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Solid State Drive for G3?
- Thread starter Iamanamma
- Start date
The Beige G3 has a Parallel ATA (PATA) interface. There were (are?) some SSDs made with PATA interfaces, but they tend to be expensive for what you get.
I suggest you do one of two things.
1) Get a PATA to SATA adapter and buy a regular old SSD for the Beige G3.
2) Get a PATA to mSATA adapter and buy an mSATA drive for the Beige G3.
The first solution is cheaper. The second is more physically compact. Compactness probably doesn't matter, because at worst you're putting a 2.5" drive plus adapter into a 3.5" drive space.
Both solutions have the following potential issues.
1) Most adapters are fixed to Master. They do not have a jumper to switch between Master and Slave. So any second device on that PATA bus must be set to Slave. There are some models that are switchable and a very few that appear as Slaves.
2) My memory on this is hazy and someone else will probably chime in, but IIRC, the Beige G3 has issues with drives larger than 128GB on its built-in PATA busses. This isn't a problem for drives connected to a SCSI card, or for drives connected to a PCI PATA or SATA adapter.
The Beige G3's PATA bus is only 16 MB/s. So, if you want faster performance from your SSD, you will need to install a PATA or SATA card with Macintosh firmware. However, if durability is your only concern, then it doesn't matter.
I suggest you do one of two things.
1) Get a PATA to SATA adapter and buy a regular old SSD for the Beige G3.
2) Get a PATA to mSATA adapter and buy an mSATA drive for the Beige G3.
The first solution is cheaper. The second is more physically compact. Compactness probably doesn't matter, because at worst you're putting a 2.5" drive plus adapter into a 3.5" drive space.
Both solutions have the following potential issues.
1) Most adapters are fixed to Master. They do not have a jumper to switch between Master and Slave. So any second device on that PATA bus must be set to Slave. There are some models that are switchable and a very few that appear as Slaves.
2) My memory on this is hazy and someone else will probably chime in, but IIRC, the Beige G3 has issues with drives larger than 128GB on its built-in PATA busses. This isn't a problem for drives connected to a SCSI card, or for drives connected to a PCI PATA or SATA adapter.
The Beige G3's PATA bus is only 16 MB/s. So, if you want faster performance from your SSD, you will need to install a PATA or SATA card with Macintosh firmware. However, if durability is your only concern, then it doesn't matter.
Correct, unknowingly installing the drive from my QS in the BG3DT borked that drive but good.
Just put Compact Flash card/adapter on the funky single device 6500 IDE setup of my BenchMac and it works great. Not an SSD, but low cost alternative to do several of your Macs. I've used CF/PCMCIA adapters for PowerBook testing for many years, this is my first foray into Macs.
Recently, inexpensive PATA to SD adapters have surfaced on Amazon as well if that's a better option technically, dunno offhand. Haven't ordered one yet, has anyone tried them or know the merits of SD over CF?
I have done SCSI to SD on a IIsi. I would imagine PATA to SD would be a similar experience? @Trash80toHP_Mini Not sure what you mean by "my BenchMac." I have a couple of spare CF cards laying around, so if it's basically straight forward, I would be interested in giving that solution a try.
Another option for PCI-based Power Macs such as the beige G3 is SIL3112 based SATA cards that were either sold for Macs or have had a Mac-compatible ROM flashed onto them.
Slightly newer disks that aren't made by Quantum might also be enough. You'd have to be in a really hot environment (hot enough that it might be advisable not to run a computer at all) for a Beige G3 tower or desktop to kill a disk that wasn't already dying. (Though: rereading, dirty might be a more difficult thing, most of my machines are in a typical office or home interior type of setting, with, at most, regular dust.)
I would probably try a PATA/IDE to SD card adapter first, just because SD cards are widely available and inexpensive.
If you have known-good CF cards at hand, those would also be good.
Which of these options is "best" is widely dependent on what your budget is like and what your performance needs are like. In reality, Mac OS 9 is kind of bad at disk i/o and so a SATA card isn't going to get you an awful lot of, like, usability improvement over a CF card attached to the internal IDE bus. It is more convenient in terms of buying newer SSDs and things like 2TB spinning hard disks for very bulk data storage.
SD has settled into the mainstream and sort of prosumer space, with CF being a tier above that.
At this point, the main merit of SD over CF for vintage computer storage is 100% going to be its wide availability in a variety of sizes and speeds.
I still recommend getting the highest end SD card you can afford for applications such as this, even in the SCSI2SDv6, where the extra speed and performance helps more with consistency than in actual raw throughput, because the SCSI2SDs themselves aren't rated for even an eighth of what high end SD cards say on the tin they can do, in terms of transfer speed, but with how the SCSI2SD (both v5 family and v6) are using the card, a higher end card will have more consistent performance.
I'd like to try one for myself, and perhaps compare the performance (in numbers and in impressions) to a CF-based adapter. The advantage to CF/IDE adapters has long been that CF cards are typically natively ATA devices, so you're pretty much just doing pin adapting.
Slightly newer disks that aren't made by Quantum might also be enough. You'd have to be in a really hot environment (hot enough that it might be advisable not to run a computer at all) for a Beige G3 tower or desktop to kill a disk that wasn't already dying. (Though: rereading, dirty might be a more difficult thing, most of my machines are in a typical office or home interior type of setting, with, at most, regular dust.)
I would probably try a PATA/IDE to SD card adapter first, just because SD cards are widely available and inexpensive.
If you have known-good CF cards at hand, those would also be good.
Which of these options is "best" is widely dependent on what your budget is like and what your performance needs are like. In reality, Mac OS 9 is kind of bad at disk i/o and so a SATA card isn't going to get you an awful lot of, like, usability improvement over a CF card attached to the internal IDE bus. It is more convenient in terms of buying newer SSDs and things like 2TB spinning hard disks for very bulk data storage.
At this point, CF is a couple versions behind in its particular realm, there are two or three newer versions that use SATA and soon/now PCIe/NVMe links for the fastest possible speeds on super high end video and photog cameras that need it. (However, the very highest end cameras use what are essentially SATA SSDs.) (Actually I just checked and Blackmagic's newest cameras UHS-II SD and CFast slots, plus a USB TYpe C port for recording onto large external SSDs, such as those Samsung sells.)
SD has settled into the mainstream and sort of prosumer space, with CF being a tier above that.
At this point, the main merit of SD over CF for vintage computer storage is 100% going to be its wide availability in a variety of sizes and speeds.
I still recommend getting the highest end SD card you can afford for applications such as this, even in the SCSI2SDv6, where the extra speed and performance helps more with consistency than in actual raw throughput, because the SCSI2SDs themselves aren't rated for even an eighth of what high end SD cards say on the tin they can do, in terms of transfer speed, but with how the SCSI2SD (both v5 family and v6) are using the card, a higher end card will have more consistent performance.
I'd like to try one for myself, and perhaps compare the performance (in numbers and in impressions) to a CF-based adapter. The advantage to CF/IDE adapters has long been that CF cards are typically natively ATA devices, so you're pretty much just doing pin adapting.
the data or the drive? It shouldn't have ruined the entire drive, but, yeah, it would cause problems for the data or not be able to recognize it at all.
I am not looking for a massive performance boost. I am interested in keeping these old G3s running because they are rock solid at running OS 8.6, which is the most current version of the OS that on which our CNC programming software will work. Neither the programming software nor the CNC machine software has been updated in years. At least one of the G3 towers has a SCSI bus, so I could put a scsi2sd adapter in that one. It couldn't possibly be more difficult than putting one in a IIsi (I had some very fussy termination issues). The IIsi goes into the console of the CNC machine. It takes programs we use G3s to write, and uses them to tell the CNC Machine what it needs to do to makes parts. Thee IIsi can't use anything more modern than OS 7.1. We have 3 of these CNC machines, and I have replaced the SCSI drive in one with a scsi2sd adapter with an 8 GB SD card in it. The SCSI drives are are all either dead or suffering from terminal sticky-melted-bumper syndrome.
I don't know if the PATA drives will eventually be prone to bumper melt, but I would rather not find out. This summer was quite warm, and it was very hard on the old SCSI drives. With my IIsi success, the shop foreman is now asking about giving the G3s similar treatment.
I would like easy, my boss would like cheap. I don't know a heck of a lot about configuring jumper switches, so I would really rather not have to do that. I am going to explore the options you guys have given me. I will keep you posted. Thanks!
I don't know if the PATA drives will eventually be prone to bumper melt, but I would rather not find out. This summer was quite warm, and it was very hard on the old SCSI drives. With my IIsi success, the shop foreman is now asking about giving the G3s similar treatment.
I would like easy, my boss would like cheap. I don't know a heck of a lot about configuring jumper switches, so I would really rather not have to do that. I am going to explore the options you guys have given me. I will keep you posted. Thanks!
Guys, this https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/SSD/OWC/Mercury_Extreme_Pro/Legacy_Edition is cheaper than a scsi2sd!
All beige Power Macintosh G3s have SCSI onboard. If you have any blue-and-whites, an IDE adapter or a SATA card makes more sense.
One thing I will recommend is that if you do go with SCSI2SDs, the v6 is probably a worthwhile upgrade, especially for OS 8.6. (And: a SATA Card and a regular SATA SSD might be available less than those are currently selling for.)
I use 9.2.2 on an 8600/300 with a SCSI2SDv6 (with a relatively high end card) and it's fine, "pretty good" even, compared to 1997-era stock hard disks. However, that's a $130 or so solution, accounting for the high end 32-gig SD card I put in. I'm using it that way mostly because I happened to get an obscenely good deal on the SCSI2SD.
If I remember correctly, the G3s also have thermal interface material on their heat sinks, so in a particularly hot workshop type of environment, it might be worth taking the heatsink off and re-applying new thermal interface material.
G3s produce relatively low heat compared to modern mainstream desktop CPUs, so this on its own is probably enough to head off any problems.
One thing I will recommend is that if you do go with SCSI2SDs, the v6 is probably a worthwhile upgrade, especially for OS 8.6. (And: a SATA Card and a regular SATA SSD might be available less than those are currently selling for.)
I use 9.2.2 on an 8600/300 with a SCSI2SDv6 (with a relatively high end card) and it's fine, "pretty good" even, compared to 1997-era stock hard disks. However, that's a $130 or so solution, accounting for the high end 32-gig SD card I put in. I'm using it that way mostly because I happened to get an obscenely good deal on the SCSI2SD.
With that in mind, especially if you don't need more than that amount of space, it makes sense to grab a few of those. They'll almost certainly work perfectly for your need.
Have you looked into other maintenance, like blowing out the machines and power supplies with compressed air, making sure that airflow is good, perhaps replacing fans if they are wearing out, or if necessary adding higher-speed fans?
If I remember correctly, the G3s also have thermal interface material on their heat sinks, so in a particularly hot workshop type of environment, it might be worth taking the heatsink off and re-applying new thermal interface material.
G3s produce relatively low heat compared to modern mainstream desktop CPUs, so this on its own is probably enough to head off any problems.
I didn't know that. All of the units we have are beige, so I have options now!
No, I don't need a ton of space. The software we use on them doesn't take up a ton of space, and we have stored thousands of the the programs on smaller hard drives.
I was always told not to blow out power supplies with compressed air? I do blow out the insides occasionally. Thanks for the tips, I never thought about the fans (dumb, in retrospect!) so I should start looking for some spares.
Can you partition the drive and fool it into thinking you have 2 smaller drives?
Hm. Perhaps wait for someone else to see what they say, I'll admit I don't do this myself, at least not with compressed air, I have a household vacuum cleaner and I'll get dust out of cases and power supplies with that sometimes.
As far as I know, no. The issue trag is talking about (which affects most Power Macintosh G4 models, as well) can't be resolved that way. It's a limitation in IDE, in particular, and it was addressed in new controllers starting in approximately 2002 or 2003.
For a while in the early-mid 2000s, there was some You either need to work around it in software another way, or use only the first ~120-128ish gigs or so of the disk.
Other technologies like USB, and Firewire, SATA, and SCSI, can support larger volumes with no problem, though. However: the maximum disk/partition limit on OS9 is 2TB.
Don't remember, but I need to revisit the problem. My DiskWarrior CD has been MIA for far too long. I got it boxed in the day, time to download a backup copy to burn at this point.
I'm pretty sure OWC has just done the work of putting a PATA to SATA adapter together with either a conventional SSD or an mSATA drive installed in their case. If you want a turn-key solution, that's probably a good option. You can probably save a considerable amount by rolling your own.
Looking more closely, you could save a bundle on the larger sizes (240GB and 480GB) but the 60GB and 120GB are only getting a $10 - $20 premium. And presumably, OWC has done the work of selecting a reliable PATA to SATA adapter for you, which is no small thing.
The adapter/cables/case are about $15 - $40 worth of stuff. SATA SSDs are in this ballpark right now, according to Newegg:
128GB <$25
240GB <$35
480GB <$50
1TB <$100
There are a dizzying array of adapter choices available out there. It is simplified, somewhat, by all of them being based on one of the available adapter chips, and there are only a double handful of chips to choose from. Still, paying OWC a sawbuck to do that research for you is probably worth it.
The last four items on this list will get you a 120GB SSD conversion for under $40 and they're all available from Newegg. Note, the adapter I listed is just an example, not a recommendation. OWC's 120GB solution is only $20 and comes pre-assembled with the adapter choice already made for you.
Here are just a few of the types of adapters available:
2.5" PATA to mSATA SSD. This one has a Master/Slave jumper. Would require a 3.5" to 2.5" adapter as the PATA cabling for 3.5" and 2.5" drives is a little different and the Beige has cabling for 3.5".
[SIZE=11pt]https://www.amazon.com/dp/B017VQT5YW/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_U_6X6IDbDCSMB2B[/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]Similar to above, but without the Master/Slave jumper. Also, about 2/5 the price.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0773NJL3W/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_U_r46IDb4K1EHHQ[/SIZE]
Plain, vanilla PATA to SATA adapter with one nice twist. Plugs directly into the PATA interface on your motherboard and provides two SATA ports. This adapter takes care of the Master/Slave issue, unless what you wanted was one SATA device and one PATA device. This device provides two SATA ports.
[SIZE=11pt]https://www.amazon.com/dp/B001H3CW00/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_U_KY6IDbQN9CNX4[/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]However, from the photo, this one seems to be based on the SPIF-223 chip, and this resource (reliability?) suggests that adapters based on that chip are problematical. [/SIZE]https://msfn.org/board/topic/152483-sata-to-ide-adapters-whichwhatwhy/
This is an example of the most basic PATA to SATA adapter, which can also be used in SATA to PATA mode. $4 total, shipped. Combine with an inexpensive SSD and you're done for under $50.
https://www.newegg.com/p/2BH-000B-00002?Description=PATA to SATA adapter&amp;cm_re=PATA_to_SATA_adapter-_-2BH-000B-00002-_-Product
$25 120GB SSD that you can use with the previous $4 adapter. You might need some cables.
https://www.newegg.com/kingston-q500-120gb/p/0ZK-01M8-00349
PATA to SATA Power connector adapter. $1.50
https://www.newegg.com/p/0ZF-003B-00031?Description=PATA to SATA adapter&amp;cm_re=PATA_to_SATA_adapter-_-0ZF-003B-00031-_-Product
SATA cable (adapter to SSD) for $3.50
https://www.newegg.com/p/N82E16812422652?Description=SATA cable&amp;cm_re=SATA_cable-_-12-422-652-_-Product
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Baby steps here Trag! I am very new to dealing with these sort of things. I decided to go with the 120GB option from OWC for two reasons: OWC has a very good reputation, and like you said, it's no small bit of work to figure all of the compatibility issues out on my own. I went with the 120 GB option because of the reported issues with beige g3s and drives larger than 128 GB. I figure I can start small with a solution already assembled for me, for less money than I spend on scsi2sd. Then I can experiment with doing more myself as I gain confidence. BTW, I just received, configured, and installed my second scsi2sd adpater today. It went so much more easily this time, since I learned so much from the first time stumbling through it! I have at least 2 g3s needing some tlc, so I am really excited to see how this first PATA to SATA SSD installation goes. I did buy a PATA to SATA converter that was on clearance, but it says you are supposed to plug it into your SATA drive, not the MB. I am going to check out the option you mentioned where you plug it into the board, allowing 2 SATA connections without the Master/Slave hassle. Having extra storage never hurts!
Hi guys, I received the SSD with SATA-IDE Converter. Any idea on what I can use to secure it to the upside down cradle in the beige g3 tower? The SSD arrived mounted to a small plate, but even if I take it off of the plate, none of the holes match up to the existing cradle. Everything else looks pretty straight forward.
Most computer stores should stock adapters for mounting a SSD in a 3.5" bracket
Or, in a pinch, if you have any of that double sided foam tape, you could stick it to the bracket with that?
Sometime last year, when I was trying to stuff more drives than I had bays for in one of my PCs, I stuck one of the drives on the bottom of the case with some of that tape, and it worked really well.
c
Sometime last year, when I was trying to stuff more drives than I had bays for in one of my PCs, I stuck one of the drives on the bottom of the case with some of that tape, and it worked really well.
c
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