Mac OS 9 Lives

Classic Mac OS Hardware => Storage => Topic started by: Woogetybop on April 05, 2019, 01:36:49 PM

Title: 1TB SSD on a PowerBook G4 Wow!!
Post by: Woogetybop on April 05, 2019, 01:36:49 PM
More storage than I need, but lots of room to play, and see if this would work on a Mac OS9 and OSX PowerBook G4 1.0ghz Ti
After studying all the drive/SSD options. Many are getting dated. The M.2 SSD’s are price competitive with 2.5” SSD’s. They can be faster, but ide pata interface controls maximum r/w speeds. So I shopped around and found this.

https://m.aliexpress.com/item/32798017224.html?pid=808_0000_0101&spm=a2g0n.search-amp.list.32798017224&aff_trace_key=c18b5f82e2c54320806a75bad870490f-1552660078433-05458-UneMJZVf&aff_platform=msite&m_page_id=3320amp-30oCCokY_P_LdAVTQs9Ywg1554508851899

eBay also has lots of vendors selling these same m.2 SSD to 44 pin IDE adapters, just costs more.
Going with m.2 SSD also gives the best price to storage GB ratio.

For M.2 SSD I went with this:

WD Blue 3D NAND 1TB Internal SSD - SATA III 6Gb/s M.2 2280 Solid State Drive - WDS100T2B0B

The setup:

I first got out my OSX install disk and partitioned the SSD. I stuck with guide lines here of 120gb for OS9 boot volume and 190gb for the other 4 volumes, plus 50gb left over to be left blank for Trim garbage collection space and to copy files between OSX and OS9. To be formatted blank after file copies.

As I learned after the fact from my own experiences and then studying more on the subject. I learned that even though I have a laptop designed by Apple to boot both Mac OS 9 and OS X.
The two operating systems don’t play nice together. OSX has a habit of indexing all drives it sees and writing extra stuff that OS9 doesn’t deal with, causing eventual volume failure . I understand perfectly why Diehard doesn’t put both systems on the same computer. However I’m more into this as a hobbyist and not using it as a work tool.

So I setup OSX Leopard with WebKit for web browsing and found it works very well. Then network copied all the data files from my 10.14 Mac to 10.5 Mac. Apple file protocol still works between the two. Then with files copied with OS9 system. I booted into OS9 and discovered that Disk First Aid showed volume directory errors. So I initialized each of the volumes under OS9. All error free at this point. As I moved files around I also discovered OS9 boots just fine off of any of the 190gb volumes I have. All was good until I went back to booting OSX. So after more reading this is what I did:

I shut off spotlight indexing of all OS9 volumes. Also stopped time machine from looking at or using them. Then used a app called platypus V4.4 to create an application to be used on startup to Unmount all OS9 volumes except my 50gb trim volume that I keep blank and for copying files from OSX to OS9. I copy files from OSX or network to trim volume. Boot into OS9. Copy from trim volume to where I want it, then initialize trim volume blank again.
Title: Re: 1TB SSD on a PowerBook G4 Wow!!
Post by: refinery on April 05, 2019, 01:46:26 PM
nice! very good stuff


honestly on our older G4 machines and such, read/write speeds dont really matter, since the best we're ever gonna get is SATA-1 speeds.

What does make a difference however, is IOPS. This is paid less attention to but makes a huge difference in performance for our older machines.
SATA has a speed limit, but it does not have an IOPS limit... so even though it may only be a 150MB/sec connection... if the drive can only handle so many IOPS, then the speed benefits may not be fully realized. A drive with a high IOPS will seem "faster" because it can simultaneously read/write more files.

THis is also usually the culprit when people say they dont see the big performance gains that one would expect when upgrading to an SSD from a spinner... usually because they've bought a cheap drive with low IOPS. Drives like Samsung Pros have insanely high IOPS counts and you can see the difference much more in real-world usage.
Title: Re: 1TB SSD on a PowerBook G4 Wow!!
Post by: Woogetybop on April 05, 2019, 03:45:26 PM
Ya!
That’s another reason I went with the newest technology for better IOPS and durability. 1.75 million hours and 3 year limited warranty.  ;)

I noticed you have the same PowerBook G4 TI 1ghz.
I’ve been enjoying it!  :D
Title: Re: 1TB SSD on a PowerBook G4 Wow!!
Post by: GaryN on April 05, 2019, 05:14:27 PM
As I learned after the fact from my own experiences and then studying more on the subject. I learned that even though I have a laptop designed by Apple to boot both Mac OS 9 and OS X.
The two operating systems don’t play nice together. OSX has a habit of indexing all drives it sees and writing extra stuff that OS9 doesn’t deal with, causing eventual volume failure . I understand perfectly why Diehard doesn’t put both systems on the same computer. However I’m more into this as a hobbyist and not using it as a work tool.
I'm happy to see my persistent harping about OSX / OS9 conflicts has done some good.
Let me add a couple of details:
Actually, OSX and OS9 get along just fine. There were no, as in zero issues between OS9 and OS 10.0, 10.1, 10.2, and 10.3.
It's not OSX…it's Spotlight and Time Machine that are the culprits. Note that Spotlight did not appear until 10.4 and Time Machine with 10.5.
It was with 10.4 that Apple, in their infinite wisdom, gave us Classic for the hardcores that could not or would not trash all of their "old" apps for the brave new dawn of OSX and Intel. They made a calculation ("bean counting") that there were very few who actually needed and or wanted actual dual-boot capability and that between Classic and Carbon, they could keep pretty much everyone happy.

Yeah, right………

I shut off spotlight indexing of all OS9 volumes. Also stopped time machine from looking at or using them. Then used a app called platypus V4.4 to create an application to be used on startup to Unmount all OS9 volumes except my 50gb trim volume that I keep blank and for copying files from OSX to OS9. I copy files from OSX or network to trim volume. Boot into OS9. Copy from trim volume to where I want it, then initialize trim volume blank again.
Your solution with Platypus, while ingenious, is unnecessary.

You can always move files between OSX volumes and OS9 volumes without issues as long as you do it in OS9.
While you can move files without issues from OSX to OS9 in OSX, occasionally the Linux-derived OSX permissions will trip the wrong flag in OS9 and lock the file down. In my experience though, I've never had a problem moving a file in either direction while in OS9.
Title: Re: 1TB SSD on a PowerBook G4 Wow!!
Post by: Woogetybop on April 05, 2019, 06:05:48 PM
Thanks,
I recognized the issues started with changes in update 10.4.3 and beyond, but you clarified the “why”  ;)
Title: Re: 1TB SSD on a PowerBook G4 Wow!!
Post by: refinery on April 05, 2019, 08:44:15 PM
you can disable spotlight searching on Tiger and Leopard...

http://osxdaily.com/2007/03/22/how-to-completely-disable-spotlight/
Title: Re: 1TB SSD on a PowerBook G4 Wow!!
Post by: IIO on April 25, 2019, 11:51:27 AM
spotlight and time machine are among the first things i disable after i install some OSX machine.

they suck in OSX, too, not only in OS9 or linux.

glad to hear that the latest WD Blue SSD seems to work and boot fine for you. let us know  in case that ever changes.:)

however, with 300 euros it is 15 times more expensive than a second hand conventional (SATA II) disk and 3 times more than the whole machine.

oops, seems i cant read, it is more like 150. we can talk about that. ignore me, i am just talking to myself.
Title: Re: 1TB SSD on a PowerBook G4 Wow!!
Post by: DieHard on April 25, 2019, 12:53:03 PM
As always Gary explains the "whole ball of wax" in a clear, efficient manner... or as with software "the whole ball of yarn"; dual boot systems (OS X & OS 9) for the less experienced users can definitely pull on a few strings and unravel that ball of yarn. SO, as mentioned...a quick review for those who don't search the forum for old topics...

Mac System with OS 9 Only (Not Dual Boot)
1) Keep Boot Volume less than 200GB (I always use 190GB)
2) If using a Mechanical Drive (non-SSD) keep ALL volumes less than 200GB if you will be running Norton Speed disk or other OS 9 de-fragmenting apps, an alternative is to boot to OSX via CD/DVD and run an OS X de-fragment app on the OS 9 Volume as some here members do...I do NOT do this, so you cannot ask me the details
3) NEVER de-fragment SSD volumes as this will shorten the life of the SSD for no reason (all locations pull data at the same time, so reason to beat up the SSD)
4) If using an SSD or drive you are never going to de-frag, make all non-boot volumes as big as you want, but remember that OS 9 data recover tools may run out of RAM or error out of some huge volumes

Mac System with OS 9 & OS X (Dual Boot)
1) Separate Hard Drives for OS X and OS 9 (if possible); this adds a little extra safety with the benefit of being able to run OS specific data recovery/partition recovery tools if something goes wrong and not "confuse" the app
2) Disable Spotlight (as mentioned)
3) Disable Time machine (as mentioned)
4) Copy files to and from other volumes in OS9 (this will prevent OS X from messing with long file names that show up like hieroglyphics in os9) and also...
Quote
While you can move files without issues from OSX to OS9 in OSX, occasionally the Linux-derived OSX permissions will trip the wrong flag in OS9 and lock the file down.
as mentioned