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Firewire 800 on a G-4?

G

garycurtis

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Sep 15, 2010
331
0
Los Angeles & Northern California
My G-4 tower has Firewire 300 built in. Can I install Firewire 800 on a PCI card?
Does the architecture support that?


It would sure be nice to speed up backups to my ext. Hdd.

(running Sonnet 1.6Ghz CPU and OS Leopard)
 
Missed that earlier today when browsing (drooling, actually) on OWC. Now that I read the specs, what would prevent me from installing an eSata PCI card?

G-4 Sawtooth with Sonnet Encore CPU and 2 open PCI slots. External drive is a LaCie 1Tb Quadra (USB/Fw 400/800, Sata)
 
Any Mac with PCI can add things like FW or USB or any of many things you can get for PCI.
 
garycurtis said:
Now that I read the specs, what would prevent me from installing an eSata PCI card?
Click to expand...

Nothing. Check out OWC's offerings and maybe also take a look at this. I have no personal experience with this card, but most of the negative reviews seem to be from people who are upset that it won't fit in their Mac Pro.
 
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ThunderSnake said:
Nothing. Check out OWC's offerings and maybe also take a look at this. I have no personal experience with this card, but most of the negative reviews seem to be from people who are upset that it won't fit in their Mac Pro.
Click to expand...

Or buy a regular PCI SATA card and use one of these to add eSATA.
ura_esata_bracket.jpg
 
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zen.state said:
Or buy a regular PCI SATA card and use one of these to add eSATA.
Image
Click to expand...

Yeah, that would be a more versatile option and something you'll appreciate when the time comes to replace your internal drive. The only thing better would be a Firmtek card with both internal and external ports, but those are really hard to find good deals on.
 
Well, shut my mouth. My LaCie drive is ported for eSata, not Sata. These arre new parameters to me. I'm fully aware that the Bus speed my G-4 Sawtooth is only 100 Mhz, but even so, I'll experience a 20% boost over Firewire 800.

Sure is better than the 25-minute waits I endure with Firewire 400.
 
Just wondering.. why do you keep typing "G-4"? You have a G4 CPU and I have no idea what a "G-4" is. :)
 
There is no difference between sata and esata. eSATA is still SATA only that it is supposed to be external, but the bus tech is still SATA.
 
Nameci said:
There is no difference between sata and esata. eSATA is still SATA only that it is supposed to be external, but the bus tech is still SATA.
Click to expand...

True but the connection is a little different.
 
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I ordered the LaCie PCi card with two ext esata ports today. $30. This will speed up the by far slowest routine on this old machine.

A friend will be giving me her i5 iMac when her company buys her an upgraded model. So, I'm off to the Intel world. And I'm not expecting any magic. All I do is Word Processing and surfing the Internet. I don't need no stinking badges — to quote an old Cowboy movie.
 
The LaCie PCI eSata was installed. Easily. If you want to know what eSata can do for performance, my backup times were cut from 20+minutes to 2 minutes.

With a Mac (even an old G4), no need for an install disk. I'm in love with this technology.
 
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