Adding 2nd SSD to Mac Mini G4 in place of optical drive.

[ssp3]

Has anyone of you ever tried replacing the optical drive in Mac Mini with SSD adapter like this one? If so, how are the speeds?
My understanding is that in Mac Mini both drives are on the same ATA-100 bus and CD/DVD drive is set as cable-select device 1.

[rvense]

I haven't done it on a Mac Mini, but years ago I transplanted one into a Lombard CD drive module, and that works fine.

[IIO]

it is on my to do list, but atm i dont have the two G4 minis for audio in order/dont use them.

(it is on my to do list for the dell notebook as well.)

regarding speed, no idea. but it is probably a very good idea when you cant connect something external bc the firewire is occupied by other stuff, and last but not least of course when you plan to double boot.

is such a special case really required? i would try it without first.

[DieHard]

I was going to try this, but never had the time

I then opted to forget it since I was loading DAW stuff and needed the CD drive for authorizations

[ssp3]

Long story short, I ordered two on Ali and received them today. The caddy is working, although only in combination with "red" Delock adapter that is set to 'Cable select'. All other master/slave combinations produce no boot. With JMicron "green" adapters there is no go. That's pitty, I hoped to get away with two cheap chinese adapters and naked 2.5" SSD drives

The chip used is unknown to me. Speeds are identical to what one gets with JMicron adapters.

EDIT. The bridge chip is marked as follows:

IDE / SATA
    DOF
B76ZZ0041  <- that's date code

It is the same chip that is used on RXD-629A7-7 adapter that got praised here:
http://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php/topic,5436.0.html

/EDIT

Does anyone know where the CD drive gets set to cable select in Mini? Is it on the motherboard or on the riser board? If one could change that to master/slave, there's a chance that  "green" chinese adapters will work too.

If you want pictures/screensots, let me know.

[ssp3]

Copied this over from the other thread, so that all information is in one place.

I remember reading somewhere that the CD/DVD drive in Mini is factory configured as Device 1 (slave) with Cable Select, whatever that means. That would correspond to the configuration on the left.




I assume, the Cable Select is set somewhere on the motherboard or on a so called Interconnect Board.
It all works fine as DVD and HDD (SSD) combo, but, if you put a chinese JMicron 20330 or "IDE/SATA DOF" chip based adapters, which support master/slave configuration but not cable select (as per datasheet) and are mostly configured as master by the manufacturer, in place of DVD drive, you mess up all settings.
The only way to make the 2 drive configuration to work in Mac Mini is to put an adapter that supports Cable Select and is set so in place of original HDD.

Unfortunately, only "red" Marvell based adapters have that option and they are only available for mSATA drives.
I haven't seen any for M.2 SATA or 2.5" drives (which I love to run "naked", btw. , there are some gems amongst them out there..)

When testing the CD caddy adapter alone, it showed up on a bus as Device 0 (master).
With Delock adapter in place of original HDD and set to Cable Select, the drive in CD caddy remained as Device 0 and drive on Delock adapter became Device 1 (slave), which is logical, because the drive in CD caddy is at the end of the "cable".


In Mac Mini G4 both drives - DVD and HDD are on the same ATA-100 bus.

[robespierre]

Cable select means that the drive takes its address from pin 28, -CSEL. The standard PC ATA cable uses a twist so that pin 28 is not connected to one of the two drive connectors. This provides a type of geographic addressing to make it unnecessary to set the address using jumpers.

A SATA cable cannot connect to two drives the way a PATA cable does, so there are no address jumpers on SATA devices, nor is there pin for cable select in the SATA cable.

[DieHard]

I remember reading somewhere that the CD/DVD drive in Mini is factory configured as Device 1 (slave) with Cable Select, whatever that means.

When is "Cable Select" mode there is NO way to add the extra option of "Master" or "Slave" so the above statement is an Oxymoron and not possible.

So as Rob explained, the Cable determines the setting to Master or Slave. AFAIR the end of the cable is Master and the 2nd connector is slave.

[ssp3]

Ok, the wording in Apple's Mac Mini Developer Note is somewhat different. There's no need to start nitpicking

The Combo drive is cable-select as device 1 on the ATA port.

http://web.archive.org/web/20090408093624if_/http://developer.apple.com/documentation/Hardware/Developer_Notes/Macintosh_CPUs-G4/MacMiniG4/3Input-Output/q88_inout.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40001865-CH207-BBCEBJGG

P.S. Anyone have this Dev. Note as PDF?

[robespierre]

The Combo drive is cable-select as device 1 on the ATA port.

What it means is that the cable assembly does not connect to pin 28 of the drive connector, leaving it floating. The drive has a weak pull-up on that pin, so it assigns the drive to address 1 ("slave").

The ATA standard specifies that the host (the "motherboard") always grounds this line. The construction of the cable is what determines the assignment of addresses to each drive. That's why it's called cable select and not something else.

[ssp3]

The Combo drive is cable-select as device 1 on the ATA port.

What it means is that the cable assembly does not connect to pin 28 of the drive connector, leaving it floating. The drive has a weak pull-up on that pin, so it assigns the drive to address 1 ("slave").

Pin 28 is left floating on all chinese "green" adapters that I have (5 different models, not counting CD caddy adapter), yet the drive on such adapter showed up on a Mini ATA bus as Device 0 (master) in my tests. See below.
Care to explain why it was so?