WD Drive not compatable with Panther?

I am looking to set up an array in my home office. I want to use this with two laptops: a Powerbook running Pather 10.3.9 and a Mac Book running Tiger 10.4.9. I was originally looking at a WD 2TB Mirror WESTERN DIGITAL 2TB My Book Mirror Edition Dual Drive Storage System with Mirroring USB 2.0 : Storage, Drives & Media | Dell
Specifications say the OS has to be 10.4.11 or higher. A call to WD says it won't work because of the drivers. So I started looking at buying two WD 1 TB drives and setting up a software array. Again the specs say OS 10.4.11 or higher. Can someone explain to me why I can't use these drives with 10.3.9? I know I can only use the drives with one computer at a time and that this is not a networked system. Trying to do this cheaply. Thanks.

Graphic Artist said:

... Can someone explain to me why I can't use these drives with 10.3.9? ...

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The simplest answer is that basically none of the hardware vendors are creating devices that are backward compatible all the way to Panther.

Why?



It is unlikely that they even tested with any OS prior to 10.4.11. So, it's possible that it may work on an earlier version of 10.4.

For sure they did not test it on any Powerbooks as there were quite a few of those that did not even have USB 2.0. You'll not find any external drives today that support USB 1.1 that shipped on the early Powerbook models.

I appreciate your answer. Googling for the answer, calling WD support and asking on another forum did not get me near the information you gave me. Thanks a bunch.

If it's of any help, I can get older drives, of much smaller capacity than those you're planning to use, which I use bare via an ATA-USB adaptor, to work with my G3/300 and G3 iMac/600, both with Panther. Data transfer is slow, but the drives work.

And which model of Power Book are you using?

I have a Powerbook 17 inch 1.33 Ghz. My manual tells me I have two USB 2.0 ports, and I am thinking of trying the hard drive I was asking about. Where you get the older drives?

I've either bought them at online auction, or salvaged them from discarded computers. Why I even have a Quantum 5.25 Bigfoot 6 Gb working perfectly. The other I have connected is a Hitachi (IBM) 160 Gb.

This link 3.5 inch IDE hard disk drives - Find the best prices, information and user reviews is given only for comparisons and information. You'll note that the smallest available is 40 Gb. Smaller drives tend to be expensive because demand is low, but at least they can still be obtained - and the ATA models work with Panther.