I use the netac 120gb SSDs in my A1117 pmg5, various intel portables and down to my MDD & QS pg4s - zero issue as boot drive. In my a1047 pmg5 however there is some wonky behavior. I initially stuck the drive on and it showed up. I then cloned leopard and sorbet to it without issue using APM and leave it for the night. I go to boot off of one today and it will not boot, neither partition is seen in DU. I reboot and the machine sees the drive again and each partitions content and I can use it as storage but still will not boot. I then decide to erase and repartition in DU - done. Again the existing OS install sees the drive partitions but I decided to see what would happen with optical install media. DU in the installer does not see the drive or partiti0ons at all. I reboot and now the existing install doesnot see it either. Right now Im stepping away as Ive wasted enough time with it but will yank a known good netac leopard install from one of my powerpc macs tomorrow or later this week and see if it will be seen. If that is the case, I think I mustve gotten a dud off ebay and will see what I can do to get a replacement. I have my minig4 and may try to TDM an image onto it. Anyhow what do y'all think? Dud?
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Netac SSD conundrum. What do you think?
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Is this your only G5? If you have other G5s, is this the only G5 with the problem?
The G5s are pretty picky about SATA I and II and SATA III drives need to step down. Your G4s would have to have either adapters or PCI cards that already support SATA II or III since you don't have issues and of course your Intels should.
Yes, I have an a1117 970mp 2.0ghz dualcore g5 that is running one just fine. I'll stick that boot SSD in the a1047 and see how it does. Could be to your point that the earlier a1047 dual CPU 970 2.0ghz g5 doesn't play nice with this Netac SSD. Then again, if it works reliably it points to the SSDs quality as suspect. We'll see.
The Netac SSD from my a1117 works just fine in the a1047. Just fired it up without issue. Im cloning that to the suspect Netac SSD in a last ditch effort. We'll see if it'll boot once it finishes. If that works, I'l move along to tiger, sorbet and lubuntu (or maybe void) installs in that order.
Ok so no dice on the new Netac drive - still does not boot in the 970 a1047. But it boots just fine in my 970mp a1117, so I swapped SSDs. The old Netac now is in my a1047 and the new Netac is in my a1117 and both operate just fine. Whats extra weird is that reviewing both drives, they are the same exact model. The only differentiating info I could find was the production dates - February of 2021 vs March of 2022. Other than that, they are identical 120gb S3 ssds except they obviously aren't identical or they'd both work between machines.
Whatevs, dems da PowerPC breaks. Worked out in the end.
Whatevs, dems da PowerPC breaks. Worked out in the end.
Can you open the two SSDs to check if they might be using different controllers?
I had a similar issue with a 250 GB WD Blue SSD in two different machines (a 2006 Core Duo A1181 and a 2009 Core 2 Duo A1181): While the SSD worked great in both the 2009 machine, and externally in a USB 2 enclosure, it refused to be seen in the 2006 machine -- the same machine that used another (albeit older) 250 GB WD Blue SSD before.
I'm guessing that what happened here is that between the Feb. 2021 and March 2022 production batches, Netac switched controller chips, and started using a flash controller that for some reason doesn't react well to the SATA implementation in the A1047.
I'm guessing that what happened here is that between the Feb. 2021 and March 2022 production batches, Netac switched controller chips, and started using a flash controller that for some reason doesn't react well to the SATA implementation in the A1047.
That makes sense. If I can get them open without destroying the enclosure, I'll pull the two apart and take a look at the controller.
At the very least you should mark the 'odd' one so that in the future you can identify it. Drives have a funny way of bouncing around between computers and losing track of which one gave you the problems might put you back here again - which you don't want.
Did you get anywhere with this? It seems the Netac SA500 uses the (YeeStor) YS9082HP whereas their other SATA drives use the YS9082HC.
Anandtech says both the old WD Blue and the new WD Blue 3D use a Marvell 88SS1074 controller, but it's possible they're using different revisions. I wonder if there's a way to identify the controller without cracking 'em open.
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@Amethyst1 I did not - I switched gears and used the two Netac 120gb SSDs in software raid on my cMP 1,1. Worked like a charm. Runs great.