Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

JesterJJZ

macrumors 68030
Original poster
Jul 21, 2004
2,506
898
Is this a bad idea? I've heard you can put a pata drive in there. I was thinking of putting a small drive in there for my itunes library.
 
A small drive for your iTunes library?

:)

My iTunes hard drive is 300 GB.

but I guess that will be considered small pretty soon.
 
My understanding is that it works fine, but I would (obviously) only do it after your other 4 bays were full.

I was just thinking of the option becuase I have a pata drive that I'm not using for anything.
 
Save yourself a lot of pain and get one of these.

www.drobo.com

The point is not to spent gobs of money on an iTunes drive. I have a 250gig pata drive that is just sitting here. Just wanted to know if it was safe to stick it in the drive bay. I already have 4 drives in my tower. How will the power supply hold up?
 
The point is not to spent gobs of money on an iTunes drive. I have a 250gig pata drive that is just sitting here. Just wanted to know if it was safe to stick it in the drive bay. I already have 4 drives in my tower. How will the power supply hold up?


I have 4x500GB drives in the main slots and the original sata drive in the 2nd drive bay. No problems.
The MPs power supply is 1000W so you could do a biiiiig pile of pata drives,if you would want to... :)

Installing the pata drive should be easy too,since you will have the cabling right next to you. Just get a cable extender for the power and the pata.
Should be a 10 min job.
You are lucky as you dont need to reroute a sata cable from the free sata slots on the mobo...
 
I have 4x500GB drives in the main slots and the original sata drive in the 2nd drive bay. No problems.
The MPs power supply is 1000W so you could do a biiiiig pile of pata drives,if you would want to... :)

Installing the pata drive should be easy too,since you will have the cabling right next to you. Just get a cable extender for the power and the pata.
Should be a 10 min job.
You are lucky as you dont need to reroute a sata cable from the free sata slots on the mobo...


Ha yeah...for those I ordered this for my externals...:D

http://www.newertech.com/products/esata_cable.php

Are those ports that big a pain to get to?
 
Are those ports that big a pain to get to?


the are a bit...

BUT.

if you have angle pliers (those funny thin pliers that look like a peak of a storch) it is easy.
I tried to put the connector onto place without removing the fans.
I didn't succeed with my stumpy fingers,even if I tried for 10 minutes...
With pliers it took about 20 seconds. you just need a 90^ angled sata cable so it won't hit the fan assembly.
AND a steady hand that you don't scratch the mobo with your pliers...
 
Ok...I put the drive in and it appears to be working fine. But I get a second of "static" on the screen before OSX boots up. What's the deal? Should I take the drive out?
 
some people don't recommend putting a hard drive and optical drive on the same bus, such as you are doing now. I've never been quite clear why not, but maybe someone on this forum can clarify.
 
some people don't recommend putting a hard drive and optical drive on the same bus, such as you are doing now. I've never been quite clear why not, but maybe someone on this forum can clarify.

Yeah just to be safe I'm swapping it out for a sata drive which I'll hook up to one of the extra sata ports.
 
for $14 i mounted a 5th hard drive in my 2nd optical bay of 2008 Mac Pro

http://www.svc.com/nx-doubletwin.html

not only does this provide mounting screws to secure your 5th hard drive, but it has rubber supports to prevent any vibrations from being carried. your case stays quiet and the drive is supsended by rubber, great cheap solution instead of buying a $90 mounting kit from maxupgrades

you will need a molex to sata power adapter (to connect to IDE DVD power cable) and a sata cable to plug into the 1 of the 2 extra sata ports that comes on the 2008 Mac Pro which can be found here and here for $3 and $4 respectively
 
Just a heads up: the ODD SATA port (the other 2 ports on the mobo) aren't bootable with Windows unless you have AHCI enabled. You can't install Windows to a drive connected to the ODD SATA port. I learned the hard way after trying to put my Windows drive up in there.
Now I have a 1TB drive for movies and such in the disk bay and it runs perfectly. I made my own mounting bracket out of sheet metal to save money ;)
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.