msata vs sata drive in a g4 powerbook?

[macmee]

I have a g4 powerbook and I am upgrading to an SSD. I bought the kingspec PATA drive from china and it will take another 20 days to get here.

In the meantime I have discovered you can also buy something like this:

https://www.amazon.ca/Phoneix-MSATA...8&qid=1484264087&sr=8-1&keywords=msata+to+ide

and then use msata drives instead.

I was wondering:

1. is there a big performance advantage over msata drives in a powerbook g4 versus the kingspec pata ssd?

2. could anyone recommend some compatible adaptors on amazon.ca for msata to ide? I hear many adaptors are incompatible

3. do you have to set these adaptors to master somehow?

 

[Bug-Creator]

Limiting factor is the PATA interface of PB, so it should make no difference.

mSATA comes out cheaper

Mine has no jumpers or but I can't tell you the exact model as it has been in the PB for years.

 

[weckart]

Top sequential R/W speed is limited by the PATA bus, other measurements such as access speed will depend on the mSATA drive chosen. The guts of the Kingspec is, I believe, a compact flash type drive and not the fastest.

Because TRIM will not work over PATA connections, the garbage collection capabilities of the drive will matter if you intend to use the PowerBook intensively. I would go down the mSATA route every time and aim for a newer drive that doesn't need TRIM to keep wear levelling down if you plan on pushing your PowerBook.

Adapters should be set to master already. Most have no jumpers.

 

[flyrod]

These work for me:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/261687059689

You can use the 3.3v ones if you run an extra wire from the 3.3v line on the power board. (this helps a bit with battery life).

 

[dustinschings]

Top sequential R/W speed is limited by the PATA bus, other measurements such as access speed will depend on the mSATA drive chosen. The guts of the Kingspec is, I believe, a compact flash type drive and not the fastest.

Because TRIM will not work over PATA connections, the garbage collection capabilities of the drive will matter if you intend to use the PowerBook intensively. I would go down the mSATA route every time and aim for a newer drive that doesn't need TRIM to keep wear levelling down if you plan on pushing your PowerBook.

Adapters should be set to master already. Most have no jumpers.

Is there a model you recommend that has better on board garbage collection?

 

[macmee]

These work for me:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/261687059689

You can use the 3.3v ones if you run an extra wire from the 3.3v line on the power board. (this helps a bit with battery life).

Unfortunately they don't ship to Canada

 

[bobesch]

I use a "DELOCK Konverter IDE 44 Pin > mSATA 2.5Z 7 mm Bauh"
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/12-powerbook-g4-temperatures.1560950/#post-22609048
The frame has the same size and screw-holes like the original IDE-HDD and is easy to attach.
But the mSATA+Converter-combination get pretty warm compared to the spinning-drive and temperature exceeds the threshold for fan-activity causing the fan running constantly. You have to run "G4FanControl" to modify the temperature-thresholds for mSATA, CPU and GPU.
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/12-powerbook-g4-temperatures.1560950/#post-22599007
I was told, the thermal-energy come from transforming the different the voltage difference of board and mSATA.
I wonder if the above mentioned "adapter" gets also that hot like my "converter" and how to fix that adapter properly.

 

[weckart]

Is there a model you recommend that has better on board garbage collection?

Basically, the more recent the better. Older ones will have some degree of GC but newer ones have all but removed the necessity of TRIM. I would just avoid any with a Sandforce controller. Too many horror stories with that one. It sacrifices stability and reliability for raw speed. Not something you want in a PowerBook, which is less than fun to open up in the first place.

I only have older, low capacity ones in mine as they only get occasional use, so cannot recommend any particular one from personal experience. I just avoid any unknown makes or those with known issues as per reviews on Amazon and elsewhere. mSATA is giving way to M.2 drives, so your choice in the future may be constrained to whatever is available in any case.

 

[Bug-Creator]

But the mSATA+Converter-combination get pretty warm compared to the spinning-drive and temperature exceeds the threshold for fan-activity causing the fan running constantly.

WTF ????

When I replaced the 320GB HDD with the 250GB mSATA battery life went from 4 to 4.5h (nowhere near that now years later), no spinning fans whatsoever.

So I'd say your adaptor has a lousy voltage converter or some other issue.

 

[MikeatOSX]

For additional info you can also look here:
https://68kmla.org/forums/index.php?/topic/27523-powerbook-1400c-and-msata-ssd/

 

[bobesch]

WTF ????
When I replaced the 320GB HDD with the 250GB mSATA battery life went from 4 to 4.5h (nowhere near that now years later), no spinning fans whatsoever.
So I'd say your adaptor has a lousy voltage converter or some other issue.

What Powerbook are you running and what temperature shows the sensor for the hard drive / mSATA-adapter?
As what I've read about mSATAs they seem run on higher temperatures compared to spinning drives.

My mSATA-converter combination runs at about max 65°C steady-state on heavy load and about 45°C when idle. Factory settings for the temperature-sensor on the 12"PB-G4 1.5GHz is AFAIK 40°C. So that was causing the problem of the constantly running fan after swapping the spinning drive with the mSATA. With G4FanControl I set the threshold up to 65°C to stop the fan from working.
I didn't check the effects on battery-life. But on heavy load (VirtualPC, video, TFF/webkit) the CPU and CPU-temperatur is more of a problem for running fans and battery life.
I have no problems with the same mSATA-converter-combination on my graphite Clamshell, since there is no fan or temperature-sensor for the drive The Clamshell doesn't feel warm and battery-life is about 5-6h when streaming music through an Edimax USB-WLAN-stick.
So if the machine (or the adapter) has no temperature-sensor, there's no problem with heat and fans and if the book sports a plastic-case you won't feel the higher temperature of the mSATA compared to an aluminium-book.
(haha - reminds me to rule No.10 in "The House Of God")

I wonder how to find out about more specs and behavior of the voltage-transformers of those mSATA-adapters or converters except by try and error...? Or maybe cheap adapters do not have a temperature-sensor?

 

[weckart]

What Powerbook are you running and what temperature shows the sensor for the hard drive / mSATA-adapter?
As what I've read about mSATAs they seem run on higher temperatures compared to spinning drives.

That would surprise me. The excess heat is really down to how well the adapter deals with the voltage stepping from 5v to 3.3v. Cheaper adapters rely on heat dissipation, which is not really Apple's forte, imho.

I had a Kingston SSD that thought nothing of idling at 65°C whilst the Sandisk in my iMac barely gets over 20°C unless I stress it. Most SSDs should run at comparable temps as spinners. They consume similar amounts of energy when working after all. Any energy savings should be down to access time. You would need to keep a spinner running longer to access any random piece of data compared with an SSD.

 

[Bug-Creator]

What Powerbook are you running

5.9

and what temperature shows the sensor for the hard drive / mSATA-adapter?

No idea (haven't booted into OSX on it for ages)

 

[bobesch]

5.9
No idea (haven't booted into OSX on it for ages)

"If you don't take a temperture, you won't get a fever ..."
On the PB5.9 the drive sits beneath the trackpad. There's only a temperature-sensor for the trackpad, not for the drive itself.
Compared the the 12"PB with the drive sitting beneath the left palmrest, the 15"PB doesn't feel warm at all both on the palmrest and on the lap since temperatur-radiation lies in midair between legs (only the bottom beneath CPU and GPU tends to get very warm).
E.g. on heavy load my PB5.9's temperatur-sensors may show 36° for the trackpad while the CPU is at 68°C and triggering the fan.
Temperature mesurement and fan-controll is completely different between the 12" and 15" powerbook, maybe because CPU, GPU and drive are crammed very close together in a smaller case. Finally no problem with G4FanControl on the 12"PB where on the 15"PB it's not mandatory.
That really makes me calm down about the Delock-Converter since otherwise its a good product working on all PPC books and my old AcerTravelmate without any problems. I wonder, if any other converter runs into the same temperature-problems on the 12"PB (which BTW has got CPU repasted and new thermal pads for the GPU)
[doublepost=1484392221][/doublepost]

That would surprise me. The excess heat is really down to how well the adapter deals with the voltage stepping from 5v to 3.3v. Cheaper adapters rely on heat dissipation, which is not really Apple's forte, imho.
I had a Kingston SSD that thought nothing of idling at 65°C whilst the Sandisk in my iMac barely gets over 20°C unless I stress it. Most SSDs should run at comparable temps as spinners. They consume similar amounts of energy when working after all. Any energy savings should be down to access time. You would need to keep a spinner running longer to access any random piece of data compared with an SSD.

The question is, which adapter deals decently with the voltage-stepping.
I use the same mSATA+Converter combination on my 12"PB1.5GHz and my 15"PB1.67GHz.
The small book sports a temperature-sensor, the bigger does not.
Temperatur on the surface (handwrist/touchpad or bottomside) feels very warm on the 12"PB and normal on the 15"PB
Distance between GPU and drive is less than a centimeter on the 12"PB and more than 10cm on the 15"PB. The heatsink is even more far away from the disk close to the egde on the display side close to the fans and the backside and it's located at the bottom so heat coming from CPU/GPU stays quite on the opposite side of the drive.
I guess the heat problem is more a problem of the hot-parts of the 12" PB sitting next to the mSATA causing the difference. Both PBs behave similar in getting very warm at the bottom-side just beneath CPU and GPU and maybe the metal-frame of the Delong-Converter also acts like an additional heatsink for the GPU.
My first SSD for PPC was an OWC-Mercury-IDE-SSD for my 12" iBook which also gets remarkable hot at the bottom despite of the plastic-shell which does not conduct heat as good as aluminium. I mean, at least that drive ought to have a decent voltage-management.
About energy-savings: can I make the disk go to idle-mode by any means before the Mac goes to sleeping mode?

12" PowerBook (HeatSink running "vertically" from drive to backside one edge very close to drive)
https://d3nevzfk7ii3be.cloudfront.net/igi/g3MBQxTXaWgpVHLC.medium

15" Powerbook (HeatSink running "horizontally" from side to side on the backside far away from the drive)
https://d3nevzfk7ii3be.cloudfront.net/igi/LXVWFPPwUMniWJCa.medium

(while I'm writing this my 15" Powerbook's Trackpad-sensor keeps on showing 37°C - so no problem about too much heat from the mSATA+Converter at all)

 

[for this]

I wonder how to find out about more specs and behavior of the voltage-transformers of those mSATA-adapters or converters except by try and error...? Or maybe cheap adapters do not have a temperature-sensor?

As far as I know, most of them use linear regulators which simply dissipate excess voltage as heat. Not quite efficient compared to something like a buck converter.

 

[Cox Orange]

These work for me:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/261687059689

You can use the 3.3v ones if you run an extra wire from the 3.3v line on the power board. (this helps a bit with battery life).

Does sleep still work on your PowerBook after the modification to the DC-board, since it needs low voltage for holding sleep?

THanks for this information/explanation (I was able to find through Bobesch's link):

Part of the problem is that msata runs on 3.3v and the pata connector supplies 5v. Some converter boards just have a linear regulator that drops the voltage like a resistor and turns the difference into heat, and others have a little buck converter that's a little more efficient about the conversion. My next project is to run a wire from the the powerbook DC board to supply the msata drive with 3.3v directly from that. Seems like that should help when on battery, and should help with heat too. Bunnspecial has been talking about sending me a spare 12" logic board that I could use to try this out. I'll post my results when I have something to report.

@ all
I always thought it is just the usual heat of the SSD itself. I used to monitor the heat on an ibook G4 1,2GHz with a teperature-sensor-cable from a 5,25" temperature control panel conected to a PSU, and above the SSD I got 50°C when converting a video in Handbrake.
(Btw. my mSATA drive was a Crucial M4 since I was told it had good Garbage collection, but I wouldn't recommend this drive to anybody anymore... well its old anyway. It also didn't have a build in temp sensor back then.)

Regarding the adapter, wasn't there someone who recommended a certain Marvell chipset or was this only with the SATA-IDE adapters when using SATA 2,5" drives in Desktop Macs?

 

[weckart]

Regarding the adapter, wasn't there someone who recommended a certain Marvell chipset or was this only with the SATA-IDE adapters when using SATA 2,5" drives in Desktop Macs?

The DeLock/Lycom/Aleratec/Kouwell/Addonics/Kourotoshikou adapter has the Marvell chipset and that one is the most reliable with Apple hardware. The JMicron 20330 chipset found on cheaper adapters also works with most but not all SSDs but an earlier revision of the chipset was found to be buggy and unstable. There should be some older threads about that in this forum if somebody wants to dig those up.

Basically, if your funds allow, go for the adapter that looks like this.

 

[flyrod]

We talked about this stuff here too:

forums.macrumors.com/threads/1967391/

Sleep works fine, the DC board is not modified. It's just more efficient as a source of 3.3v than the msata converter boards. If you attempt this, do not short the 5 and 3.3v lines through the board...

At 5v whatever heat you're seeing from the msata setup, 2/3 of it is from the SSD and 1/3 from the converter (most of the ones I've seen have linear regulators).

 

[for this]

The question is, which adapter deals decently with the voltage-stepping.

One that I see using a buck converter is ST663FD9, manufactured by Minerva.
http://www.minerva.com.tw/ST663FD9.html

The buck converter circuit is located close to the mSATA connector.
I think the buck converter chip is BL8521 because they seem to use this chip a lot.
I also see two linear regulators on the board, don't know what they are for though.

The green (9.5mm) version from Delock is likely OEMed by Minerva.
https://www.optiwire.ie/collections...th-2-5-frame-connect-a-msata-ssd-as-a-2-5-hdd

For enclosures with the red board (Delock and others), there is no picture with enough details.

I read that you are using a "Delong" (Delock?) converter. If it's green version then that's
probably as good as it gets...

Edit: OK, found that you're using the red one.

 

[bobesch]

One that I see using a buck converter is ST663FD9, manufactured by Minerva.
http://www.minerva.com.tw/ST663FD9.html
The buck converter circuit is located close to the mSATA connector.
I think the buck converter chip is BL8521 because they seem to use this chip a lot.
I also see two linear regulators on the board, don't know what they are for though.
The green (9.5mm) version from Delock is likely OEMed by Minerva.
https://www.optiwire.ie/collections...th-2-5-frame-connect-a-msata-ssd-as-a-2-5-hdd
For enclosures with the red board (Delock and others), there is no picture with enough details.
I read that you are using a "Delong" (Delock?) converter. If it's green version then that's
probably as good as it gets...
Edit: OK, found that you're using the red one.

So here's a picture of the dark side of the moon - since one cannot find a damn picture of it at the internet.

The green Delock-converter seems to be the older model. Delock data-sheets for the green board are from January 2015 compared to Mai 2015 for the red board.
Can you determine, what's on the red board?


Here's also a picture of the green board:

 

[weckart]

Given that mSATA is giving way to M.2 format drives, this is the alternative for the moment until M.2 SATA based drives vanish in favour of M.2 NVMe drives.

The only ones I could find have the JMicron 20330 controller.

 

[flyrod]

Can you determine, what's on the red board?

The red board looks like it has a voltage converter on it. Which in theory is better. However I tested these two boards:

And when applying a 1A load on the 3.3v side of the left one, I measured a 1A load on the 5v supply, as expected. However, applying the same load to the right one resulted in a 2A load at 5v. Definitely not expected!

 

[Cox Orange]

there are some offers that advertise the 3.3V in the title already and others on ebay that say something like "PCIe SSD 3.3V to 5V IDE adapter". While they show the same mSATA (not PCIe) adapter.

 

[for this]

So here's a picture of the dark side of the moon - since one cannot find a damn picture of it at the internet.
(I've detached it from my 2003 Acer Travelmate 800. Though it does look like a StarWars spaceship at the bottom, but when it comes to the drive, it is far better to maintain compared to the G4-Books)
The green Delock-converter seems to be the older model. Delock data-sheets for the green board are from January 2015 compared to Mai 2015 for the red board.
Can you determine, what's on the red board?
View attachment 683774

Here's also a picture of the green board:
View attachment 683776

This one also uses a buck converter. It is generally easy to spot because there is almost always an inductor (the one with 3R3 marking) in the circuit (the one with 3R3 marking). The buck converter chip here (the black square one) is probably RT8058. So I think the temperature is also about as good as it gets.

[doublepost=1484518584][/doublepost]

there are some offers that advertise the 3.3V in the title already and others on ebay that say something like "PCIe SSD 3.3V to 5V IDE adapter". While they show the same mSATA (not PCIe) adapter.

Descriptions on eBay are often confusing. Most of them expect 5V input and then convert it to 3.3V to feed the mSATA.
It's best to ask the seller before buying.
[doublepost=1484518721][/doublepost]

The red board looks like it has a voltage converter on it. Which in theory is better. However I tested these two boards:

And when applying a 1A load on the 3.3v side of the left one, I measured a 1A load on the 5v supply, as expected. However, applying the same load to the right one resulted in a 2A load at 5v. Definitely not expected!

I've never tried measuring it. Perhaps the measuring device is fooled in some way by the switching effect?

 

[bobesch]

This one also uses a buck converter. It is generally easy to spot because there is almost always an inductor (the one with 3R3 marking) in the circuit (the one with 3R3 marking). The buck converter chip here (the black square one) is probably RT8058. So I think the temperature is also about as good as it gets.

View attachment 683857
[doublepost=1484518584][/doublepost]

Descriptions on eBay are often confusing. Most of them expect 5V input and then convert it to 3.3V to feed the mSATA.
It's best to ask the seller before buying.
[doublepost=1484518721][/doublepost]

Perhaps the measuring device is fooled in some way by the switching effect?

Thanks, you make me happy!
So the heat measured at the drive in my 12" Powerbook is caused by the GPU and the heatsink close by.
And G4FanControl is the best solution as a workaround...