What would you do with a "retired" G4?

Hi there.

I'm crossing my fingers that I can afford a shiny new Mac Pro in the coming months, and I'm unsure of what to do with my six-year-old G4 when that day arrives.

I refuse to simply recycle it at an Apple Store. I would still like to get some use out of it. I work in the film/video industry and my apps of choice are Final Cut Pro, Soundtrack Pro, Compressor, DVD Studio Pro, Adobe CS3 Design Suite, Pro Tools LE, and Adobe After Effects. The machine is a Dual 1 GHz PowerPC G4 with 1 GB DDR SDRAM, a 120GB boot drive and three 250GB internal storage drives.

Armed with this information, what would you do with this "retired" G4?

Right now, my top three ideas are: (1) Network with the Mac Pro to provide distributed rendering for Compressor [although the Mac Pro would snicker at my G4's puny 1GHz processors], (2) utilize the G4's internal drive space and convert it into some sort of external storage device or RAID array [although that would be a pretty expensive and power-hungry external drive], or (3) just keep it around as "workstation B" [although that's a big footprint for my modest apartment].

What should I do? Any advice would be appreciated -- especially if it's something you've already tried yourself!

eBay or Craigslist it. It could get a chance at a second life with a new owner!

I am using mine (G4 iBook mind you) as a test web server. I have installed Ubuntu linux on it and it has been chugging along nicely 24x7 ever since.

But personally, I would use your G4 as a nice big RAIDed backup solution/file server...you can never go wrong with that!

Cheers

What I did with my old PC for about 2 years, was add a wireless networking card, tucked it into a closet, and used it a file server / backup device.

Well your mac is still a VERY capable machine! If you need some $ you could sell it easily.
Or you could make it a 24/7 folding machine!
Or you could rig it up on a porch or something to surf with nature
Or donate it to someone in need.
And I think that fish tank is the coolest thing ever!!!!!!!
Although it would be a gross waste of a good mac if you did that IMO.

Nice. I was waiting for that fish tank suggestion to come up.

Thanks for all the input so far! Sounds like "backup/file server" is a popular choice. Of course, cash back is always an appealing option.

You can let me know when you plan on selling it, and we'll work out a deal where I give you this awesome thing called "money" in exchange for that cool thing you have called "PowerMac G4".

I want to pick one up, but ATM, I'm saving up. When you do get a Mac Pro, if you want to sell it, hit me up. I'll try and give you a deal, because I would like a desktop for doing my video editing on.

Weird Fish said:

Click to expand...

WRYYYYY? IT WAS BEAUTIFUL!!!