>I gather the main hard drive in the 7300 is SCSI. I have an IDE 10 gig in >my 4400. Is there space in the 7300 to install my IDE drive in the 7300. I >know I will need to get and ATA card.
There sure is. There is a second hard drive bay in the 7x00 that will hold anything up to a half-height (1.6") drive. Although I prefer SCSI myself, an ATA/100 or ATA/133 card would be a great investment, since it gives you tons of cheap storage and optical drive options. You could also put the faster IDE CD-ROM drive from the 4400 into the 7300 case, although that would call into question CD bootability. I also use the 3.5" bay where the floppy once was in my 7500 for a third hard drive. Floppies are so useless anymore, you are better off reclaiming the internal space and getting an external VST USB floppy drive should you need it. You can also put one of those nifty 3.5" front-panel USB/FW hubs (like lots of PC users have) in the lower drive bay if your USB/FW card has an internal connector. A standard 7x00 bezel with a generic 4" opening (made for third-party floppy drives and such, I think MacGurus still carries them) will frame the hub nicely, giving you several nice front-access USB and/or FW ports. Make sure you put the ATA card in the bus mastering PCI slot (A1, closest to the processor card) to get the best performance and reliability. Your USB/FW combo card should then go in A3, and the video card in A2, if I remember correctly. It is also rather tricky to get the IDE cables from the ATA card to the drive, but if you look carefully behind the drive bays you will see there is a little angle-shaped bracket that pops off with a screwdriver, giving you a sizeable opening through which to route any cables. -- --Chris PM 7500/604e 200Mhz 4 gig SCSI 256 megs OS 8.6 (This machine rocks!) -- PCI-PowerMacs is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and... Small Dog Electronics http://www.smalldog.com | Refurbished Drives | -- Sonnet & PowerLogix Upgrades - start at $169 | & CDRWs on Sale! | Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html> PCI-PowerMacs list info: <http://lowendmac.com/lists/pci-powermacs.shtml> --> AOL users, remove "mailto:"; Send list messages to: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For digest mode, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subscription questions: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Archive:<http://www.mail-archive.com/pci-powermacs%40mail.maclaunch.com/> Using a Mac? Free email & more at Applelinks! http://www.applelinks.com
