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flatjuba

macrumors member
Original poster
Dec 16, 2016
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Anyone know where I can get the SATA Card for Powermac MDD? If I buy the generic for PC, can I just plug in or I have to flash it with some script or something?
 

lepidotós

macrumors 6502a
Aug 29, 2021
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750
Marinette, Arizona
You can get a generic PC one, and in fact have to now that stock of the Power Mac specific SATA cards are pretty much evaporated, but you'll have to flash them. I'd consider getting a PCI-X card because the Power Mac PCI bus is 64 bits wide, and most SATA cards that are pre-flashed for Power Macs are 32-bit, halving your transfer speed from 266MB/s to 133MB/s. PCI-X is backwards compatible with PCI and natively 64-bit, so that's not an issue.
Look for the "SiI3112" (sometimes mislabeled "SiL3112") chip. That's generally considered the easiest to get working in a Power Mac.​
 
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weckart

macrumors 603
Nov 7, 2004
5,957
3,658
Anyone know where I can get the SATA Card for Powermac MDD? If I buy the generic for PC, can I just plug in or I have to flash it with some script or something?
You can also flash a 2-port SiI3512. That you can do in a Mac, the SiI3112 requires flashing on a PC. Unless you want to delve deeper into it, these cards will only support OSX. OS9 will neither see them nor any disks hosted on them.
 
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flatjuba

macrumors member
Original poster
Dec 16, 2016
61
16
You can also flash a 2-port SiI3512. That you can do in a Mac, the SiI3112 requires flashing on a PC. Unless you want to delve deeper into it, these cards will only support OSX. OS9 will neither see them nor any disks hosted on them.
Do you know where I can get the firmware to flash software? As well as the instruction....Thanks before.
 
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weckart

macrumors 603
Nov 7, 2004
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Do you know where I can get the firmware to flash software? As well as the instruction....Thanks before.

2nd file down for the SiI3512 cards. Whatever card you go for, make sure it is a 2 port card only. There are also four port cards and some with 2 SATA and 2 eSATA ports. Avoid those.
 
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weckart

macrumors 603
Nov 7, 2004
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I dare say they would have preferred SI but someone got to that first...

I glanced at that datasheet. All the SiL labelling seems to be from that 3rd party distributing it on its own coverpage to the datasheet and its website. On the actual datasheet created by Silicon Image, SiI is sticking to SiI.
 
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