid drive (Seagate Momentus XT) and get a WDC Black editing 1TB storage drive to follow it.
 
CAINuKe said:
I wouldn't bother with an SSD personally, I would go with a SSD-Hybrid drive (Seagate Momentus XT) and get a WDC Black editing 1TB storage drive to follow it.
Click to expand...

I second that - I have a WDC Black 2Tb and very happy with it - real speed boost.
 
CAINuKe said:
I wouldn't bother with an SSD personally
Click to expand...

Only people with no actual SSD experience would say something as silly as that.
An SSD is worth every penny they cost. There is no hard drive on earth that can match an SSD's seek latency (4.0ms on top-end HDs vs 0.01ms on even the lowest-end SSD).
 
Last edited:
Litany said:
Only people with no actual SSD experience would say something as silly as that.
An SSD is worth every penny they cost. There is no hard drive on earth that can match an SSD's seek latency (4.0ns on top-end HDs vs 0.1ns on even the lowest-end SSD).
Click to expand...

It's funny because it's heavily IRONIC. The Alienware I have now (In Signature) can take 100% ADVANTAGE of the SSD that I have in it now. I am not hampered by SATA I and SATA II compatibility issues. That and I get full TRIM support as well.

I just don't think it is fiscally responsible to blow $120+ on a low capacity SSD when the machine is barely half that. Let alone SATA 1 exclusive. I can see it as a worthy upgrade in a early MacPro but not in any G5. You are just pouring money into a pit to MAYBE get another 3-4 years out of a machine.

BTW, I am pretty sure a HDDs latency is measured in Milliseconds and not NANO SECONDS.
 
Last edited:
CAINuKe said:
I can see it as a worthy upgrade in a early MacPro but not in any G5.
Click to expand...
Again, you're speaking while having zero experience. An SSD is the single biggest thing that will improve the responsiveness and performance of any computer. Even a lowly G3 iMac will be significantly improved.

And who said an SSD has to be a $120 version? Here is an entire page of drives under $68: http://www.newegg.com/Store/SubCategory.aspx?SubCategory=636&name=Internal-SSD&Order=PRICE
Here is a 16GB drive for $40: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820139946
Look on eBay and the prices are even cheaper.

The OS only takes up 8GB and it and the Apps are the only things you need on an SSD to get the performance benefit. A 30GB drive is more than ample for a G5 and a 16GB drive will still have 8GB free. Pair that $40 SSD with a $100 7200rpm hard drive and you have the best of both worlds.

Max out the RAM to 8GB and you can use Terminal to make a RAMdisk for a lightning fast scratch disk.
diskutil erasevolume HFS+ "RaidRamDisk" `hdiutil attach -nomount ram://4612000`

BTW, I am pretty sure a HDDs latency is measured in Milliseconds and not NANO SECONDS.
Click to expand...
Troll all you like, it doesn't change the fact you know nothing about G5s. So why are you even browsing this section?
 
I wasn't pleased with the SSD when I put it in my G5..

In real world use it wasn't enough faster to trade for the space..I ended up going back to a 2x250GB RAID 0 boot then my 3 other drives..

----------
CAINuKe said:
It's funny because it's heavily IRONIC. The Alienware I have now (In Signature) can take 100% ADVANTAGE of the SSD that I have in it now. I am not hampered by SATA I and SATA II compatibility issues. That and I get full TRIM support as well.

I just don't think it is fiscally responsible to blow $120+ on a low capacity SSD when the machine is barely half that. Let alone SATA 1 exclusive. I can see it as a worthy upgrade in a early MacPro but not in any G5. You are just pouring money into a pit to MAYBE get another 3-4 years out of a machine.

BTW, I am pretty sure a HDDs latency is measured in Milliseconds and not NANO SECONDS.
Click to expand...

But the OP didn't ask our opinion about fiscal responsibility he asked about upgrades..

The OP may get 10 more years out of his G5 too, it depends on what he's doing and future formats..CS4 still runs on PPC and still deals with all the modern formats it isn't going to be slower 5 years from now that it is today. Tis better to spend $120 on the computer you have if it'll do the job than buy a new computer. To top it if he's running native PowerPC (CS3)Application no new Mac will run them so he'll have to buy software licences. CS6 is $2599 and PS on its own is $629 added to the cost of the new computer.
 
SSD and RAM! Its all your current setup will need to truly max it out...

I would definitely go with a 60gb drive. This way you can put the OS and all your apps on it. No need to store basic files there, and you can always host a load of external drives for storage.
 
I Agree with the ram and the ssd. I never have had a desktop mac but with my Powerbook g4 it had only 768 mb of ram. IT WAS SLOOOWWW... With tiger or leopard it has bad so bought 2 gb of the internet and an already amazing machine became even better. This gives the virtual memory less work with more ram. Now i dont have a ssd in it but in a sata 2 windows machine it was amazingly fast. GET AN SSD AND MORE RAM!!!. Also optimized the os for your g5.
 
I have the same as you and have been considering an SSD boot drive... but I really need internal storage space more so I'll probably end up getting a 2TB standard HD instead. Besides, I'm pretty sure that for my uses at least, the CPU and the whole PPC architecture (lack of support for new software that I use) is holding me back far more than my current 1TB 7,200 rpm boot drive.

Also, make sure you get a SATA I compatible drive. I got a Corsair Force 3 SSD in my Macbook, its awesome, but my G5 doesn't detect it via the SATA interface, despite Corsair saying it's SATA I compatible.
 
Jethryn Freyman said:
Also, make sure you get a SATA I compatible drive. I got a Corsair Force 3 SSD in my Macbook, its awesome, but my G5 doesn't detect it via the SATA interface, despite Corsair saying it's SATA I compatible.
Click to expand...

Make sure you install it in the lower bay. Something about the upper bay's controller isn't SSD friendly.
 
Thanks guys! I really appreciate everybody's input.

The machine is maxed out with RAM already at 4gb... so that isn't an option. I think the SSD will have to be the next play (60-80gb to keep costs down).....

I have my fingers crossed that the the ATI 9800 XT 256mb graphics card is going to make a huge different... the 64mb GeForce card is terrible but only after I installed Leopard did this machine actually feel almost unusable.

It was a great backup computer that was perfectly usable until I installed Leopard... now almost everything is unusable when it was perfectly functional prior.

Again.... fingers crossed the graphics card will help. :)
 
How did you get on with the ssd upgrade sun fighter....just I'm contemplating doing the same with my own g5..... Would be good to hear how it went and the difference in performance..
 
Nealjane said:
How did you get on with the ssd upgrade sun fighter....just I'm contemplating doing the same with my own g5..... Would be good to hear how it went and the difference in performance..
Click to expand...

The difference in performance is unremarkable, unremarkable enough to forego the SSD in favor of a HDD that has some space.
 
I've used an SSD in my G5 quad with good success, but I just recently swapped it out for a Seagate Momentus XT hybrid drive.
This way I have the best of both worlds, fast access to the files I use most and a large overall storage capacity.
 
I've now got an OWC Mercury Electra Pro drive (240GB) in my lower bay as boot drive, much nicer as a boot drive than my previous 7,200 rpm Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 1TB drive. Also used a SATA II OCZ Vertex+ 120GB drive in bay B for a bit fine.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back