Mac OS 9 Lives

Mac OS 9 Discussion => Hardware => Storage => Topic started by: supernova777 on March 31, 2014, 10:26:52 AM

Title: highest # of hard drives fit inside g3/g4 case?
Post by: supernova777 on March 31, 2014, 10:26:52 AM

hey there guys
so im trying to figure out if its possible to get 9 drives installed inside a g3/g4 case..
if i put 2 hard drives in each of the hard drive positions on the bottom of a g3/g4 case..
thats 6... then im thinking if was to remove the CD from the 5.25" spot on top and replace with
a 4 x 2.5" laptop drive bay and the 3.5 slot could hold another 2 x 2.5" drives
that would bring the total drives to 12!!!

if anyone has any other possible setup/config to use a g3/g4 as a fileserver
please share your thoughts ! :)

Title: Re: highest # of hard drives fit inside g3/g4 case?
Post by: Dane D. on April 01, 2014, 06:54:25 PM

Couple questions if I may ask. How would they be connected, seems to me you would have to have 3 PCI HD cards that can support at least 2 drives thats 6 HDs. Remove the optical drive and optional ZIP drive and add two more. But that ribbon connector seems to have slower transfer rates compared to the HD ribbon connector. With two HDs on the bottom, I count 10 possible.

Say you do this, what about heat? The airflow in the case is now being interrupted by all the ribbon connectors. HDs do generate heat. What about the power supply, can it handle the additional load?

My setup is three internal, two on the HD ribbon connector and one HD on the optical ribbon connector, while retaining optical drive. I added a self-standing small fan on the bottom of the case blowing across the two HDs and the PCI cards I have. Temps are quite low, the newer HDs support temperature readings. The OS X boot drive is normally 92 F and the HD sitting where the ZIP was, 88 F.

Title: Re: highest # of hard drives fit inside g3/g4 case?
Post by: supernova777 on April 01, 2014, 07:27:02 PM

yeah good call the heat would definately be an issue.. i didnt even get that far in my thought process
i was just thinking about max drives  able to be put inside the case...

Title: Re: highest # of hard drives fit inside g3/g4 case?
Post by: supernova777 on April 21, 2014, 11:31:00 AM

sure wish i thought this thru a little further before i bought this 64bit acard 6885M card;) hehe

Title: Re: highest # of hard drives fit inside g3/g4 case?
Post by: Dane D. on April 21, 2014, 06:12:09 PM

My setup in OS 9 or X, runs great. It may be slow at FPU intensive calculations, but it works flawlessly. I never worry about heat, fragmentation or any other HD problem.