"Hey, Listers!
With the impact of the Mac mini on the used Mac market, I've just purchased a Blue & White off eBay and am considering possible upgrades. I know that the throughput on the onboard IDE controllers on the Beige G3 is very slow and it is highly recommended to use a PCI/ATA controller to speed the hard drive(s). Is this also true for the Blue & White G3 towers? Would I notice a perceptible improvement in response time with a 100/133 PCI controller card and recent model IDE hard drive? Thanking you in advance for your input."
Jason Watkins response:
"The Beige G3's IDE throughput is about 16.7MBps. The B&W's is 33MBps, so yes, I think an ATA100/133 controller would make your machine faster, should you
also have an ATA100/133 drive."
Len Gerstel also posted:
"What are you using it for? A faster hard drive is always nice, but not necessarily the best upgrade option for your needs. . .Let us know what your main uses are and we can advise from there."
And, lastly, Eric J. Leopold also provided some feedback:
"If you add another HD to a B&W G3 rev.1, you will need an ATA100 PCI card to avoid data corruption. See
<http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/G3-ZONE/yosemite/IDE/> for various G3 models. I have a B&W G3 and I just added a Sonnet Tempo ATA 133 PCI ($97) to support a WD 160 GB and a IBM 40 GB drive. I had a Tempo ATA 66 card before and there was a speed boost when I switched cards. The FireWire cards on the B&W G3 are notoriously bad so if you have FireWire problems, a new card will help that. HTH"
First of all, thanks very much to Jason, Len & Eric for the input. It sounds like it will be an improvement to use a card although apparently my use will determine how much of an improvement I will see. I do plan on using a second drive, so this is just another reason to use the card (actually I don't know if the B&W is a rev. 1 or not as the B&W won't arrive until tomorrow or Friday.). Considering I will eventually "harvest" the SIIG ATA 133 controller in my beige, it''s not like I'll have to buy one. I will also use the Beige RAM, which is currently maxed (plus an extra one to go to a gig). I've got a Sonnet G4 500 card in my Beige, too. Thanks for the warning Eric, concerning the firewire card. I thought I would be able to ditch my USB/Firewire combo card, but it sounds like I better hang on to it for a while :-) I guess I shouldn't be surprised. My iMac 400 DV firewire has been kaput for a couple of years now and, of course, there's no PCI slot to put a replacement card into. What a pain!
Again, thanks very much to all for the input. It did, indeed, help!
Scott Birdwell DeFalco's Home Wine & Beer Supplies Houston TX www.defalcos.com
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