Solid State Drive for G3?

[Phil168]

For what it's worth I'm not using any SCSI device at all in my beige g3. It boots from a 120gb ssd (partitioned as 4g,4g,50g,60g) through a SATA-IDE bridge and the CDROM is an IDE cdrw model I grabbed from an old G4 tower. You should be able to install a wide range of old generic IDE cdroms i think. I would save the expensive SCSI2SD for an older Mac without IDE.

Thanks for sharing this info. Is there any specific reason for partitioning the drive 4g,4g,50g,60g? Thanks.

 

[Cory5412]

Beige G3s are commonly thought of to have  some kind of bug or error or weird behavior that causes bad behavior if you boot from some partition that's not within the first 8GB, so if I had to guess, that's dual booting.

HFS+ itself has much higher volume limits, although Classic Mac OS does need to be on a volume under 200GB to boot reliably. (There's also issues like IDE controllers before a certain part not working/well/consistently with >128GB disks.)

 

[jimjimx]

Beige G3s are commonly thought of to have  some kind of bug or error or weird behavior that causes bad behavior if you boot from some partition that's not within the first 8GB, so if I had to guess, that's dual booting.

HFS+ itself has much higher volume limits, although Classic Mac OS does need to be on a volume under 200GB to boot reliably. (There's also issues like IDE controllers before a certain part not working/well/consistently with >128GB disks.)

I do know that OS 10 needs to be in the 1st 8GB, and os 9 can be anywhere else. I’ve done this on a DT, and AIO, but not yet with SSD...  Soon, as I need to get rid of the DT, and want it working with an SSD. 

 

[jimjimx]

What’s your current state?

Is it working?

 

[Iamanamma]

What’s your current state?

Is it working?

I gave up on the SSD.  I could never get it to work properly.  I don't know if I had a bad SATA to PATA adapter or a bad SSD or if there was something else I was missing. I did have a bit of success with a SCSI2SD.  There's another post on these forums where I am asking how to get rid of the bizarre hangs I was experiencing with the SCS2SD.  I finally figured out what was causing them, and now it's working like a champ. 

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

I found something interesting: mSATA SSD to 2.5-Inch IDE Adapter Converter with Aluminum Frame Bracket

WAG here is that an adapter for mSATA would be more useful all around for the future and the conversion more mature and more reliable in implementation? One can wish, useful in my 'Books and dumb adapted to 3.5" form factor.

 

[Cory5412]

mSATA is dead end as a technology as far as I know, m.2 having replaced it and conventional cabled SATA sticking around in desktop stuff for low end and bulk types of storage applications, but they do seem fairly commonly available still in reasonable sizes (32/64/128 would be appropriate for most vintage mac contexts.)

3.5-inch IDE to (cabled) SATA Adapters exist, but I haven't personally had good luck with them. I might look for some other options at some point.

 

[Torbar]

I found something interesting: mSATA SSD to 2.5-Inch IDE Adapter Converter with Aluminum Frame Bracket



WAG here is that an adapter for mSATA would be more useful all around for the future and the conversion more mature and more reliable in implementation? One can wish, useful in my 'Books and dumb adapted to 3.5" form factor.

I'm running something similar in my G3 wallstreet right now

This MSATA to 2.5 adapter - https://www.amazon.com/mSATA-44pin-Notebook-Laptop-Enclosure/dp/B01GRMUQRG/ref=pb_allspark_session_sims_desktop_147_3/132-4666466-5741617?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B01GRMUQRG&pd_rd_r=b8cea2cc-0f30-4312-9904-168d53a04931&pd_rd_w=NSwgW&pd_rd_wg=Rnoab&pf_rd_p=e500004d-dce5-4973-9afd-bba519c83f08&pf_rd_r=BJ7WR0Z053PXV77T0B7C&psc=1&refRID=BJ7WR0Z053PXV77T0B7C

And this MSATA Drive - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B074FR3M1K/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

for a while I had it in my G4 graphite tower using this 2.5 to 3.5 IDE/PATA adapter - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07R4WKDCP/ref=dp_cerb_1

 

[Fizzbinn]

I found something interesting: mSATA SSD to 2.5-Inch IDE Adapter Converter with Aluminum Frame Bracket



WAG here is that an adapter for mSATA would be more useful all around for the future and the conversion more mature and more reliable in implementation? One can wish, useful in my 'Books and dumb adapted to 3.5" form factor.

I have a bunch of these, in my PowerBook 2400c, PowerBook G3 Pismo, iBook G4, and Mac mini G4. I use relatively cheap $20-$30 new mSATA cards from vendors I trust, mostly Transcend. Most of the IDE SSD drives I've found are brands I don't know anything about or pretty old used units from vendors I do know/trust but wonder about wear...

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

@Torbar thanks for the lead:

That nice plastic case at $13.88 is fine as I don't need one,  The $31.99 job with the slick metal case is overkill I think. How much heat can an mSATA drive produce?

@Fizzbinn great to hear these are working well in your 'Books, do you find them more reliable than other HDD replacements? I wonder what level ATA they support?So far I've only used CF adapters which have been fine, but are getting pretty long in the tooth. I'm thinking an mSATA adapter would support higher ATA spec. transfer rates when the hardware supports it?

It's great to hear these are working well

 

[Fizzbinn]

@Fizzbinn great to hear these are working well in your 'Books, do you find them more reliable than other HDD replacements? I wonder what level ATA they support?So far I've only used CF adapters which have been fine, but are getting pretty long in the tooth. I'm thinking an mSATA adapter would support higher ATA spec. transfer rates when the hardware supports it?

I don't have any experience with other mSATA to PATA/IDE adapters. The Ableconn  mSATA SSD to 2.5-Inch IDE Adapter Converter with Aluminum Frame Bracket adapter lists the ATA levels it supports on the Amazon page, it's quite specific:

* Convert Full Size mSATA SSD to High Performance, No Noise, Low Power 44Pin 2.5” IDE SSD 
* Supports SATA I, SATA II and SATA III (6Gbps) mSATA SSD 
* Latch type mSATA connector on board, no need the screw to retain mSATA SSD 
* 100% Compatible with 2.5” IDE drive mechanical spec 
* 48 bits LBA can Break Capacity-Limit to Support mSATA SSD max 144,115,188GB 
* Compliant with Serial ATA 2.6 
* Jumper setting support IDE Master, Slave and Cable Select Modes 
* Tag Command Queuing (Max 32 entries) 
* ATA/ATAPI PIO mode data transfer 
* ATA/ATAPI UDMA data transfer rate of 150, 133, 100, 66, 44, 33, 25, 16.7 MB/s 
* ATA/ATAPI-7 Streaming feature set 
* Includes 9.5mm height 2.5 “ drive metal frame with 8 mounting holes and 4 HDD screws 
* Dimension of PCBA with 2.5” frame : 98mm x 69.85mm x 9.5mm 
* Fully RoHS compliant 
* Made in Taiwan

In the Amazon reviews/comments at least one user commented on compatibility that is better than the other "generic white ebay adapters typically have the JMicron chipset in them which causes a lot of compatibility in issues between certain laptops and msata drives". Not sure if that applies to any Macs or not but I didn't want to risk it.

I did test it in my PowerBook 1400 and it didn't work quite right. I ended up using a PATA/IDE to CF adapter in my 1400. I think this has to do with the 1400 using a very limited PATA/IDE implementation. 

If anyone is interested in bechmarks I could run some on the machines I have if there is interest. 

 

[Phil168]

I gave up on the SSD.  I could never get it to work properly.  I don't know if I had a bad SATA to PATA adapter or a bad SSD or if there was something else I was missing.

Don't give up! I just installed the same OWC kit you have (120GB Mercury Pro SSD and Addonics adapter) in my Beige G3 minitower. The minitower boots up from the SSD without any problem, although it does take a while to start.

Took me a while and with much help from Cory5412. The earlier problem you had with no video is not a video problem. It's with the IDE adapter. I had the same problem with the video until I changed the setting on the IDE adapter to slave. Not sure why it's got to be slave but that's how I got it to boot up.

Here's what I did:

1. Replaced the old 40 wire cable with an 80 wire cable I got from Ebay. Had to drill a small hole in the connector as described by error1 to connect it to the motherboard.

2. Removed the SSD from the OWC bracket, mounted it on a Corsair Dual SSD Bracket and was able to attach it to the minitower HD bracket. I changed the Addonics adapter jumper setting from Master to Slave and connected it to the SSD.

3. Then copied a minimal 8.6 system folder with Drive Setup to a zip disk and was able to boot up from the zip.

4. Once in, I was able to format the 120GB SSD (without any partitions) with Drive Setup. Copied the minimal 8.6 to the SSD, selected it as Startup disk and restarted. And it worked! The boot process may take a while so you'll have to wait. Mine takes several minutes to boot up. Still can't figure out it takes so long.

Actually, the whole process wasn't as smooth as I described, but that's how I got it to work eventually. The breakthrough came when I changed the setting on the IDE adapter to Slave. That's probably the most important part. I was stumped for several days until I decided to mess with the jumper settings.

Incidentally, I found that the IDE adapter in the OWC legacy kit is identical to this one on Amazon.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B017VQSXJK/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

If you want to read my exchange with Cory5412, here's part of the thread:

 

[Iamanamma]

Here's what I did:

Thanks!  I'll have to mess with it some more once I get the chance.