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Max # of HD in G4?

madoka

madoka

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jul 17, 2002
529
156
I've got a QS 933 G4. I've got two HDs in it already. I've got 6 external FW drives attached to it. Personally I'm sick of the deskspace and plugs I've got to dedicate to the externals, but I devour HD space like crazy. I just got a WD 200 Gig HD and it came with a PCI drive controller card. If I were to use this card, can I add another two internal HDs to my computer? Will it overload the cooling capability? Where in the computer would the extra drives fit?

Thanks.
 
The Quicksilver only has 2 IDE buses, from what I know. 2 IDE buses can handle 4 drives.

The CD-Rom/DVD drive takes one. The second 3 1/2" slot under the CD/DVD drive can hold a Hard Drive if you don't have a Zip there.

Otherwise, you can connect two drives to the other IDE connector.

Total internal drives = 4.

You have 2 + (presumably) a CD/DVDRom. You may add one more, if you don't have a Zip.

arn
 
I have 3 HDs in my Quicksilver and it works pretty well.

Just some things you have to keep in mind when you are using the second IDE bus (with the optical drive) to connect a third HD:

- The HD has to be the "master", the optical drive "slave". Default is the optical drive is "master" (of course).

- The drive connected to that bus won't be as fast as the other drives, since it is only a ATA/33 bus. But for normal tasks that shouldn't be a problem.

- If you burn a CD and you have a fast optical drive installed, you shouldn't have the data to be burned on the harddrive connected to the same bus as the optical drive. Again, ATA/33 has not enough bandwidth to handle that amount of data, since always only one drive can "talk" on the bus.

- The IDE buses in the Quicksilver can only handle HDs with a max. capacity of 120GB. If you want more, an extra PCI card with ATA/133 would be the better choice.

I know people with 4 HDs in their Quicksilvers, so cooling shouldn't be an issue.

groovebuster
 
I thought the limit is 5. I'm pretty sure you can get 2 where the factory one is, then two more on the bottom of the case next to the rack of 2, then one below the optical drive. So i think the max number is 5, but it would obviously need some controller cards, like you said you had.
 
Yup! The theoretical limit is 5. But maybe heat is really becoming an issue then? 5 HDs alone are good already for cold winter nights. ;)

I only met people with 4 HDs max in their Macs so far, that's why I didn't recommend to install 5, since I don't have any personal experience on that matter...

groovebuster
 
-All

Well, I suppose I could go to 5 in my 733QS - I have three already, the third being fed by a Sonnet Tempo ATA133 which has two ATA/IDE busses on it (able to supply for four drives), yes, I'd be concerned about Heat, but what really gets me is the Power Supply - would it be able to handle all of that load?

Frankly, I'll stick with the measly three hard drives. :D
 
I have 5 in my Graphite G4, added a PCI controller, 4 on the botom of the case, and one on a sled, velcroed to the top of the optical drive [like the Proline kit]. The four on the bottom are run of the PCI card, the one on the optical is the boot drive run on the on-baord bus.

Works super.
 
Originally posted by groovebuster
I have 3 HDs in my Quicksilver and it works pretty well.

- The IDE buses in the Quicksilver can only handle HDs with a max. capacity of 120GB. If you want more, an extra PCI card with ATA/133 would be the better choice.

groovebuster
Click to expand...

Shoot, so the drive I am formating right now with an external drive case attached to an emac, a 160 gig WD....
This drive won't be "seen" as 160 gigs once its in my quicksilver 733? Thanks
daniel
 
Originally posted by fourthtunz
Shoot, so the drive I am formating right now with an external drive case attached to an emac, a 160 gig WD....
This drive won't be "seen" as 160 gigs once its in my quicksilver 733? Thanks
daniel
Click to expand...

No it will not, it will be seen as about 120 gig's. You;d have to get a PCI card to see all 160 gigs.
 
Ok, I thought maybe if I set it up externally as 160 it would be seen at 160 internally:rolleyes:
one more question; does it take forever for the file system to be setup for a 160? It just seems to be sitting there without the drive lite coming on... thanks
daniel
 
I think the 160 gig will indeed read as 160gig. I just installed a 200gig WD HD into my QS and it shows 184gig. Sucks to be shorted the 16gig, but the QS models can handle HDs larger than 120gig. I was pretty concerned about this since this was discussed on dealmac as well and people thought that only the MDDs could see past 120gig, but as it turns out the QS macs can as well.
 
Originally posted by madoka
I think the 160 gig will indeed read as 160gig. I just installed a 200gig WD HD into my QS and it shows 184gig. Sucks to be shorted the 16gig, but the QS models can handle HDs larger than 120gig. I was pretty concerned about this since this was discussed on dealmac as well and people thought that only the MDDs could see past 120gig, but as it turns out the QS macs can as well.
Click to expand...

Mine is the 2001 Quick silver if that makes a difference which I guess it does:mad: The first thing I did yesterday was try formatting the drive inside the quicksivler, with both 9.2& X
they both saw the drive as a 120.
Before I asked questions on here I put it in my granite firewire enclosure(I really wanted the whole 160!) and tried formatting both with my QS 733, with 9.2 and X and with my emac, but no go, they won't finish the formatting, or partitioning:confused:
I've tried a number of jumper positions,master,slave,none still have to try the single position, but none work in the external
case..yet
I'm going to the western digital site next, peace
daniel
 
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