How many hard drives can my G4 power supply handle?

[jdl8422]

I just bought a power mac g4 quicksilver. not too bad for $70. I believe it has a 340w power supply. How many times can I split the molex power connection before it gets to be too much for the power supply? I want to try and fit at least 6-8 hard drives on this machine. Should I get something like western digital green to save on power? Could it handle a bunch of western digital blacks? Is there any kind of calculation I can do?

 

[Hrududu]

Thats probably pushing a little far. Especially if you're running an ADC display too. You could probably get away with 5, but any more than that might push an 8 year old power supply over the edge.

 

[landscapeman]

Like Hrududu said, it seems a little much for a 380w supply. I would ether limit the amount of drives or upgrade the supply. Good Luck

 

[jdl8422]

is it possible to upgrade the power supply to a newer one? One that did not come with the powermac or made specifically for the powermac?

 

[zen.state]

Modern drives rarely use over 15-18 Watts each. Even the 10-15,000 rpm drives. It could handle 8 power-wise but only if you had a low power video card that doesn't need a molex connection. Heat would be the main issue you will run into. If you HAVE to use 8 then make at least 2-3 external.

Personally I would not put more than 4. I have 3.5 TB in 4 drives and only 2 of them are internal simply for the sake of keeping heat low inside the case.

 

[mr1970]

Be careful if it's one of the models with ADC video - the PSU has specific pin-outs to run the monitor through the video card so it's not an off the shelf job to replace. Fun as a project though - plenty of examples through Google.

 

[max¥¥]

i would suspect the mac can handle 6 drives, i think i had 4 on a sawtooth (witch a 230w psu i think)

 

[conbot]

Dude, don't add more HD space

I would suggest you just stick with one HD.I bought a powermac g3 yesterday, and it was in perfectly good condition(my very first mac). It powered up, made the dunnn chime, and booted up in Mac OS 10.3(Panther). When a lightening storm was passing by, I shut down and unplugged my mac for an hour, then when I plugged it back in, and pressed the on button on the keyboard, it, it didn't light up. I pressed the On/Off button on the mac itself, and nothing happened. 🙁 I found out it was the power supply, which may not have been ready.

 

[drewdle]

However many brackets there are in the case is how many drives the power supply can handle. I can't recall if there are three or four bays in the Quicksilver. Any more than that and you're pushing the PSU into borrowed time. That's of course not counting external drives, as the PSU should be equipped to handle both internal and external drives of however many slots there are, but once again, the more you add, the harder you're working it.