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Can't seem to figure out what 2nd hard drive to get for G5...

R

RiggedProductio

macrumors newbie
Original poster
May 3, 2005
18
0
Was looking at a second hard drive for my G5 and decided on the Seagate Barracuda line.

Unfortunately there are so many variations.

STA-150 vs. STA-300
16mb vs. 8mb
etc. etc.

It is my understanding right now that the G5 needs a STA-150 to work and that the others are supposed to be backwards compatable, but people have had trouble with their G5s regardless.

http://tinyurl.com/ete6z

Do I not want ones that say ATA100? Also how do I know if the drive is bootable or just a data drive?

Thanks,
Bobby
 
Any drive that says ATA66 ATA100 or ATA133 will not work in your Power Mac. They have to be either SATA 150 or 300. Other than that, check out Storage Review to find the best Seagate drive (probably the latest). You may also find a better drive to suit your needs. Whenever I have been in the market, Hitachi has had the fastest 7200rpm drives. Oh, and all SATA drives are bootable.
 
As topgunn said, you need an SATA drive.

A good old Barracuda, 7200 RPM with 8MB cache will do just fine, unless you are looking for some insanely fast scratch/boot disc.
 
Could you reccomend a specific model that I should get from the newegg site? Or any site for that matter? I am really dumb when it comes to this stuff.
 
Here's a link.

I like Mac Sales because they have always treated me well, and New Egg just has too much stuff to sort thorugh to find what I need.

Remember your PM has a limit to how much storage it can handle, depending on what model/revision it is...
 
Haha i didnt know that either.

I have a PowerMac Dual 2.5ghz. Got it when it came out. Running 10.4.6. Is there any other info I would need to figure out how much space this thing can handle?
 
RiggedProductio said:
Haha i didnt know that either.

I have a PowerMac Dual 2.5ghz. Got it when it came out. Running 10.4.6. Is there any other info I would need to figure out how much space this thing can handle?
Click to expand...

800 GB without any mods to the machine.

So if you have a 250 in there now, you can add a 500...
 
A Barracuda will serve you well. One of the best hard drives I've used over the years.

You may wish to do a search of the drive database at Xlr8yourmac, which is here.
 
iGary said:
800 GB without any mods to the machine.

So if you have a 250 in there now, you can add a 500...
Click to expand...
it can actually hold 1.5TB. (2x750GB drives). it was only available with up to 800GB because 400GB was the biggest drive at the time.
 
iGary said:
Oh, so its not a firmware limitation, then?
Click to expand...
afaik all SATA controllers are the same as far as drive size goes--and no modern drives are anywhere near that limit.

someone correct me if im wrong, of course.
 
homerjward said:
afaik all SATA controllers are the same as far as drive size goes--and no modern drives are anywhere near that limit.

someone correct me if im wrong, of course.
Click to expand...

Not at all, I'll take your word for it. Thanks for the clarification. :)
 
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