Thanks for the reply Kris. I'm pretty sure I have the rev. C of the PL-3507, since IIRC I did do a firmware upgrade on my enclosure and there's a chip marked PL-3507 413313C. Unfortunately, the name of my enclosure manufacturer is "Mobile Disk", which makes it pretty hard to Google up. I did successfully install Leopard on the 320GB drive (and it installed 2-3 times faster than the internal!) and used the Migration Assistant to move my apps over. Over the coming days I'll boot off the Firewire drive and see if it barfs or otherwise malfunctions.
One question I did have about OS X RAID is whether or not a RAID 0 volume is bootable. That would be just spiffy. Charles, I actually use a similar theory for my Mac mini with 500GB external firewire. But, I boot off the internal 120GB and back it up to an 80GB partition on the 500GB drive with CCC. If an update goes horribly wrong, presto!, back to old system. The G5 is not fulfilling a critical function at the moment, though, so I'm not really worried about redundancy. At least, not yet. Thanks, Eric On Fri, Sep 19, 2008 at 9:37 PM, Kris Tilford <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > On Sep 19, 2008, at 8:34 PM, Eric Volker wrote: > >> I recently acquired a dual G5 on eBay. Unfortunately, it came with a >> measly 80GB SATA drive. I happened to have a 320GB EIDE/PATA drive and >> a Firewire 400 enclosure sitting around. Presto! 320GB boot drive, >> right? Not so fast, methinks. Firstly, my enclosure has much-maligned >> Prolific PL-3507 chipset. Secondly, it strikes that me that booting >> off of an external drive might not be the best idea (e.g., what >> happens if someone trips on the cord?) >> >> I'm somewhat concerned about the reliability of the Prolific chipset. >> If I remember correctly, I had problems with bootable systems just >> disappearing. However, I have since flashed the firmware, and have >> also copied back and forth 40GB or so of data without any problems. >> >> So what does the list think about using that 320GB as a primary boot >> drive? Am I just asking for trouble, or is it a reasonable solution >> given the fact that I don't want to cough up $100 for a new SATA >> drive. > > I booted my G5 for almost a year on a FW400 and then FW800 external > HD. There wasn't much difference in speed. Later I stripe raided two > 500 GB internal SATA drives and thing were much quicker. I'm saving > for an SATA II card now to hopefully double speed again. > > I've owned several of the PL-3507 enclosures, and mine were an early > revision A that wasn't bootable for Mac or upgradeable for firmware. > All the newer ones are upgradeable, but there was some problem with > the firmware, and you must have the latest firmware for OS X. There > were revision A, B, C and D chipsets, and each had it's own firmware. > I big hassle to update, you probably need a PC running Windows. Check > with your manufacturer first, and then with Prolific which had > "generic" firmware (will change the Vendor > ID).<http://www.prolific.com.tw/eng/downloads.asp?ID=44 > > > > If you enclosure boots, and you run a day or two without error, it > should be good. Personally, I'd buy two SATA HDs for cheap and use > them as an internal striped RAID pair, and using the FW external as a > Time Machine backup disk. PriceWatch has 500GB SATA for $51 each with > free shipping.<http://www.pricewatch.com/hard_removable_drives/sata_500gb.htm > >. Yesterday I saw USB2/eSATA external 500GB for $55. With these > cheap prices, a 1 TB Raid pair will more than double the access speed > of the FW box, and you'll be set for a long time (until your 320 GB > backup is full) for only $102 total. > > > > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed Low End Mac's G3-5 List, a group for those using G3, G4, and G5 desktop Macs - with a particular focus on Power Macs. The list FAQ is at http://lowendmac.com/lists/g-list.shtml and our netiquette guide is at http://www.lowendmac.com/lists/netiquette.shtml To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/g3-5-list?hl=en Low End Mac RSS feed at feed://lowendmac.com/feed.xml -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
