any way to use ultra ATA HD with a G5?

[bcpursel]

i am upgrading from a G4 finally to a Dual Core G5. but i recently bought a 320 GB internal HD for the G4 which is an ultra ATA. it was only $80 but i'd still love to find an economical way to use it, if possible. i also have 2 80 GB HD's too.

are there any devices that i can connect it in externally?
(maybe that connect via USB or firewire?)

i have seen the adapter kits that can add additional HD's under the optical drive area on the G5, but they're probably $200 before you get the PCI card too. i could just buy a new external firewire for that.

i know the G5 can see the main HD in target disk mode, but i don't believe it can see slave drives.

i'd love to reuse if i can, but if not, maybe i can just sell them and get an external.
if anyone has some good suggestions, i'd love to hear.
thanks!

 

[mkrishnan]

Hi, well, you can certainly put it in any PATA external enclosure, USB or Firewire, of the appropriate size. FW400 will be substantially faster than USB2. FW800 will be moderately faster than FW400. You can look at OWC, MacAlly, Icy Dock, and a number of other brands to find these enclosures. Just make sure you get one that has the same interface type (i.e. Parallel). A 3.5" external FW400 case should cost you between $35-65.

 

[psingh01]

http://sonnettech.com/product/tempo_trio.html

 

[Anonymous Freak]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU like Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/420.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.0 Mobile/3A109a Safari/419.3)

The Tempo Trio is "conventional" PCI, the Mac Pro has PCI Express, so the Tempo Trio won't work. (It's made for adding USB, FireWire, and more modern ATA to an old beige Mac.) An external case is the easiest, and they can be had really cheaply (I found this in a quick search, This should *NOT* be taken as a recommendation of this company, as I have no knowledge of them) ; but if you want internal, you can get a parallel to serial adapter like the Tempo Bridge.

 

[Kosh66]

Actually, there is an extra PATA connection in a G5. Yes, all the HD in a G5 are SATA, but the optical drive is PATA. I can't remember how it's done but check around the optical drive, there may be an extra PATA connection.

update:I found this http://forums.macnn.com/73/mac-modification/310732/hard-drives-g5-you-can-have/

 

[Anonymous Freak]

Actually, there is an extra PATA connection in a G5. Yes, all the HD in a G5 are SATA, but the optical drive is PATA. I can't remember how it's done but check around the optical drive, there may be an extra PATA connection.

update:I found this http://forums.macnn.com/73/mac-modification/310732/hard-drives-g5-you-can-have/

D-OH! You're right, of course. Just stretch the cable somewhere else in the case.

(edit: Forgot this was a G5 not a Mac Pro.)

 

[disconap]

You don't need a kit to add hard drives to the G5, just some longer screws. You can screw through the mesh into the HDD and secure it to the case. You still need the wires and adapters and PCI card, though.

I added a RAID to my G5 about six months ago, it cost around $150 for the drives, card, and bracket.

 

[9Charms]

How about one of these:

http://www.maxupgrades.com/istore/index.cfm?fuseaction=product.display&Product_ID=149

I have no idea if this company is for real or not, but they have some interesting stuff on their site.

 

[bcpursel]

thanks for some great suggestions! keep them coming...

i think the easiest alternative is an external enclosure. it will be around $40, and i won't have the problem of retrofitting again.

 

[9Charms]

i think the easiest alternative is an external enclosure. it will be around $40, and i won't have the problem of retrofitting again.

Sure, that's an option, but it's also slower and you have extra cables and need a power plug. Plus you don't have access to S.M.A.R.T. data.

If you're going to use an external enclosure, you may as well put the optical drive drive in the external and put 2 internal HD's in the optical slot.