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eSATA card for PowerMac G5?

G

gangst

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Dec 27, 2004
614
0
UK
Hi,

I am looking to expand my PowerMac. I want to backup externally, but would like the speed of eSATA. Will any eSATA card work with the PowerMac G5, or will only Mac specific cards work? I don;t really want to spend more than £40 on an eSATA card, with two ports.

Also, I currently have 2x500GB, to my knowledge, you can only get two internal hard drives in the PowerMac G5, without a third party expansion, is this correct?

Thanks
 
The machine you're describing, if it's a Quad 2.5 PowerMac G5, has to be the Late 2005 model, the last G5 towers ever produced.

All the slots are PCI-E, two are 4 lane, one is 8-lane, one is 16-lane (for graphics cards preferably) there is no AGP on this model.

You'll need a card that is Open Firmware compliant, so it has to be Mac specific.

Unfortunately the Mactax is still in effect.. about the cheapest 2-port Mac compatible PCI-e card you could get is the TCSE-2 on this page, and it's $99 US, probably 68 euros:

http://www.wiebetech.com/products/pci.php
 
Yes you are correct. I was just about to post that my graphics is PCIe with a x16 bus width.
 
IIRC, you don't need a special OF compliant card if you are not booting from it. You need one that has driver support for OS X. Unless booting from the card, it is controlled by the HLOS (High level operating system), in this case, OS X.

The cards that work in Mac Pros shouldn't have an issue on a G5.
 
Thanks for the links. No I won;t be booting from it. It will either be used for RAID0 or RAID1 mirror depending how I feel when I do it lol.

Also, can Time Machine backup via eSATA?

Thanks
 
Will this card work in my PowerMac G5 Quad??

Will the 4 port eSata card work??

Dat Optic 4 port eSATA PCIExpress 8x

Thanks,

Dan
 
Ooh, I want that 4-port card.

Dumb question: System Profiler says only "PCI," Mactracker says my G5 has PCI-X (had to get down to the machine ID to figure that out). Are PCI Express and PCI-X the same? I thought I'd seen PCI Express expressed as "PCI-E" somewhere before...
 
fivegrand said:
Ooh, I want that 4-port card.

Dumb question: System Profiler says only "PCI," Mactracker says my G5 has PCI-X (had to get down to the machine ID to figure that out). Are PCI Express and PCI-X the same? I thought I'd seen PCI Express expressed as "PCI-E" somewhere before...
Click to expand...
IIRC, I've seen one somewhere for ~$165.
 
fivegrand said:
Ooh, I want that 4-port card.

Dumb question: System Profiler says only "PCI," Mactracker says my G5 has PCI-X (had to get down to the machine ID to figure that out). Are PCI Express and PCI-X the same? I thought I'd seen PCI Express expressed as "PCI-E" somewhere before...
Click to expand...

No, PCI-e cards are not compatible with PCI or PCI-X slots. Note the first line at Wikipedia PCI-X entry.

That is not really a problem though as there are plenty of excellent 4 port eSATA cards for PCI-X use too- my favorite is this FirmTek (which is limited to 150Mbits/sec SATA I spec) or this FirmTek which has the SATA II 300Mbits/sec transfer rate and supports "port multiplier" external cases (at a higher price).

Others commonly use this Sonnet. You can take a look at a large array of them at OWC's Sata Cards. Just be sure you are selecting PCI-X and external ports.
 
Excellent. I did figure that out a while after I posted LOL, sorry about that.

So now another question: Why is there such a huge difference in price between the Sonnet card that you indicated, and this card from Habey? Both are PCI-X and both support 20 drives through PM...I know the Sonnet name is a good one (I've used many of their processors and other controllers in the past) but that kind of pricing disparity is a little ridiculous, unless there's something that I'm missing. :confused:

ETA: I see that the Sonnet is hot-swappable, something I don't care about. That explains a lot of the difference.
 
fivegrand said:
Excellent. I did figure that out a while after I posted LOL, sorry about that.

So now another question: Why is there such a huge difference in price between the Sonnet card that you indicated, and this card from Habey? Both are PCI-X and both support 20 drives through PM...I know the Sonnet name is a good one (I've used many of their processors and other controllers in the past) but that kind of pricing disparity is a little ridiculous, unless there's something that I'm missing. :confused:

ETA: I see that the Sonnet is hot-swappable, something I don't care about. That explains a lot of the difference.
Click to expand...

No problem on the PCI-X definition! ;)

As far as that card, that disparity is a very good question! Wish I had a similarly good answer. I know Sonnet is well known but that big a disparity is bordering on ridiculous. Now to be honest I have never seen that card listed there in all the times I have looked at that list which would lead me to think it is a new addition. I did a google search for "Habey USA-4618" and "Habey USA 4618" and came up with very few listings, most of which are OWC listings!

I took a look at the Habey site (what I could see right as the text is all screwed up in Firefox anyways) and saw that they say they are a subsidiary of Norco Industries Computer Technologies in China who are establishing Habey USA as a new US distribution point. So, long story a little shorter it does not look like there are really any tech specs that would be troubling, and since OWC stands behind their stuff so well I think I would be willing to try one of these at least once! Then you have 30 days to determine if there are any problems- and there may be none. It brings to mind a 2 port card (Syba???) that people have recommended in other threads that is only about $20 and apparently works fine.

Good eyes in spotting that one! Maybe it is just a "loss leader" for Norco to establish their presence here, but if so that would be an even better reason to try one. Good luck with it!
 
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