Which flash storage is best for a Powerbook G4?

[mac-man6]

The good news is that my "broken" PowerBook G4 1.67ghz 15" isn't broken at all! The last time couple of times I reassembled it I must have detached the upper case connector and therefore power button. The computer seemed dead as a doornail but it turns out it wasn't getting the signal.

So that saves me buying a replacement board off eBay but now I'm thinking of what is the best way to speed up this old girl. The ram is maxed out and I like the idea of a wicked fast legacy PPC. I can't remember what I did with the 100gb IDE drive and now I'm stuck with 20gb 2mb cache drives. With lots of paging I'm assuming an SD or compact flash adapter wouldn't be good. The cheapest option are the KingSpec and Zheino IDE drives but they seem cheap/not reliable.

I'm open to suggestions, are SD/compact cards and adapter worth it? Can you trust a eBay flash drive (KingSpec Zheino)? Or do I have to not go cheap and get the OWC IDE SSDs?

 

[Byrd]

Hi mac-man6,

those Kingspec IDE drives do look a bit dodgy - and you couldn't guarantee their ongoing reliability.  I'd look into a mSata to IDE 2.5" enclosure coupled with a Toshiba/Kingston/good brand 30/60/120GB mSata drive.  I'm planning on putting the same in my TAM, once prices of ~ 120GB mSata drives drop a little more.

JB

 

[TheWhiteFalcon]

I'd likewise recommend an mSATA to IDE adapter.

 

[dibenga]

Ive had much success with SCSI2SD adapters running Mac OS7 era. BUt do the newer OS 9 and 10 and beyond offer too much 'disk access' to render SD and CF media unusable? I've heard rumor that that excessive read-write is not good for flash based memory. Is this true?

 

[360alaska]

CF to IDE? I have one in my 1GHZ titanium powerbook and it's very fast...

 

[dibenga]

Yeah I have one in my 1400 as well and it's so zippy. But my concern is how soon will a modern OS burn out one of these cards due to read/write

 

[Gorgonops]

Read isn't the problem, write is. And as to how long a CF or SD card would last with OS X on it, well, that's almost impossible for someone else to tell you because how hard you'll be hitting the card with writes depends crucially on what your usage patterns are, what software you're running, etc.

The most popular computer out there that uses cheap consumer flash memory (an SD card) for primary storage is the Raspberry Pi, and the general rumble is that unless you take precautions (noatime, disabling swap, etc.) a machine that's running "constantly" can destroy a card in anywhere from a month or two to a year or so. (Depending on the card, exactly what you're running, dumb luck, etc.) Of course, there are also people out there that say their Pi's been running with the same card since before science existed so, really, probably the only way for you to know for sure how long a given card will last for you would be to try it.

 

[mac-man6]

I don't use the PowerBook often and do not need a huge storage capacity. I've never thought of the mSata/IDE route. After some quick googling I found most adapters were $20-$30 (reasonable) but the mSata drives were much more and the larger 60gb-200gb modules. The whole package would be roughly $60-$120 which is a bit too expensive. Is there a place to find new lower capacity drives (8gb-20gb) or is the used market my only route?

 

[macgeek18]

Never even heard of the IDE-MSATA adapter. Just bought one and a 120GB MSATA for my PBG4.

 

[TheWhiteFalcon]

Most adapters are like $5, not $30. Where are you shopping?

 

[butterburger]

Can you trust a eBay flash drive (KingSpec Zheino)? Or do I have to not go cheap and get the OWC IDE SSDs?

No and no. To fit your own "adapter" assembly is better than both "eBay flash drive" & "OWC SSD". (Unless you want only one piece in one shipment.)

Many times in ThinkPadland, individuals purchased and were disappointed with KingSpec drives. I discourage purchase of KingSpec, and encourage using first-rate CompactFlash cards.

Do you know what is inside OWC Mercury Legacy Pro SSD? Five years ago, it was their µSATA drive plus JMicron chip ATA-ATA bridge. This according to two sources: JDW's letter from OWC and Tom's Hardware France. OWC's compatibility list 'The Mercury Legacy Pro is compatible with' might be a lie, as JDW found (the hard way) in dealing with OWC.

Personally, I am sick and tired of SATA. I think translating one ATA transport to another ATA transport transparently is bound to fail, and a perfect bridge chip is pie in the sky. But for those who insist, I suggest LyCOM ST-173: a modular mSATA (mini SATA, JEDEC MO-300A) to PATA bridge (contains Marvel 88SA8052) which retrofits 2.5-inch-formfactor drive pretty well. Its rebrands include Addonics, Aleratec, Kuroutoshikou, LINDY, Delock, Ableconn. In Bill Morrow's ThinkPad forum, Johan assembled a big list of LyCOM ST-173 user's reports.

BUt do the newer OS 9 and 10 and beyond offer too much 'disk access' to render SD and CF media unusable?

OS X makes a magnitude more accesses to filesystems than OS 9. Mac OS X is a world apart from earlier Mac, classic personal computer operating system software. And OS 9 accesses disc more than classicer System Software (6 and earlier, which were designed to run from floppy as system volume).

 

[mac-man6]

Most adapters are like $5, not $30. Where are you shopping?

Newegg Canada http://www.newegg.ca/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&DEPA=0&Order=BESTMATCH&Description=msata+ide&N=-1&isNodeId=1

Our dollar took a hit when the price of oil went down. I did another check on Amazon Canada and found a $6 adapter, so that's cool. Where's a cheap place to buy mSata drives?

 

[asaggynoodle]

Those adapters are about 2x as much as you should be paying on the Bay. Go with an mSATA to IDE adapter. They will give you the best speeds since they are UMDA7, and lowest access latencys you're going to get in that machine. You can get mSata SSD's probably cheaper than anything other than SD per GB. Plus, an mSATA is going to last a lot longer since the NAND is designed for much higher use than an CF card. Not to mention, a high speed large capacity CF card is going to set you back a large amount of money compared to the mSATA alternative. If I was in your shoes, I'd get an IDE SATA adapter and replace the Disk drive, and an adapter for the HDD drive, then get a pair of matching SSD's. Then setup RAID-0 on the two disks before install. Even with the IDE limitation I'd be willing to bet you'd be hitting that 250-350MB/s transfer speed. Which is probably 5-7x the drive you have now, or instant application opening/closing. I'd be willing to say you could get all of that, and two matching ~64GB SSD's for under ~$100.

 

[mac-man6]

I bought some items after doing some research. My test machine was a ThinkPad T21 and any incite gained from this experience would have been put towards the PowerBook but what I bought is just not working properly. 

I bought a Syba IDE/CF adapter and a Kingston CF card. The first adapter was defective but the second one seems to work better but it's not still booting. During a Windows XP installation the drive can be formatted but the installer hangs while "waiting for the C drive", the hard drive access light is a constant green. I also have had it hang just after a formatting. Ubuntu will freeze while loading the live CD, there's a mention ACPI cutoff, even with the set ACPI set off it still hangs. I've tried using a Canon FC-32MH card just to see if there's a difference but it doesn't matter. Today I cloned the Windows XP installation from a working 44pin drive to the Syba using Macrium Reflect Free edition with no luck.

I'm looking for any help that might get this thing working.

-How can I tell in WinXP, Win 7 or OSX if the CF card is showing up as fixed or removable?

-Can it be the cards? I would rather it be the adapter because the card isn't returnable and the adapter is.

-Which CF adapters have you used? There's plenty on Amazon that are 1/4 the price but they all seem generic.

 

[butterburger]

Smartmontools release 6 smartctl beautifully presents IDENTIFY data (smartctl --identify=wv). It is one of my favourite programs, ever. I used it plenty of times in Microsoft Windows, yes. Also hdparm is a good IDENTIFYer program (but not as good as smartctl). It is possibly a card's fault, yes. Did you try both sockets?

 

[asaggynoodle]

I bought a Syba IDE/CF adapter and a Kingston CF card. / I'm looking for any help that might get this thing working.

I'd had the same Syba drive as you did, I could never get it to work. My thoughts are that it has two IDE channels but most machines don't support that. I bought the single CF slot, smaller form factor one and that worked right away.

 

[mac-man6]

Huh, that makes a lot of sense. An annoying thing was that all my USB/IDE adapters had 1 specific pin blocked out, but this adapter had all 44 pins,  so I couldn't test it without 2.5"-3.5" adapter. I've purchased another adapter but for the much more reasonable price of $3. I'll post back with feedback once it arrives. I can benchmark it if anyone is interested.

 

[LazarusNine]

Let us know how you get on. I had a similar issue with one of my first adapters and I think I ultimately ended up with the more expensive StarTech 2-slot adapter, which works wonderfully. I also made the initial mistake of not using a UDMA CF card. My setup is with a Bronze Keyboard PB. Basically, there's a limit to what I'm willing to invest into an older machine (unless it's a classic Mac), and the CF/IDE solution seems to be a happy medium. I've recently tried the SD/IDE method and wouldn't recommend it.

 

[asaggynoodle]

Let us know how you get on. I had a similar issue with one of my first adapters and I think I ultimately ended up with the more expensive StarTech 2-slot adapter, which works wonderfully. I also made the initial mistake of not using a UDMA CF card. My setup is with a Bronze Keyboard PB. Basically, there's a limit to what I'm willing to invest into an older machine (unless it's a classic Mac), and the CF/IDE solution seems to be a happy medium. I've recently tried the SD/IDE method and wouldn't recommend it.

Curious as to why you'd not recommend the SD option? For the money they seem to be the best option in terms of Cost/MBs/GB, I mean you can get a 64GB UHS-3 1066x SD card for around @$25. I'd be willing to believe it depends on the actual controller chipset that's used on the adapter. A lot of the cheaper ones max out at around 20MB/s due to the horrible chipset controllers that are used. But some of the newer ones have compatibility issues with older IDE controllers.  Food for thought.