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Buying Intel Mac What to do with the Old G4?

B

BruDaniell

macrumors newbie
Original poster
May 26, 2009
3
0
How to utilize my old G4 as resource for my Mac Mini?

I have an Intel based iMac and a third generation iPad...they perform excellently. My old G4 has been a back room extra machine, but can't run newer software as it only goes up to 10.4.11.

I have several programs that won't run on it because the software companies only support Apple in the Intel based world. One of the programs monitors blood work for example. I am considering a Mac Mini for the ability to run the newer software, but what to do with the old G4? It has 10.4.11, 1.5 SDRAM, 1.2 Ghz, and has the old Superdrive (remember when 100 Mg was a big deal?), firewire, etc.

Is there a way to just daisy chain the G4 to the Mini? I hate to just scrap it.

Is it easy to hook up, and configure?

Suggestions would be appreciated!
 
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Being a G4, your Mac can run OS X 10.5.8 by using Xpostfacto, or Leopard Assist. You could use it as I do with my G5 as a server, put in a SATAII controller and load up some drives and then have it serve all your itunes content to your iDevices/Apple TV provided you don't have an iphone 5.

If you wanted to just use it as a file server you could even run itunes 10.7 on the Mini as your itunes server with the content on your G4s drives. They are surprisingly versatile machines for the purpose, it doesn't need to be able to read the content, it just has to store it.

My torrents are automatically downloaded to my server, it does time machine backups, stores all my data, Virtual Box images and can run a few tasks here in there in the background by using screen sharing built into OS X that allows me to see its desktop on my MacBook.
 
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orestes1984 said:
Being a G4, your Mac can run OS X 10.5.8 by using Xpostfacto, or Leopard Assist. You could use it as I do with my G5 as a server, put in a SATAII controller and load up some drives and then have it serve all your itunes content to your iDevices/Apple TV provided you don't have an iphone 5.

If you wanted to just use it as a file server you could even run itunes 10.7 on the Mini as your itunes server with the content on your G4s drives. They are surprisingly versatile machines for the purpose, it doesn't need to be able to read the content, it just has to store it.

My torrents are automatically downloaded to my server, it does time machine backups, stores all my data, Virtual Box images and can run a few tasks here in there in the background by using screen sharing built into OS X that allows me to see its desktop on my MacBook.
Click to expand...


He doesn't need Leopard assist since his G4 is a 1.2 GHz, and the minimum requirement for Leopard is 867 MHz.
 
Easy to Configure?

orestes1984 said:
Being a G4, your Mac can run OS X 10.5.8 by using Xpostfacto, or Leopard Assist. You could use it as I do with my G5 as a server, put in a SATAII controller and load up some drives and then have it serve all your itunes content to your iDevices/Apple TV provided you don't have an iphone 5.

If you wanted to just use it as a file server you could even run itunes 10.7 on the Mini as your itunes server with the content on your G4s drives. They are surprisingly versatile machines for the purpose, it doesn't need to be able to read the content, it just has to store it.

My torrents are automatically downloaded to my server, it does time machine backups, stores all my data, Virtual Box images and can run a few tasks here in there in the background by using screen sharing built into OS X that allows me to see its desktop on my MacBook.
Click to expand...


Since I will be using it as a resource for the Mini, is it just one cable (which one) and easy to configure?
 
I think the two suggestions I have seen so far here only require the mac to be connected to your network. I am not sure what mac you have but if it can do gigabit ethernet I would suggest using that for home file sharing.
 
BruDaniell said:
Since I will be using it as a resource for the Mini, is it just one cable (which one) and easy to configure?
Click to expand...

If you're going to use it for file sharing all you need is a Gigbait ethernet cable and a router (Cable/Fibre/ADSL) then you can set up everything I suggested by turning on the sharing options, and setting your Macs network system preferences to DHCP with a fixed IP address in the IP range of your network so it's always up.

If you want to do torrents its as simple as setting up transmission with the web interface turned on, then you can add torrents to automatically download directly to your server.

If you want more drives and more modern drives then you will need a Mac compatible SATAII controller which can be bought on ebay cheaply enough. You will then have all the data storage you need for your home in one secure location.
 
Host files on your G4. That's what I did with my old Sawtooth until I got a PowerMac G5.
 
It is a card, that you stick in a PowerMac. (no iMac, macmini, etc.)

It is something like this http://www.ebay.de/itm/Silicon-Imag.../271544275248?ssPageName=ADME:B:WNARL:DE:1123
(not bootable, means you can only put data and applications on it, but not start your computer up, from a drive connected to this card. So you will have additional storage, but keep the OS on your old drive.)
This one is cheap and you need to install a driver that you can find one the internet, or just go here https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1749179/ (as you will read there, user xtempo had issues first, so I don't guarantee, that it works. I have another card and you can basically use every SATA card that has a SIL3124 or SIL3132 chip)

The other options are bootable cards by Sonnet, Firmtek/Seritek or ACARD, but they go for 25-60EUR (don't know the US prives, but they should be similar)
 
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