+1 fun project!
Do you have a specific target OS for it?
Thanks!
The intention is to set this machine up as a MacOS / OS X PowerPC time capsule. This is how I see the OS setup and their drives:
- Striped RAID 0 Quantum Atlas HDs 2x partition with:
- Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger
- MacOS 9
- 120gb Western Digital Caviar individually partitioned and installed with:
- MacOS 9
- Rhapsody Developer Release 1
- Rhapsody Developer Release 2
- Mac OS X Server
- Mac OS X 10.0 Cheetah
- 10.1 Puma
- 10.2 Jaguar
- 10.3 Panther
- 10.4 Tiger
- 10.5 Leopard
MacOS 8.6?
I would like to figure out if there's an Open Firmware mod that will allow an install of MacOS 8.6 -- seems probable considering the motherboard is so close to the Sawtooth (which shipped with 8.6).
The SSD would mirror the Caviar HD.
The Quantum Atlas RAID is kind of silly, but old-school me wants the bragging rights of 2x 10,000 RPM server drives in RAID 0 in a workstation. And the absolutely obnoxious drive seeking sounds are just great!
In reality, any long session will probably boot from the SSD for heat and audio sanity sake.
Random thoughts, maybe not super well structured, yes I spent 3/4 of the post on storage options, oops!
"What makes a good OS 9 machine" and "what makes a good OS X machine" (and linux/bsd) are almost mutually exclusive, because, for example, there's a vanishingly slim opportunity you'll ever need more than 512MB of RAM for OS 9 or that you'll ever notice the difference between a 500MHz and 1500MHz CPU under OS 9, but going to 2GB of RAM and having duallies can be meaningful under OS X.
I feel you on the juxtapostion of resource use and need between MacOS 9 and OS X. And for sure on the dual-processor being overkill for OS 9. OS 9 has been generally very snappy on anything G3 and up for me.
And even OS X up through Tiger is typically pretty responsive. In the past I ran it with 1gb ram on a 500mhz iMac G3, and it was absolutely usable. But bumping up to Leopard, or doing anything processor intensive (like audio recording) and I know those dual procs will be pulling their weight.
The same thing is true of graphics, especially if you're looking at potentially running 10.4/5 and some of the later OSXPPC software and want, say, CoreImage..
Right, most of my OS 9 time I assume will be playing older System 7 era games. Even OS 9 game era wasn't that far advanced for 3D (a lot of CPU doing the lifting if I recall). So even the GeForce MX2 will probably way overkill for most anything I throw at it.
For storage, one thing to look at is to price out SATA cards. If you're focusing on OS X, 4-port cards that support big disks should be pretty cheap, the 9-compatible cards are likely to go for a little bit more and are AFAIK exclusively available in 2-port versions, and IIRC the cards themselves have a 2TB max volume limit.
SATA itself is faster than what the PCI link can do and most modern hard disks can saturate a gigabit or so, so in terms of raw transfer speed you really don't need a RAID. OS X should run reasonably on a modern hard disk.
The RAID idea is strictly because of the bombasticness of 2x 10,000 RPM SCSI drives and their ADHD seeking noise. For SATA, I'd skip any dedicated PCI cards and just use an IDE/SATA adapter of the secondary IDE connector on the cable. I figure the IDE bus would be saturated long before the SSD gets taxed. There's no practical need for IDE or SATA RAID. But is any of this hobby particularly practical though?
[*](lots of this depends on what you're using the machine for, if you wanted an OS X server, getting an X-compatible SATA card and slamming a small boot SSD and one or two 16TB data HDDs in could make sense, for example, but if you just want something as a client and aren't planning on anything data-intensive like a music/video collection, then maybe a midrange ~128-256 gig SSD is a better choice than a hard disk, esp. for OS X responsiveness because OS X shoudl benefit from it regardless)
This project is strictly a retro computer nostalgia build. The only real server aspect of this is the fact that it was sold as a server. So for me it's just a fun way to have all these OS snapshots in one machine.
[*](os9 max volume size is 2tb but max boot volume size is like 200gb so you'd end up with like 100gb boot+apps then [rest of disk] data, but non-boot disks can be a full 2tb)
Between OS 9 and 10.4, I like to think I won't run out of space for what I would be running from the 120gb Caviar. And so hopefully won't need worry about the 200gb ceiling.
[*](osx varies by version, 10.2/3 have 8tb max volumes and 10.4 has 16tb, either 10.8 or 10.6 expanded that again and in 10.6+ the volume limit for HFS+ is "higher than is currently practical on a single machine, even a really big one")
[*](os9 up to 2tb usb/fw HDDs, osx should work with bigger up to the limits above)
[*](the onboard IDE in this machine has a limit of "like 137 or so" gigs but honestly an IDE<>SATA adapter and a 128-gig SSD (or even a 256-gig SSD formatted down/short-stroked, which would give the SSD wear leveling room I suppose)
[*](or an IDE<> CF or SD adapter for OS9)
[*](if this is enough space your 18gb/7200rpm disk should actually be good enough for this machine, that's roughly contemporary with this machine anyway)
The 18gb Atlas drive did ship with this machine because of its server configuration. Absolutely era correct.
The OS X install are things I'll need to plan out a little bit. From Rhapsody DR1 through Panther, and all the pertinent software I want to install, I think I should fall under the 8gb boot ceiling.
For the SSD it would be mirroring the 120gb Caviar, so whatever is available in that size should be just fine. I like to think most modern SSDs to a decent job of wear leveling nowadays. :fingercrossing.emoji:
To make something that's good at both, you'll end up either optimizing for OS X and then be leaving most of the capability and capacity of the machine on the table while you're booted into 9, or you'll end up splitting the difference and making something that's not quite as good at OS X as it could be.
This is perhaps less fun but my general advice is that you probably don't need to tiptop it unless you want to cosplay what using the machine at the very end of its reasonable lifespan would have been. Cosplaying a PowerMac G4 owner in like 2010 could be fun, I suppose, but I'll admit I tend to get more out of cosplaying things in early-mid lifecycle, but but i'll also admit to liking the fact that SATA cards and 2TB hard disks are cheap, so it's kind of a preferences and aesthetics question, I suppose.
I agree that there will be some compromise for wanting to maintain OS 9 compatibility. Video card choice is certainly one of them. Radeon 9200 looks like the top-end for OS 9, and no ADC. But for what kind of gaming I do, that and later MacOS compatible Radeons are probably just wasted graphics power. But...
I take your point about "cosplaying" a machine. While I could go all out with top-end G4 processor upgrades. SATA cards in RAID arrays and bleeding edge graphics, it's not exactly goal -- at least for this machine. I like the challenge of balancing a budget upgrade with eeking a bit of extra power, and giving a sort of era correct approximation as to what a machine would operate like back then.