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ltpowda

macrumors newbie
Original poster
May 27, 2006
12
0
Victoria, Melbourne, AUSTRALIA
I have a g5 dual 2.0 ghz. I want to upgrade and get a second internal drive.

On the official apple forum, I have a thread about which HD I should purchase!!

http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=2977335#2977335

One of the guys mentioned this

> Just wanted to know why to avoid seagate?

The Seagate 7200.9 will not work in a Mac if SSC is turned on. It will work if it is turned off. If it is on it takes a PC and the Seagate SSC Toggle Utility to turn it off.
http://www.seagate.com/support/kb/disc/faq/ssc.html
The 7200.9 is a crap shoot that makes it hard to recommend for an internal G5 SATA bus. Even when it works it is much slower than the Maxline III 300GB model 7V300F0 see:
http://www.amug.org/amug-web/html/amug/reviews/articles/seagate16/

The Seagate 7200.10 is a fast drive for use with a SATA host adapter but internally in the Mac Pro and the PowerMac G5 individual 7200.10 models suffer from a 40% reduced write speed. If you want speed, the 7200.10 is a poor internal hard drive for an Apple PowerMac G5.

The fastest 300GB that I have used internally inside a PowerMac G5 is the Maxline III 7V300F0. It is available here: http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=100719-9

If cost is an issue then the Maxtor SATA I version is only $79.99 shipped. It is about 10% slower but its almost $40 cheaper too.
http://shop2.outpost.com/product/4116853

Have fun,

Michael


I want to purchase the Seagate 320gb 7200 SATA2 16mb Cache

http://www.centrecom.com.au/catalog...=18224&ccsid=14ae88819a94f4f6135cdb2396738859

or the Western Digital 320Gb 7200 16Mb Cache SATA 2

http://www.centrecom.com.au/catalog...=18233&ccsid=14ae88819a94f4f6135cdb2396738859


What do I do? Is this guy right or wrong?

Also, what is the difference between the 7200.9 & the 7200.10? Can I get the seagate 320 gb in 7200.10?

Thanks heaps guys
 
Right. Several things though. That data appears a bit outdated - they are testing .8 Seagate drives, I saw nothing about .9 or .10 drives. Yes, Maxtor may be faster (particularly against the old .8 drives). Yet, note one thin in the amug.org link - it affirms YET AGAIN, that Maxtor drives suffer far higher failure rates than Seagate... this is a pretty universal observation.

Personally, I'd be ok with my drive being a few seconds slower on some tasks, but have the peace of mind that it won't fail catastrophically. If it makes a huge difference to your life that the 4.5GB file was copied 10 seconds faster with a Maxtor - go for it. There are many factors to consider with hard drives and speed is only one of them: reliability, speed, heat generation, noise, power consumption, robust built etc. When it comes to hard drives my first priority is reliability, speed is secondary.
 
OldCorpse said:
Right. Several things though. That data appears a bit outdated - they are testing .8 Seagate drives, I saw nothing about .9 or .10 drives. Yes, Maxtor may be faster (particularly against the old .8 drives). Yet, note one thin in the amug.org link - it affirms YET AGAIN, that Maxtor drives suffer far higher failure rates than Seagate... this is a pretty universal observation.

Personally, I'd be ok with my drive being a few seconds slower on some tasks, but have the peace of mind that it won't fail catastrophically. If it makes a huge difference to your life that the 4.5GB file was copied 10 seconds faster with a Maxtor - go for it. There are many factors to consider with hard drives and speed is only one of them: reliability, speed, heat generation, noise, power consumption, robust built etc. When it comes to hard drives my first priority is reliability, speed is secondary.

Good post OldCorpse. :) You make a good observation when you point out that there are more reasons than just speed to take into consideration when purchasing a HDD. :)
 
thanks for ur help.

btw, that post is seven days old.

I think I know what he means. The HD I want is sata II and the g5 internally with no addons only supports sata I therefore he is saying I am getting 40% loss in HD speed! Do you think that is what he is referring to.

That's ok though because i am getting an esata card later on down the track!

What is the difference between 7200.9 and 7200.10? Can I get 320 gb in 7200.10
 
As far as I know, this was a problem with the previous gen Seagate drive. The new ones are the 320GB with perpendicular tech which should work fine. They are SATA II, but they'll run fine in the G5 as regular SATA. Theoretical SATA II performance is supposed to be faster, but in real world performance, it's not that big of a difference. Go here for more info: www.xlr8yourmac.com

They have a drive compatibility database and articles on the issue.
 
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