How Do You Connect WD Hard Drives in G5 Quad

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Robert Graham

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I'm trying to install two Wester Digital 120GB SATA II 3.0 (WD Caviar SE, WD1200JB Enhanced IDE) hard drives in my G5 Quad 2.5 GHz and the Mac connectors do not match the pins on the hard drives. Are there adapters for this conversion, will a different manufacturer's SATA3 3.0 drive plug in, or should I give up and go for another stock (slower) SATA2 drive?
 
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I'm not sure if the connectors are different between SATA1, 2 or 3, but the G5 isn't SATA 2 or 3 compliant...so even if it would fit, you wouldn't have any speed benefit.
 
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Oh this is simple my friend. Take the red wire, and connect it to a 13A fuse. Then cut the green wire and wrap the bare bit around the pink wire. Boot up your PC as normal.
 
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Robert Graham said:
I'm trying to install two Wester Digital 120GB SATA II 3.0 (WD Caviar SE, WD1200JB Enhanced IDE) hard drives in my G5 Quad 2.5 GHz and the Mac connectors do not match the pins on the hard drives. Are there adapters for this conversion, will a different manufacturer's SATA3 3.0 drive plug in, or should I give up and go for another stock (slower) SATA2 drive?

I don't think there are adapters. The documentation that comes with the Quad very specifically says SATA and not SATA3 so I suspect you may have to go with a slower drive.

Whatever you figure out, please let me know. I'll be looking to put another drive in my Quad and would like to know as well.
 
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Avalon said:
I'm not sure if the connectors are different between SATA1, 2 or 3, but the G5 isn't SATA 2 or 3 compliant...so even if it would fit, you wouldn't have any speed benefit.

Thanks for responding. The G5 specs say the stock 250 GB drive is SATA 1.5 Gbps, but not if it is SATA II.

"...Serial ATA supports 1.5-Gbps throughput per channel (equivalent to a data rate of 150 MBps). The Power Mac G5 can hold two internal 500GB Serial ATA drives for a total capacity of 1TB of storage."

Are you saying the Mac's IDE host interface can't read SATA 2 and 3?
 
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Bluesmudge said:
IDE drives dont work in the G5's, you need a SATA hard drive.

From what I've read, all SATA drives are IDE drives:

"Usually, these devices connect to the computer through an Integrated Drive Electronics (IDE) interface. Essentially, an IDE interface is a standard way for a storage device to connect to a computer. IDE is actually not the true technical name for the interface standard. The original name, AT Attachment (ATA), signified that the interface was initially developed for the IBM AT computer."

SATA is "Serial AT Attachment". I think the original ATA drives were parallel.
 
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Robert Graham said:
Are you saying the Mac's IDE host interface can't read SATA 2 and 3?

The G5s SATA controller is only standard SATA. SATA 2 (and probably SATA 3) drives are downwards compatible, means that, when connected to a standard SATA, they work in SATA mode, not SATA 2 or 3.
That in return means that you won't have any advantage by putting the faster SATA 2 or 3 disks in a G5, as data transfer would be at normal SATA speeds.

To use those drives, you need a SATA 2 or 3 controller card that is Mac compatible. Just keep in mind that the PowerMacs with dual core have PCI express (PCIe) while the older single cores have either PCI or PCI-X. PCIe is NOT backwards compatible to PCI/PCI-X.

And yes, both serial ATA and parallel ATA are IDE drives.
 
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From browsing hard drives yesterday it appears that what is needed is Serial SATA, not plain SATA. Serial uses the new interface (Small Cable) vice the standards SATA IDE interface (ribbon cable). I realize calling it Serial SATA is sort of a misnomer, but that is how the HDD boxes are labled. The standard SATA boxes show the IDE interface.
 
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baggss said:
From browsing hard drives yesterday it appears that what is needed is Serial SATA, not plain SATA. Serial uses the new interface (Small Cable) vice the standards SATA IDE interface (ribbon cable). I realize calling it Serial SATA is sort of a misnomer, but that is how the HDD boxes are labled. The standard SATA boxes show the IDE interface.

What brand sells it's disks in that boxes?!?
The labels on those boxes are simply wrong...

SATA is Serial ATA, while parallel ATA often simply is referenced as ATA. Serial SATA doesn't make any sense, as the S in SATA means serial. :cool:

SATA IDE uses the small cable, while plain ATA IDE uses a ribbon cable.
 
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I may have read it wrong, it may have said Serial ATA, vice SATA, but it definitely did say Serial and showed the cable I linked to above.
 
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baggss said:
From browsing hard drives yesterday it appears that what is needed is Serial SATA, not plain SATA. Serial uses the new interface (Small Cable) vice the standards SATA IDE interface (ribbon cable). I realize calling it Serial SATA is sort of a misnomer, but that is how the HDD boxes are labled. The standard SATA boxes show the IDE interface.

Hey Baggss-

Here's what happened and what I learned.

Mac Connection is sending me two Maxtor, SATA 1.5 Gbps, 300 GB drives to replace the two Western Digital, SATA 3.0 Gbps, 120 GB drives that wouldn't connect. When I ordered the WDs I was looking for speed, not capacity, but I'll settle to get this beautiful thing running.

When you go to make a purchase, remember one thing, G5s require blade, not pin connectors.

Someone said that I needed SATA drives, not IDE drives. SATA drives are IDE drives. IDE is the name for the interface... "Usually, these devices connect to the computer through an Integrated Drive Electronics (IDE) interface. Essentially, an IDE interface is a standard way for a storage device to connect to a computer. IDE is actually not the true technical name for the interface standard. The original name, AT Attachment (ATA), signified that the interface was initially developed for the IBM AT computer."

SATA means Serial ATA. It is now the industry-standard storage interface, replacing the Parallel ATA interface... "Designed to keep pace with the demands of digital video creation and editing, audio storage and playback, and other data-intensive applications, Serial ATA supports 1.5-Gbps throughput per channel (equivalent to a data rate of 150 MBps).

The drives I wanted were SATA 3.0 Gbps. This is often called SATA II, but "II" really indicates the name of the committee/organization formed to author the SATA specifications. The SATA 3.0 drives would have had nearly twice the transfer rate of Apple's SATA 1.5 Gbps stock drive. SATA 3.0 drives are backward compatible, so they will replace Apple's stock drives, using the same interface connectors. The "controllers" are on the drives and the motherboard and System X (maybe only 10.4?) will recognize them. The Power Mac G5 can hold two internal 500GB Serial ATA drives for a total capacity of 1TB of storage.

Another important thing is the size of the drives Buffer. Most SATA drives have an 8 MB buffer, but the latest drives have 16 MB and are able to read/write faster.

So, I would look for 3.5" SATA 3.0 Gbps drives, with a 16 MB cache and spade type connectors. I know they are out there, I just didn't want to wait to find them.

Here's some reading that helped me. See what it says to you.

http://www.serialata.org/

http://www.geek.com/news/geeknews/2003Sep/bch20030922021866.htm

http://computer.howstuffworks.com/ide.htm
 

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