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sawtooth-few ?'s, SATA, USB 2

R

rglatter

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jul 24, 2006
103
0
Arkansas
Hey everyone,
I just purchased a sawtooth for a media server/home theater pc.

I have seen that some people have used a SATA PCI card in order to get bigger hard drives in it. Which PCI card should I use? Will the $15 ones from newegg work? for example this one? RAID is not important just a way to get sata hard drives.

I also need a USB 2.0 PCI card in order to hook up wireless internet and perhaps an external hard drive. Would a usb2.0 wireless dongle thing work? or do I need a PCI wireless card? I would need G for streaming video around.

So, to sum up would generic pci cards work? or do I need some sort of specialty card for it to work with the sawtooth.
 
You can find everything you need at Other World Computing ---- just google them. I'm rebuilding a G4 powerpc MDD - they have both parts and extensive info about older macs

Also - to quiet it down got to www.newegg.com and look at SiLenx fans --- these are super quiet
 
For the wireless it is tough to find something mac compatible. However this driver from orangeware is $15 and works well. Just get a card from the list of compatible cards.

http://www.orangeware.com/endusers/wirelessformac.html

You can also get a card or USB adapter from Mac Sales as HW-Hack suggested.

802.11G
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Asus/WL167G/

802.11N:eek:
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Edimax/EW7728IN/

As for the SATA that card is not Mac Compatible though SYBA has another card listed as Mac compatible it has extremely poor reviews and is Mac Pro only.

This is the cheapest I could find and is from a good manufacturer.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816122003

As for USB this card should be fine.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815128002
 
SATA Cards: SIIG & Firmtek are among the best out there. But you have to get the mac specific cards.....

USB2 Cards: Belkin, D-Link, SIIG are about the best, but just about any brand will work, as long as it says "OHCI" compliant on the box.....

lookie here: www.macsales.com for just about anything mac-specific......

FYI if you wanna run OS X on that ST, be sure to mAxDaRam (it'll take 2GB max) :p
 
JesterJJZ said:
Looks like USB 1... Why do they even make those anymore?
Click to expand...

Whoops. Did not notice that it was 1.1, I did not even think those where really availabe, anyway newegg has a whole plethora of USB 2 cards to choose from. Just go for one with good customer reviews. As stated by other posters most cards are compatible, unlike most other hardware USB 1 and 2 are standardized, probably because they have to be or else Windows could not use a USB keyboard and mouse when first installed.
 
1. Except for PCI USB 2.0 cards, you will for the most part need a Mac-specific 32bit PCI card for your Sawtooth. Your mileage will vary. Check out http://www.xlr8yourmac.com for their reader reports. If you're lucky you'll even run across a cheapy gigabit PCI card you can use on your Mac.

2. For a Sata RAID card, check out the Mac site from High Point Technologies: http://www.hptmac.com. You can find their cards at most generic PC places for cheap. I have ordered this card and am waiting for it to arrive. You want something with RAID 5. Nothing sucks more than losing all your media due to HD failure. Trust me, I've been there, done that.

3. External HD's are a bit tricky. I've found that USB 2.0 hd's run faster on a windows machine than on a Mac. I've found that Firewire runs faster on a Mac than on windows. Beware of firewire. Cheapo PC firewire enclosures usually use a Prolific chipset, which cause major issues for Macs. Macs like the Oxford chipsets which cause problems for windows.... For the fewest headaches, stick with USB 2 drives.

That's all the babble I have for now....
 
mail4asim said:
http://cgi.ebay.com/Vastech-PU502-5...ryZ44933QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

What do you think about this PCI USB card on ebay ?


Vastech PU502 5-Port USB 2.0 PCI 32-Bit PC Mac CardBus

-Asim
Click to expand...

i bought one of those and after hunting down the drivers on the supplied cd, it still didn't work properly. seem to not work on plug and play and only seemed to work with my usb wireless mouse and pro keyboard part of the time and not my usb wireless network card. so they sent me another one and still same thing. tried them on my pc and were both just plug and play without using the cd. don't know what to do with them now. hell i can give my pc 10 usb 2.o ports i guess:confused:
 
Hi guys;

I must add to this thread, as Ive just purchased 2 of these Vastech USB 2.0 pci add on cards, and they dont seem to work worth a **** on either of my powermacs I have here, G3 + G4. They show up in System Profiler, it says USB HIGH SPEED BUS in there, but, plug anything in and, well, nothing happens, my usb2.0 external drives DO NOT MOUNT with these supposed MAC COMPATIBLE usb2.0 PCI addon cards. I have just ordered 2 more with the Adaptec Brand, hoping that these will in fact work as described and I will be disputing the purchases with SVCSToRE or whatever this retailer is called.... BUYER BEWARE!

If anyone has any idea how to get these to work, i would love to hear from you.. my email is Chris at 416design dot com! thanks so much:)
 
yeah like i said in my previous post, i bought one and after it not working, they sent me a free one and it doesn't work right either. but i don't think these will work on any mac. i only paid $8 shipped for mine and i got 2 of them so it's not like i'm out any money. besides i'm using them in my pc now anyways. maybe if we can find a correct driver they might actually work? my devices still draw power from the card as well, just that the mac won't recognize what i plug in.

Snapshot2007-12-2209-22-28.jpg
 
Yeah, I went through three of the USB cards until I found one that worked. Ended up at a mac store costing me 29.99 for one that worked. The other two were the cheap ones that were 12.99, but said they were mac compatible.
 
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