Mike wrote: > There are a slew of new Firewire drives, but pricey. I do have a > concern that I would have boot problems from a Firewire drive because > of my no-name Firewire card and non-native G3. I just recall hearing > something to this affect but can't substantiate it. Anyone?
I'm not sure either but would think, like with USB, it wouldn't be bootable on a PCI Mac since the support isn't in ROM and has to be loaded. It should work fine as a storage device. > > Also I am unclear of the transfer rate speed limitations on my > system. If I go with the ATA card (I have one PCI slot left), is the > ATA/66 capable of allowing me to maximize what my 8500 can handle in > terms of drive transfer rate speed? Can my 8500 handle an ATA/133 > card and 133 MB/sec drive. What is the limiting factor here? > I have a Sonnet Tempo ATA66 (Acard) running a Maxtor 7200rpm ATA133 in my 9600/g4/450. I'm getting around 34MB/sec. read (I forget write), which is probably slow by today's standard but is 3-4x the speed of the native SCSI drive. I think the slower 33MHz PCI bus along with the 50MHz system bus that limits it, but then the ATA standards are theoretical anyway. The card actually shows up as another SCSI bus. > Any Boot issues with going the ATA card controller route? (And my > understanding is that the card doesn't actually "control" the IDE > drive as these drives have the controller built onto them.) Mine boots fine but I'm having problems with directory corruption due to files that go missing almost every time I shut down. My guess is that the hard drive doesn't have enough time to flush its cache before shutdown. It may be an incompatibilty with the card (the Acard site lists a limited number of compatible drives), or I need a newer hard disk driver. -+-+-+- RPM -- 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
