questions about turning an old powermac g4 450DP into a server

[Col127]

hey guys!

i've got an old powermac g4 450dp lying around and decided i'd give it a shot and turn it into a server for my home as i need to create a backup solution from the files on my mac pro. i'd probaby add two more 500GB drives.

my mac is specced at the present moment:
powermac g4 450DP
1.25 GB sdram
ati radeon 64MB video card
2 IDE hard drives, for 180GB total. i can replace these, if necessary, not a problem.

i know there's an issue with my mac reading drives bigger than 120GB, so i need a PCI IDE controller to read bigger drives... i was thinking esata controller might be nice too, but i don't know if my machine is capable of handling the performance upgrade of esata anyways!

now i have three questions with this.

1. all my "power plugs" for my IDE drives are all used up at the moment. when i add either controller (PCI IDE or a PCI ESATA) - do those "provide" extra plugs for my drives? i think the esata drives are in all-in-one cable (power and connector together), so would simply adding the card be good enough for the drives... what about the PCI IDE controller? do i need another card to get those power plugs to power up a IDE drive?

just trying to think of the best and most cost effective solution to get some bigger drives into my machine.

2. also what would you guys recommend to use for backup? i was thinking of setting up time machine on my mac pro and then pointing the backup drives to the ones on my powermac g4. would that work?

3. and is mac os x leopard server necessary or over kill?

thanks for any help!

 

[SmurfBoxMasta]

hey guys!

i've got an old powermac g4 450dp lying around and decided i'd give it a shot and turn it into a server for my home as i need to create a backup solution from the files on my mac pro. i'd probaby add two more 500GB drives.

my mac is specced at the present moment:
powermac g4 450DP
1.25 GB sdram
ati radeon 64MB video card
2 IDE hard drives, for 180GB total. i can replace these, if necessary, not a problem.

i know there's an issue with my mac reading drives bigger than 120GB, so i need a PCI IDE controller to read bigger drives... i was thinking esata controller might be nice too, but i don't know if my machine is capable of handling the performance upgrade of esata anyways!



Your machine can handle SATA cards & drive nottaproblemo (been there, done that w/my old sawtooth!) If your gonna go this route anyways, ditch those old, slow, small drives and get some big fast ones (I used Raptors in mine)

now i have three questions with this.

1. all my "power plugs" for my IDE drives are all used up at the moment. when i add either controller (PCI IDE or a PCI ESATA) - do those "provide" extra plugs for my drives? i think the esata drives are in all-in-one cable (power and connector together), so would simply adding the card be good enough for the drives... what about the PCI IDE controller? do i need another card to get those power plugs to power up a IDE drive?

PCI controller cards do NOT provide power plugs at all, only data connections. Go to any mom&pop computer parts place and get some molex splitter/multiplier cables, which will make 2 or 3 more plugs from 1 of your existing plugs. Besides, if you ditch the old IDE drives, you'll have 2 plugs available anyways





just trying to think of the best and most cost effective solution to get some bigger drives into my machine.

2. also what would you guys recommend to use for backup? i was thinking of setting up time machine on my mac pro and then pointing the backup drives to the ones on my powermac g4. would that work?

AFAIK, if set up properly, this should work just fine


3. and is mac os x leopard server necessary or over kill?

Overkill for the uses you described! You can enable file sharing and remote access features easily, without leopard server.


thanks for any help!

good luck

 

[Col127]

thanks for the reply, very helpful

RE the SATA drives, do i need any extra power connections for those? isn't that all through the one cable which would be on the PCI card?

i'll probably keep the IDE drives since i have them. lol, extra storage is never bad

good luck

 

[OrangeSVTguy]

Yes you'll need some additional adapters to provide power for those too, it's not all on one cable. Some SATA drives actually have the older style connector so you can just plug in your standard molex power cable.

But yeah that is your best bet though with the PCI SATA card. Replace all those tiny IDE drives with one or 2 large and fast drives. Put them in a mirror RAID for better performace and better security of your data.