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Is it worth putting an SSD in a powermac G5?

adcx64

adcx64

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Hey guys,
I have been thinking about buying a PowerMac G5 sometime in the near future. When I get it, I might decide to put an SSD in as the boot drive and use a mechanical drive for the storage. I know that Leopard lacks TRIM support, and I am worried that the computer would get slower over time due to the lack of TRIM. 🙁 Do you guys know of any workarounds for using an SSD in Leopard? Is it even worth installing one at all?

Thank You!
 
Long story short.. it's only worth it if you're willing to invest in a high end SSD. Intel are about the fastest out there. A low end SSD will be slower than a high end 7200rpm drive like the WD Black series.
 
What about an OWC drive? My local BestBuy sells Intel drives so maybe I'll pick one of those up.
 
zen.state said:
Long story short.. it's only worth it if you're willing to invest in a high end SSD. Intel are about the fastest out there. A low end SSD will be slower than a high end 7200rpm drive like the WD Black series.
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That's not true. Unless you buy a really, really crappy SSD, it will be faster than a HDD. It's not worth buying high-end because the G5s are limited to the 1.5 Gb/s SATA interface, which even cheaper SSDs can saturate.

If you go intel, be sure to get the 320 series, not the 510
 
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Intels are good and reliable. I have G2 80GB for OS and apps and it's definitely worth every $ I spent on it. I am running 10.5.8 on it more than 1.5 year and I do not feel any speed decrease after this time. Rest of my data is on 3 RAIDed mechanical HDDs so most of writes are on RAID = wearing of SSD is reduced to minimum.
 
alust2013 said:
That's not true. Unless you buy a really, really crappy SSD, it will be faster than a HDD. It's not worth buying high-end because the G5s are limited to the 1.5 Gb/s SATA interface, which even cheaper SSDs can saturate.

If you go intel, be sure to get the 320 series, not the 510
Click to expand...

Are you suggesting I was dreaming all the many times I have used SSD's?. The only thing a typical SSD in really fast at is sequential reads. Thats only 1 of about 8 functions of the different things drives have to do to keep an OS running. SSD's still suck at write speeds and even some of the read speeds.
 
zen.state said:
Are you suggesting I was dreaming all the many times I have used SSD's?. The only thing a typical SSD in really fast at is sequential reads. Thats only 1 of about 8 functions of the different things drives have to do to keep an OS running. SSD's still suck at write speeds and even some of the read speeds.
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Not sure what SSDs they were, but every SSD I have seen handily destroys my 7200 RPM WD. Even WD's SSD (which is one of the slowest on the market) scores 12-18MB/s where my 7200 RPM will score 1-2MB/s. The Intel 320 scores around 50-60, I'd say that's a lot better.
 
Bergues said:
Wrong. Any SSD will be a major improvement over a hard drive. Its a waste of money to dump it into a high-end drive for a low-end machine.
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It's comments like this that make people lose all credibility. Have you used every SSD on the planet? How can you honestly say that? I have used some that are slower than the faster magnetic drives.

I speak from actual experience not blind blanket sweeping assumptions.
 
I have used a crappy generic ssd but with a sandforce controller as my bootdrive. It is faster than most HDD. My geekbench scores are about near the geekbench scores of g5 quad.
 
So basically, any good name brand SSD will be faster than a hard drive, and I should avoid lower end ones. Correct?
 
Basing on experience, I have just used SSD for the boot drive, since there is no sense on putting in more money on an old machine. And besides PM G5's are only limited to SATA 2 if I am not mistaken or is it SATA I? 1.5Gbps?

But boot times are much faster and opening applications are much snappier and of course much quieter.

The SSD I used is a SATA SSD Generic from Microcenter.
 
If I were to get an SSD, I would go for an OWC one. The ones they sell fit my budget most. I only need a small one since it's only for OS X. Are they a good brand to try?
 
Also, Nameci, is the computer that you speak of the PowerMac G5 you recently acquired?
 
Yes it is... I bought it with no HDD and only with 512 ram. I don't want to spend more that time for an SSD, supposedly I should have pulled out the SSD from my hackbook. I have a 32gb SSD in their. Old Kingspec MLC SSD with JMicron controller. But later on I remember I have a 60GB SSD lying around from Microcenter. I give it a try, bought an SSD caddy and shoved it in the PowerMac G5.

By the way, my PM G5 was a late 2005 2.3GHz dual core.

Reformatted the SSD, installed Leopard and well, it was snappier than the 7200rpm WD HDD I have installed previously to test it.

IMO, any SATA SSD well perform better than any HDD as a boot drive. The only bottle neck would be that the PM G5 afaik is on 1.5GBps SATA. So there is no sense in putting in a SATA 3 SSD in there, unless you want to spend more and buy a SATA 3 pcie card.

As of now I am on the field, the gfx card upgrade is waiting for my return. I will replace the gfx card from Nvidia 6600 to ATI Radeon X1900.

About the OWC SSD card, it all boils down to what you want. You can find other brands with the same specs with lower cost. You dont want to spend more on this old machine do you? Look for the ones that have a Sandforce controller. Stay away from those that have a JMicron on them.
 
Ssd owc

I maxed out my old dual 2.0 G5. It had 8GB of ram and an 60 GB ssd from owc. It performed noticeably faster and the good news was the ssd migrated to my new mac pro beast. (fresh install)
 
I have an intel x25m G2 attached to a sonnet temo pci sata card in my powermac G4 (replaced a 640g WD Scorpio black), and honestly I don't see much of an improvement. The FSB, RAM, and CPU on this thing are so slow that they really hold the ssd back. I only put my ssd in because I sold another machine that originally had the ssd and couldn't get a decent price for it.
 
uller6 said:
I have an intel x25m G2 attached to a sonnet temo pci sata card in my powermac G4 (replaced a 640g WD Scorpio black), and honestly I don't see much of an improvement. The FSB, RAM, and CPU on this thing are so slow that they really hold the ssd back. I only put my ssd in because I sold another machine that originally had the ssd and couldn't get a decent price for it.
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CPU has next to nothing to do with file transfer speeds. Nor does the FSB. The limiting factor for you is the PCI interface being slow but if that SSD was faster than your WD magnetic you would have at least seen faster seek times.
 
i'd say its not worth it , better get a WD velociraptor (10000rpm) HDD its worth every cent or pence , its enterprice tech , reliable , is boosting performance
ok if you got a business and your second is worth $ 5000 or if you want to do youtube videos about your boottimes then ok go for a SSD

if you need it fast then get a owc mercury extreme pro 240GB

if you can wait some seconds the get a Western Digital VelociRaptor VR200M 450 gb

on both the 1.5 Sata will be the limiting factor

the price is about the same with the velociraptor often a bit cheaper to get
 
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MacHamster68 said:
better get a WD velociraptor (10000rpm) HDD its worth every cent or pence
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That drive is antique junk. Its technology is far out of date and its actually pretty slow, a modern 3TB drive will out perform it in most scenarios.
Also, pretty much every SSD on the market rapes it in performance and they don't have a loud whine or put out loads of heat.
 
zen.state said:
CPU has next to nothing to do with file transfer speeds. Nor does the FSB. The limiting factor for you is the PCI interface being slow but if that SSD was faster than your WD magnetic you would have at least seen faster seek times.
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My point was that even though I have a fast SSD in here that the machine itself is still incredibly slow. You are correct in that the "slow" PCI bus limits SSD transfer speeds. I have the PCI bus maxed out, so the limiting factor in machine "speed" (or feel) is no longer the disk, the limiting factor is the CPU (which I max out all the time).
 
mac.tastic said:
That drive is antique junk. Its technology is far out of date and its actually pretty slow, a modern 3TB drive will out perform it in most scenarios.
Also, pretty much every SSD on the market rapes it in performance and they don't have a loud whine or put out loads of heat.
Click to expand...

i bought one last year when they had just been available for my iMac core duo and i could bareley hear it and compared to the original seagate that was in there it was even more quiet and with the icepak(needed to make it a 3.5 drive) even cooler running
so you say everything thats produced in 2010 is slow and out of date , yes ok you might be right there , but not everyone can keep up with technology on that fast pace which would mean replacing everything in the household every month
and for a old HDD that is already on the market since april 2010
the spec are pretty good and way cheaper per GB then a equal sized SSD

VR200M WD VelociRaptor

Capacity 600GB/450GB
Interface SATA 6 Gb/s
Rotational Speed 10,000 RPM
Buffer Size 32MB
Track to Track Seek 0.4 ms
Average Seek Time 3.6 ms
Full Stroke Seek 8.5 ms (typical)
Transfer Rate
Buffer to Disk 145 MB/s



and so far even apple is still fitting its iMac's and MacPro with antique HDD's and offer SSD only as a far to expensive option

ok you might always consider a OCZ colossus 1TB ssd , which is the only size that makes any sense in my book so you would not need a additional slow HDD for storage ...but it cost


so i'd chose 4 velociraptors 600GB in the powerMac in raid 5 still way cheaper then the colossus
 
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Is there any definitive conclusion to this?

I still havent purchased my SSD's. Waiting to find the right setup. Is there some type of sata iii upgrade through PCI for my april 2005 G5?

Newegg has had some really good deals the last couple of days. 120gb for $130. Im just really waiting to find out exactly what to get. If anyone has any up to date info on what ssd to get I'd appreciate. Thanx.
 
I have an Agility 3 as a boot drive..is it faster yes...but it's not worth it really, it's just not enough faster no matter the 268 xbench disk score..
 
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