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crammedberry

macrumors regular
Original poster
I don't know how many folks have attempted this but mSATA works great on an iBook G4!

My iBook G4's HD died last week and since then I looked around for a replacement. Most spinning ATA drives are expensive new – probably because they aren't being made anymore.

I thought about doing an mSATA upgrade but wasn't sure if it would even work on the iBook so I kept it cheap:

Samsung 32GB mSATA III = $12
mSATA to 2.5" IDE Adapter + Enclosure = $12

To sum it up – the installation took over an hour and I really hope I don't have to do this, again. The last time I opened up an iBook was several years ago and I've been trying to prolong a repeat as long as possible so hopefully this will keep me good for several years.

I installed 10.4 Tiger right after, installation was a breeze and really fast! I know that these old IDE drives are the bottleneck for the PPC computers as I have an iBook G3 also with an SSD that sometimes seemed to outdo both of my G4s when opening apps/files.

The iBook is really fast, it boots up in seconds. I ran an Xbench test and it scored ~183 on the disk reading/writing benchmarks. Pretty sweet!

You can see some screenshots below of the system profiler and Xbench results. SystemProfiler.pngXBenchSSD.png
 
Wow, those are some impressive numbers, I have an PATA SSD in my Powerbook G4 12" which is SLOW compared to your benchmarks.

What model iBook G4 is this ?

Could Tiger vs Leopard also make a difference ?

Screen Shot 2016-07-31 at 22.16.14.png
 
Wow, those are some impressive numbers, I have an PATA SSD in my Powerbook G4 12" which is SLOW compared to your benchmarks.

What model iBook G4 is this ?

Could Tiger vs Leopard also make a difference ?

View attachment 642803

I'm not sure if Tiger vs Leopard would make a difference in disk speed but I wouldn't think so. Your numbers aren't bad, I think it's just a couple benchmarks that are depressing your overall score.

My iBook specs are G4 1.07GHz, 1.25GB RAM
 
I don't know how many folks have attempted this but mSATA works great on an iBook G4!

...

Samsung 32GB mSATA III = $12
mSATA to 2.5" IDE Adapter + Enclosure = $12

To sum it up – the installation took over an hour and I really hope I don't have to do this, again. The last time I opened up an iBook was several years ago and I've been trying to prolong a repeat as long as possible so hopefully this will keep me good for several years.

How about the temperature, isn't the mSATA making the iBook running very hot?
Can you give more information about the adapter? I think they contribute greatly to good read/write speeds.
 
Wow, that's really good speeds, and all that for 24 bucks? What a steal! My Crucial M550 128gig msata SSD in my Powerbook G4 got a score of around 188 in the disk test, only 6 more than yours.
 
How about the temperature, isn't the mSATA making the iBook running very hot?
Can you give more information about the adapter? I think they contribute greatly to good read/write speeds.

I'm not sure why it would make the iBook run hot? I haven't noticed it, nor have the fans kicked in since I replaced it.

I can't find the original listing but this is the same model.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/mSATA-to-2-...197711?hash=item43e46d9d0f:g:CB4AAOSwT5tWJwAK

Keep in mind that one is almost half the price, I paid more for mine because it shipped within the States and I couldn't wait 1 month for delivery.
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Wow, that's really good speeds, and all that for 24 bucks? What a steal! My Crucial M550 128gig msata SSD in my Powerbook G4 got a score of around 188 in the disk test, only 6 more than yours.

Yes it was a steal! And the thing is, you could do it for even less than that if you have the time. I've seen the adapters go for around $7, sometimes less, but since I have some business outside the States coming up I couldn't wait that long so I paid a local shop here in California for one. Even then it was still way less than I expected!

I just wanna add, it still amazes me how these old computers can still be "modern" long after a decade! We're still running them with modern parts and they're still humming along. This particular iBook I bought for $7 if I recall correctly, it might have been $5 plus 2 shipping but I don't remember that well. Regardless it has probably been my luckiest little laptop, everything on it is perfect!
 
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I'm not sure why it would make the iBook run hot? I haven't noticed it, nor have the fans kicked in since I replaced it.

I can't find the original listing but this is the same model.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/mSATA-to-2-...197711?hash=item43e46d9d0f:g:CB4AAOSwT5tWJwAK

Keep in mind that one is almost half the price, I paid more for mine because it shipped within the States and I couldn't wait 1 month for delivery.

I have exactly the same adapter and tried inserting it into a powerbook Pismo, but I ended up putting the old drive back because of two issues.
  1. These mSATA drives seem to get a lot hotter then the regular 2.5" PATA HDD
  2. I had issues with the installation, perhaps my mSATA disk was faulty. Still need to investigate this further. (Experiment from two weeks ago, didn't had the time to do further experimentation)
 
Temperature of my mSATA goes up to 60-65°C in my 12" PowerBook.
That made the fans constantly running, since the factory threshold for the drives temp-sensor is much lower.
I use "G4FanControl" to adapt the drives temp-threshold. The PB get pretty warm now, but theres a steady state at about 60°C for all sensors (CPU/GPU/Drive).
With the iBook you won't feel the heat through the polycarbonate case the same way as with the aluminium PowerBook, and afaik there's no sensor for the drives temperature.
 
Temperature of my mSATA goes up to 60-65°C in my 12" PowerBook.
That made the fans constantly running, since the factory threshold for the drives temp-sensor is much lower.
I use "G4FanControl" to adapt the drives temp-threshold. The PB get pretty warm now, but theres a steady state at about 60°C for all sensors (CPU/GPU/Drive).
With the iBook you won't feel the heat through the polycarbonate case the same way as with the aluminium PowerBook, and afaik there's no sensor for the drives temperature.

I wonder if the temperatures have more to do with the actual mSATA boards than with the controllers. I haven't noticed any unusual heating but then again as my old HD was dying it was constantly spinning so that was generating quite a bit of heat already. I intend to install an mSATA SSD in my PowerBook when the HD finally dies in it. I don't want to open it unecessraily but hopefully that won't cause any heating issues like what you see in your PowerBook.
 
Your Mac feeds 5v from the cable but the drive needs 3.3v.
I think the heat is from the adapter's 5v to 3.3v conversion.
 
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On my 12"pb I used a 3.3v adapter board and ran a wire from the DC board (where the battery plugs in) and this seemed to help. Just hooking an empty 5v adapter with the linear regulator to a power supply pulls a watt. Helps with battery life too.
 
Does this cause any issues with longevity or is the heat just a minor annoyance? I know several people are running mSATA boards inside their books.

I don't know. I have one in my iBook G3 and it feels quite warm at the left palm area as well.
 
Does this cause any issues with longevity or is the heat just a minor annoyance? I know several people are running mSATA boards inside their books.
In my AlBook, I can't really notice that much of a difference in heat, but that could be because I have the fans kick off when my computer temperature reaches 50c.
 
I don't know. I have one in my iBook G3 and it feels quite warm at the left palm area as well.
In my AlBook, I can't really notice that much of a difference in heat, but that could be because I have the fans kick off when my computer temperature reaches 50c.

Hopefully it doesn't make that much of a difference in the overall life expectancy of the iBook/PowerBook components. I've had an SSD in my iBook for years and it's still going. Though I'm assuming that straight SSDs (not mSATAs) probably don't have the voltage issue.
 
I find the 5V -> 3.3V interesting, but I guess the size would be relevant as well. I think a 120GB mSATA would generate more heat then a 32GB?
 
I find the 5V -> 3.3V interesting, but I guess the size would be relevant as well. I think a 120GB mSATA would generate more heat then a 32GB?
I have an 250GB mSATA+Delong-converter in my 12"PB 1.5GHz - maximum steady state without fans (depending on the workload) is about 60-65°C for all components (CPU/GPU/Drive)! The left palm-area gets pretty warm, but it's bearable in summer and a feature in winter ;)
The same mSATA-IDE-converter runs in my 15"PB 1.67GHzDLSD about 5-10° cooler - also without any fans.
And then my iBookG4 1.2GHz sports an OWC IDE-SSD with 60GB and it gets noticably warm too, even if the polycarbonate-case is a better isolator at the palm-area and overall, but there's no sensor to measure the drives actual temperature.
So I think, the size of the SSD doesn't really matter nor it's kind (mSATA+Converter or compact-IDE-case).
As hellothere and flyrod mentioned the temperature seems to be generated by the 5V<=>3.3V difference.
I don't believe 60-65°C will harm the logic-board since it doesn't reach the threshold for reflowing the board...
And if - would it be more of a cure than an pain?
 
BTW: can you put your ibook into sleep mode with the mSata (and reawaken?)
 
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