> I think a good quality SATA control is worth it. The performance is > sweet. And you'll save a bit down the road as SATA HD prices get > lower and lower and lower.
The capacity of IDE/PATA drives have already topped-out, and there is no more market for, or interest in improved capacity IDE/PATA drives. I believe 500 GB is now the maximum, although some 750 GB drives may have been made. That is for the 3.5" form factor. For the 2.5" form factor, 320 GB is most likely the current maximum. The same is not true of SATA drives, however, and SATA II (3.0 Gb/sec) drives continue to be developed, even as SATA III (6.0 Gb/s) are being introduced. 2.5" form factor SATA drives are already up to 1 TB, and 3.5" form factor SATA drives are heading towards 3 TB. The controller cards which were originally developed for use in machines of the age of a QS are generally based upon the Initio 1.5 Gb/s chip. Drives which have a rating of 3.0 Gb/s are generally provided with a jumper to limit these to 1.5 Gb/s. This jumper may be removed to restore the maximum throughput capacity of the drive. However, most controllers are of the auto-negotiating type, even if the drives are not, so the lower of the rated throughput capacity of the drive or the controller will become the overall throughput capacity. Naturally, the actual throughput capacity may be lower as many drives have an internal throughput capacity of about 40 MB/sec. The Initio-based cards are known to work on PCI-based PCs (P4 or related) as well as PCI-based Macs (G3 or related). In fact, LaCie actively marketed its card and external drive cases to both markets. Otherworld Computing also marketed an Initio-based card, but it marketed it only to the Mac market. They are architecturally identical, however, and contain the precisely the same firmware. Later cards may indeed have a throughput capacity of 3.0 Gb/s, but cross-platform compatibility is not necessarily guaranteed. -- You received this message because you are a member of G-Group, 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 g3-5-list@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/g3-5-list
