i just bought the Samsung 860 EVO
256Mb ram on an os9 machine isnt as bad as it sounds
os9 doesnt need much ram compared to osx or windows (xp, 7)
ram for a g4 is cheap as hell if not Free at this point
Got 2 GB RAM from the States and the SAS card from Russia.
The 2 GB RAM works fine, the SAS card unfortunately is for G5 only.
Stupid me, did not pay attention that the card voltage is not compatible with G4, only with G5.
Otherwise the card is good - but the bad news: no SAS driver for MacOS 9, unless there is somewhere an LSI SAS card which fits the G4.
The number of such 64-bit cards is quite limited:
- All Marvell 6042, 6084, 6081 based cards. The best chip is 88SX6042
- SImage 3124
- "Frodo" Broadcom 5770, same chip as sold inside of G5 under nickname of "K2"
- The known and very much limited in numbers Intel / Vitesse 7184
- Many LSI Fibre cards! They do not have MacOS 9 SIM, but the LSI architecture is very open, writing a SIM is feasible
The most common 64-bit card is either SImage 3124 or the Frodo. Frodo is even cheaper and I have the full programmer's manual for Frodo, flashing included.
For starters anyone can buy a Frodo card of eBay
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Broadcom-RAIDCore-BC4000-Series-SATA-RAID-Controller-Card-BC4452/183381200702and modify the K2 driver's plist (for hackers) or just change and compile one from open source (Darwin) for programmers.
Try the above card for offering the seller 15 Bucks.
You can't get wrong on that.
The FCode would be easy: it has both advanced SATA and regular quasi-ATA interface.
For FCode the quasi-ATA interface is perfect, I think Apple does use it in their K2 code, they don't go more "native" than that.
For MacOS-"9" a quasi ATA still better than nothing.
Frodo is perfect for an extra 2 drives inside and 4 going outside.