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eSATA for my Power Mac G5 DP 2.3 GHz

mac57mac57

mac57mac57

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Aug 2, 2024
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Myrtle Beach, SC
I'm just a little stoked here... I just received the eSATA card I ordered from eBay for my Power Mac G5 DP 2.3 GHz.it is a Sonnet Tempo E2P, providing two external eSATA ports. I have a 2 GB external HDD that I plan to add to the system via this "new" interface. I will update this thread as the work progresses!
 

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mac57mac57 said:
I'm just a little stoked here... I just received the eSATA card I ordered from eBay for my Power Mac G5 DP 2.3 GHz.it is a Sonnet Tempo E2P, providing two external eSATA ports. I have a 2 GB external HDD that I plan to add to the system via this "new" interface. I will update this thread as the work progresses!
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I had a card similar to that one at one point, it had internal SATA and eSATA. It was a 64bit PCI card though. I ended up returning it because I found out it was not bootable, and it only worked in Leopard. IIRC it was a Sonnet card though.
 
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This one is PCI-e and advertises itself as Tiger and Leopard compatible, so I am hopeful that all is well. I don't need it to be bootable, so that helps too. My G5 is the final late 2005 generation, so PCI-e is the right interface.

Since I have the luxury of two G5s (an ailing Quad and a DP) I will try this card or on the Quad first. If all goes well, in will move it to the DP. The DP is my main G5 and also a "production server", so I don't want to try it there right away lest it cause trouble.

FYI, my G5 "production server" is running my internet-accessible Gopher server (gopher://happymacs.ddns.net), which hosts multiple Mac OS Classic software archives for quick and easy download. Because I don't want to crash or disable a production server, I will try the eSATA card on the Quad first, and only if that is successful, move it to the DP.

BTW, if you need a Gopher client, try out the macOS-native Gophie, or if you have MacPorts installed, use it to build and install "phetch", a Terminal-based Gopher client. At this point, phetch is just about my favorite Gopher client for macOS.

Later today, or tomorrow, I will try the eSATA installation and report back. Today however, first duty is a bunch of pre-Thanksgiving household work... then back to the "fun"!
 
The install is done and good results all around! Before install, here are the three available PCI-e slots in my PowerMac G5 DP 2.3 GHz. They sit just above the nVidia 6600 graphics card. I selected the middle one for the install:

20241120_103344.jpg


Notice the dust... I really need to get in there and clean the interior of this machine. It has been a while!

...and after the install, here is the G5 with the card in the slot:

20241120_103850.jpg


Here is what System Profiler showed for PCI cards after the machine was started up again (note the "Driver Installed: No"). At this point, without a driver, the eSATA HDD that was plugged in did not show up:

PowerMac G5 DP System Profiler Output for PCI Cards, After E2P Added.jpg


I went to https://www.sonnettech.com/support/kb/kb.php?cat=339&expand=_a3&action=a1#a1, got the Sonnet Tiger and Leopard drivers for the E2P (it is REALLY good that they continue to make these available - so many manufacturers have dropped their older software from their web sites - well done, Sonnet!), installed the Leopard one and then restarted. Now the eSATA HDD showed up on the desktop nicely.

Here is what System Profile showed for PCI Cards after the driver was installed - no difference from pre-driver install except that "Driver Installed" is now "Yes".

System Profiler, PCI Cards, After Driver Loaded.jpg


Since the eSATA drive now showed up on my desktop, it had to be here somewher. Hunting around for it, I tried the Parallel SCSI heading, and sure enough, that is where it showed up:

System Profiler, Parallel SCSI, After Driver Loaded.jpg


The external eSATA drive has three partitions as you can see, two of them are CarbonCopyCloner clones ofthe two main partitions I used in my Sorbet Leopard set up and the last is just "spare" storage.

I was able to make these clone copies some time ago by plugging this drive in using its FW800 interface (this particular drive sports eSATA, FW800 and USB 2.0 interfaces).

So, fast and easy, no glitches... it just worked... just like Apple products USUALLY do!
 

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One last point on the above: I am getting 115 MB/s write speed through the Sonnet E2P eSATA card to the external eSATA HDD. Pretty good!
 
mac57mac57 said:
One last point on the above: I am getting 115 MB/s write speed through the Sonnet E2P eSATA card to the external eSATA HDD.
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The best you can get through the card is 200 MB/s (PCIe 1.0 ×1 after overhead), assuming there’s no other bottleneck.
 
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Thanks, I rather thought so, but if there was a superior eSATA driver somewhere that perhaps increased throughout, it would be worth trying out. However, there is nothing wrong with 115 MB/s!
 
If you really want speed and are willing to forsake Tiger compatibility, you can put an M2 ACHI SSD on a simple PCIe adapter card and get r/w speeds close to 800MB/sec. I have a 256GB Samsung 951 installed in my PCIe G5 that I plan on using for video editing in Final Cut 6. I might get a second one to install some sample libraries for Logic Pro 8.
 
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It LOOKS like these blades all need Intel? I am on a G5, so I am guessing that this is a "no go"...

Does anyone know of an "SSD on a PCI-e card" that is compatible with Leopard?
 
mac57mac57 said:
It LOOKS like these blades all need Intel?
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No. They work just fine in a PCIe G5 running Leopard due to its universal AHCI driver, but as non-bootable drives. Bootability is where Intel is required.

mac57mac57 said:
Does anyone know of an "SSD on a PCI-e card" that is compatible with Leopard?
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There are the Sonnet Tempo cards but believe me, a Samsung SM951 is in a league of its own. ;)
 
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mac57mac57 said:
BTW, if you need a Gopher client, try out the macOS-native Gophie, or if you have MacPorts installed, use it to build and install "phetch", a Terminal-based Gopher client. At this point, phetch is just about my favorite Gopher client for macOS.
Click to expand...

There is also offpunk.
 
AdamBuker said:
If you really want speed and are willing to forsake Tiger compatibility, you can put an M2 ACHI SSD on a simple PCIe adapter card and get r/w speeds close to 800MB/sec. I have a 256GB Samsung 951 installed in my PCIe G5 that I plan on using for video editing in Final Cut 6. I might get a second one to install some sample libraries for Logic Pro 8.
Click to expand...
Mmm, that sounds like a fun Christmas upgrade for my a1117 dc2.0 PMG5.
 
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Thanks for the pointer! I did not realize that Sonnet had ever made such a card. Looks terrific! No longer sold, but terrific. I have of a search onto eBay, and when shows up, I'll be ready! Thanks again.
 
A follow-up on my original post about eSATA for my PowerMac G5 DP 2.3GHz...

I ran a CarbonCopyCone (CCC) backup of both my boot volume (250 GB) and my data volume (1.6 TB). The backup target was my newly eSATA-interfaced 2 TB HDD. The same backup, to the same external HDD, but using its FW800 interface vs. it's eSATA interface, took a little over 9 hours! Today, it was just about 3 1/2 hours!

eSATA is nearly 2x as fast as FW800, and the rest can be chalked up to enabling block level transfers, vs. file level transfers, on CCC.

Nice results! If you back up routinely, you will find eSATA to be a real friends!
 
This is what I purchased. It's just a dumb interface without any controller chips on it. It would run faster in more modern computers with PCIe 2 or higher and with an NVME m2 drive instead of an AHCI m2 drive, but this setup works in Leopard on a PCIe G5.

One important caveat is that this drive is for storage only. AFAIK there is no way to boot from this setup.
 
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mac57mac57 said:
Thanks for the pointer! I did not realize that Sonnet had ever made such a card. Looks terrific!
Click to expand...
The nice thing about that card is it uses two Marvell 88SE9182 PCIe 2.0 ×2 controllers behind a PCIe switch so each controller should get PCIe 1.0 ×4 in a G5, allowing 500 MB/s or more using a single SSD.
 
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mac57mac57 said:
Indeed! 500 MB/s was over of the performance numbers quoted in the documentation. Pretty impressive for a drop in card.
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Most PCIe SATA controllers use one or two lanes which is okay-ish for PCIe 2.0 (≈400 MB/s per lane) but the G5 is limited to PCIe 1.0 (≈200 MB/s per lane) so if you want performance, get either a two-lane controller card or that Sonnet which brings out the big numbers, so to speak.
 
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