Verifying Internal Hard Drive for Power Mac G5

[treehorn]

I've got a Power Mac G5 sorely in need of a hard drive upgrade and before telling my boss what to buy, want to make sure that it would work. It's the last of the PowerPC Power Macs (before the Intel upgrade) and is going to have to be upgraded soon, but until then...will the following drive work?

Western Digital 1TB Caviar Black 3.5" Internal SATA Hard Drive for Desktops (7200rpm 32MB Buffer Mfr# WD10000LSRTL)

Many thanks!

 

[canonballs]

I've got a Power Mac G5 sorely in need of a hard drive upgrade and before telling my boss what to buy, want to make sure that it would work. It's the last of the PowerPC Power Macs (before the Intel upgrade) and is going to have to be upgraded soon, but until then...will the following drive work?

Western Digital 1TB Caviar Black 3.5" Internal SATA Hard Drive for Desktops (7200rpm 32MB Buffer Mfr# WD10000LSRTL)

I don't see any counterindications here, but I have a question of my own: the so-called "server-grade" or "enterprise-class" drives such as Hitachi Ultrastar, Seagate Barracuda ES, Western Digital RE—are there any downsides (apart from monetary ones) to using these as startup drives?

 

[sickmacdoc]

Treehorn- That would be fine. Any 3.5" SATA drive will work in a G5 PM- and there is room for two drives if more storage is needed.

cannonballs- The enterprise class drives are fine for that or anything else. They are just designated as enterprise class because of being designed to be less prone to failure over the long run, and often have longer warranties. Operationally they are identical.

 

[sedril]

The raid edition drives usually have more error recovery features that are specific to raid needs... However, they work perfectly fine in a single drive setup. Western Digital says that their RE3 drives work in single or raid setups perfectly fine. Supposedly the WD Black series is very similar to the RE3 series, and even sports the 5 year warranty. It just doesn't have the raid extras, which to be honest probably aren't needed unless running a big server. I've used a ton of raids and never had any issues... ..knock on wood...

 

[canonballs]

sickmacdoc, sedril, many thanks!

 

[Redbeastmage]

I recently upgraded (more like replaced) my HD in my G5 (2nd to last model, last model with AGP). I used the WD Black 500gb and it was easy as... uh, something that is easy enough to get in and installed. I don't recall any configuration issues.

 

[treehorn]

Thanks all! I didn't think there would be a problem (but would feel like an idiot if I tried to install it and found out 'doh!' that the model didn't like anything bigger than 500GB)

 

[California]

I'm pretty sure you are only limited by the two oem hard drive bays, not by hard drive size capacity. But upgrade your ram while you are at it. I noticed my quad and other g5 towers responded very favorably with each ram upgrade. Also get the 32mb cached hard drives, rather than the 16mb == faster drives.

 

[doc7string]

What a timely post. I have a G5 Power Mac dual 2.0 (upgraded to 5 GB ram) which I use for multitrack music recording. I am also in desperate need of upgrading my hard drive (160 GB currently). I have read some info on the Western Digital Caviar Black WD1001FALS 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive and am thinking about purchasing, but wanted to make sure that it is fully compatible. In addition I am hoping to get some answers from those of you that know so much more than me about my computer. Will I be able to use my old hard drive for my more menial programs/activities (like word processing) and leave the new drive exclusively for recording applications and project storage? Will I be able to move applications etc from my old drive to the new one via simple click and drag? Granted I have never gotten a virus on my mac, but will the new drive be immune to potential viruses if I do not load a browser onto that drive, or is there something special I need to do to assure this? Last, is it a problem to buy OEM? It seems the connections are already there inside my G5 case just below the slot for the drive. Thanks so much in advance for your help.

 

[doc7string]

Hoping somebody will be willing to give me some insight.

 

[California]

Sounds like you are a PC person switching to Mac?

Viruses? There aren't any I know of for the Mac.

Anyway, buy that oem hard drive.

Pop it in to your computer, hook it up.

Go to disk utility and restore from your old hard drive to the new one.

This will basically clone your old drive on the new one. Then erase the old drive (if and only you have Leopard, erase it, if not don't!) and use it for your Time machine backups on your new hard drive.

You're done. If you can afford it, get a couple of gigs more ram on that machine. You will notice an improvement from the 160 drive to the new one in speed right away, by the way, you might as well augment it with more ram while you are at it.

 

[doc7string]

Sounds like you are a PC person switching to Mac?

Viruses? There aren't any I know of for the Mac.

Anyway, buy that oem hard drive.

Pop it in to your computer, hook it up.

Go to disk utility and restore from your old hard drive to the new one.

This will basically clone your old drive on the new one. Then erase the old drive (if and only you have Leopard, erase it, if not don't!) and use it for your Time machine backups on your new hard drive.

You're done. If you can afford it, get a couple of gigs more ram on that machine. You will notice an improvement from the 160 drive to the new one in speed right away, by the way, you might as well augment it with more ram while you are at it.

I actually already have an external drive for my time machine backups. I was hoping to use my old drive for everything but recording so if anything went haywire on that drive, my recordings would be left alone (yeah I know its already backed up but everything else on my mac is replaceable except for the "spontaneous moments of music genius" (haha). I already am up to 5 GB ram- maybe more in the future. I have been a Mac guy for years, just paranoid I guess. Also, yes, I do have Leopard. Thanks for the info.

Oh one last thing. I read somewhere that if you buy an OEM drive that the warranty may no be in affect. is that true?

 

[canonballs]

I have read some info on the Western Digital Caviar Black WD1001FALS 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive and am thinking about purchasing, but wanted to make sure that it is fully compatible.

It is. i don't remember if your computer model is SATA or SATA II. Some SATA II drives allow jumper settings to restrict them to SATA pre-II (I'm not sure if this is really necessary). Others just work with earlier SATA.

Will I be able to use my old hard drive for my more menial programs/activities (like word processing) and leave the new drive exclusively for recording applications and project storage?

Some but not all applications will only run off the startup volume. You can house your document and project files on whichever drive you please.

Will I be able to move applications etc from my old drive to the new one via simple click and drag?

It will only work with some applications and even then you'd have to think about moving preferences and other support files. Better use Migration Assistant or a cloner like Disk Utility or Carbon Copy Cloner or... One more thing to think about: Take Photoshop. Its license is certainly tied to processor and probably even to processor/harddisk combination. I'd deactivate it before cloning and reactivate at new location. Other apps may have other licensing quirks (although the vast majority doesn't).

Granted I have never gotten a virus on my mac, but will the new drive be immune to potential viruses if I do not load a browser onto that drive, or is there something special I need to do to assure this?

This depends on how much Windows you run. Windows malware has little problems crossing volume boundaries and can in principle screw up your Mac stuff. Hypothetically it could also install some Mac malware while at it. If you are a true paranoic, dismount the drive with sensitive information when using Windows to make the virus' life really difficult.

Last, is it a problem to buy OEM? It seems the connections are already there inside my G5 case just below the slot for the drive.

The largest problem associated with OEM drives is that you may not get the mounting screws with your drive purchase.

 

[sickmacdoc]

canonballs- hope you don't mind a couple of additions to your response to doc7string!

It is. i don't remember if your computer model is SATA or SATA II.<clip>

The PowerMac G5 internal drive bus is SATA (1.5Gbits/s) but the WD SATA II drive steps back fine with no jumper changes required.

This depends on how much Windows you run. Windows malware has little problems crossing volume boundaries and can in principle screw up your Mac stuff. Hypothetically it could also install some Mac malware while at it. If you are a true paranoic, dismount the drive with sensitive information when using Windows to make the virus' life really difficult.

Since doc7string is using a G5 (PowerPC based, so incompatible with BootCamp) he doesn't run Windows at all unless by chance he is using the old Virtual PC software so that is not a big concern.

The largest problem associated with OEM drives is that you may not get the mounting screws with your drive purchase.

No biggie since the 4 special black screws required for mounting a second drive in a G5 are provided by Apple, screwed into the metal panel just to the left of the hard drive mounting bays (or in the case of replacing a drive they are just removed from the old one and used on the new one).

 

[doc7string]

You guys are the greatest. I just got the drive in the mail -BTW I did OEM and came here to gather my courage to install. Happy I did because where are the screws - there they are. Thanks guys. Its great being able to get information so easily (makes it easy to save a little $ as well).