iMac G4 SSD via Firewire / HDD Question

[LouisUK]

Hi,

Ive recently purchased a iMac G4 with a 700mhz cpu, 1gig memory and currently a 40 gig HDD.

My aim for this machine is for it to serve as a media server to my ATV2 in the living room. Now i want to maximise the stream speed so access to the hard drive's is (as far as im aware) an important factor. SSD is appealing as it will be silent operation and perhaps faster if my G4 can keep up with it.....

Now the iMac has USB and Firewire 400. Now my question (which im struggling to find answers to online) is which would provide the fastest read/write speed out of the following:

1. SSD drive with an adaptor fitting internally
2. SSD In external case running through firewire 400
3. SSD In external case running through USB

Or will my G4 not be quick enough for SSD so the HDD will be just as fast?

Obviously operation noise will be different.

Any help is appreciated

Thanks
L

 

[LouisUK]

Just to add my plan was to perhaps use this:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/180730443...X:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1423.l2649#ht_5755wt_1270

For booting from 2 x SSD's as RAID0 for OSX and media with a slower larger External USB 1TB HDD for back ups.

From my research on the net this will give me the fastest operation and streaming.

However with this solution will i feel any speed benefits from the SSD drives through firewire 400 or shall i just spend far less on a couple of good HDD and put up with the noise?

What do people think?

Thanks

 

[666sheep]

RAIDing SSD is pointless for booting purposes. Especially via firewire. One decent SATA SSD maxes out FW bandwidth.

SSD even via firewire will put a new breath in your iMac. Benefits are: 0 seek time, 4k reads/writes uncomparable with any mechanical drive. And these are most important things for a boot drive.

 

[robgendreau]

What are you streaming? An SSD seems like overkill here. If it's video, I'd think that capacity would be more important. I've seen people stream video off some pretty old slow machines since they're not doing any transcoding.

Rob

 

[LouisUK]

Thanks for your replies,

So RAID has no benefit for booting. So perhaps one SSD via FireWire for booting.

I'm streaming video and iTunes to my Apple TV. I stream dvdrips and also bluray .mkv @ 720p. Occasionally the bluray files requires me to pause and wait before further play back to avoid constant buffering stops. My current method is an old laptop with the media on a 500gb USB external drive. I'd hoped that an SSD drive would help reduce/stop this issue?

 

[LouisUK]

Thanks for your replies,

So RAID has no benefit for booting. So perhaps one SSD via FireWire for booting up.

I'm streaming video and iTunes to my Apple TV running XBMC. Currently i am streaming dvdrips and mostly 720p .mkv files. Occasionally the HD files require me to pause and wait before further play back to avoid constant buffering stops. My current method is on an old laptop with the media on a 500gb External USB HDD.

I'd hope that using SSD drive would help reduce/stop this issue or is a fast HDD on FireWire aswell as a SSD booting a cheaper solution?

Thanks