Hard drive purchasing advice

[Andrzejjw]

I have a dual 2.0ghz g5 powermac and i am looking for advice on what hard drive i should go with for the device. I have thought about purchasing an external firewire drive but i find that they are more expensive that just getting an internal one. Can anyone reccomend a specific brand with at least 200gb+ storage capacity and a good seek time, also, would installing a secondary hard drive void my warranty? i recently purchased 1gb worth of ram and went with apple memory bc i was told that if i put anything else than that in the computer it would void my warranty. Thanks in advance

[Wyatt]

Something to think about: Opening your computer usually voids your warranty anyway (I'm not sure if Apple has this policy or not, but most computer manufacturers do).

Now, for hard drives, I normally use Maxtor, but there are plenty of other good brands out there (Seagate jumps to my mind first). Try searching NewEgg.com for hard drives. You can get 200 GB drives on there for around $100 (I got my Maxtor drive on there for $102 after shipping, and that was several months ago). Just remember to search for Serial ATA (SATA) rather than IDE.

Here's a good place to start:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822140168
Maxtor 200GB SATA, 16MB cache, $93.99 USD with shipping, but seek time is 9ms. You might be able to find a faster one (at sacrifice of cost).

[Luca]

Replacing the hard drive (or simply adding a hard drive) in a G5 will most definitely NOT void the warranty. That'll only be an issue if you break something when the machine is open. Same goes for RAM - non-Apple RAM doesn't void your warranty at all. Now, if you run into problems caused by the non-Apple RAM, Apple won't fix them. But if you take the third-party RAM out of the machine and it still has problems, it's still under warranty. I don't know who told you these things about your warranty but they're absolutely false.

Anyway, on to the hard drive installation. Apple actually has the cables in place so you can add a second hard drive without messing around with anything. Just slide it in place and plug it in. It couldn't be easier. I would suggest a Seagate drive, because of their five-year warranty. I've heard horror stories involving all drive manufacturers, but I think I've heard of more with Western Digital and Maxtor than with Seagate. 200-250 GB is the sweet spot for price and performance these days. Just make sure you get a SATA drive. And like fcgriz suggested, NewEgg is the place to go.

fcgriz, Apple doesn't void your warranty for opening your computer's case, at least if it's a PowerMac. In fact, they even have a Do-It-Yourself (http://www.apple.com/support/diy/) repair section on the main Apple support page, with instructions on how to replace certain user-serviceable components.

[kretara]

I've had good times and bad times with almost every HD manufacturer. They all seem to have runs of crappy products.
Currently I'm running 1 Seagate 160GB, 2 Maxtor 16MB 250GB and 1 Maxtor 16MB 300GB HD (all IDE) in my MDD and have had no issues with any of them.

I have had both the Maxtor 250GB SATA HD's fail in my G5. One of the Applecare people hinted that there was a bad batch and I was just lucky enough to have 2 HD's from that batch.


I would recommend getting Seagate drives. Based on my experience, they are quite a bit quiter than the other drives I have used and they have a great warranty.

As far as firewire boxes. You can build your own (well, you can buy a firewire box sans HD fairly cheaply) for not alot of cash.
I bought a metal gear external firewire box (no HD) for $24. After putting in a HD it works just fine.

I also have an external firewire Dual HD box that I got off ebay (PM me if you want the sellers name, he has 2-bay up to 9-bay external FW cases in stock all the time. I am not related to the seller and do not work for him) for a very good price and I absolutely love it. At one time I had 10 HD's connected to my MDD (4 internal and 6 firewire).

[709]

I'll third the Seagate recommendation. Very good drives, and like Luca mentioned, have the best warranty around.

[DMBand0026]

Something to think about: Opening your computer usually voids your warranty anyway (I'm not sure if Apple has this policy or not, but most computer manufacturers do).

[office space]
Yeah...I'm gonna have to go ahead and, uh, disagree with you on that one, okay? [/office space]

That's absolutely incorrect in every way shape and form (unless of course you're talking about a notebook.) Opening your G5 case will not void the warranty. However, once the case is opened there are a lot of things you can do that could void the warranty.

However, I will echo your endorsement of NewEgg (http://www.newegg.com). Great prices, great service, overall a great place to buy from. I'd recommend looking at Seagate drives as they come with a 5 year warranty as opposed to 3 years (what most manufactures include with their drives.)

[turtle]

I have enjoyed and hated just about all brands. Hitachi has always served me well though out of all of them. Seagate is my normal "go to" since Hitachi costs more normally.

A Question for me on the same topic:
I was thinking about the same question but for my Mini. I have the original 40GB in there with and external 80GB FW on it now. I'm using my Mini to host a web page and I'm getting a new Canon Rebel XT for pics of my coming child. There are going to be lots of pics and DV files too. I could care less about warranty on the Mini since I have already put a 1GB chip in it on my own.

What would be the best route for me until I get my PowerMac near the beginning or next year? What would you do in the mean time? Is there a way to have my index.html link to folders on my external drive or should I just get a larger HDD in the Mini?

[GSpotter]

Is there a way to have my index.html link to folders on my external drive or should I just get a larger HDD in the Mini?IIRC, there's a way to add additional directories to the apache configuration file (found here (you might have to use the terminal): /etc/httpd/httpd.conf).

Probably an easier way is to create a symbolic link to the external directory (I didn't check if an alias from the finder works too):

1. Open Terminal and navigate to your web root directory (Enter cd <drag your Web-Sites folder to the terminal to get the path, then press enter)
2. Enter: ln -s <drag the folder from the external disk to the termal> folderAliasName. (i.e.: ln -s /Volumes/AnotherDrive/Pictures mypictures).
3. Now you should be able to access this folder from http://localhost/mypictures

[GSpotter]

I also prefer Seagate drives, as they are among the most quit drives and also rather cold (AFAIK, the IBM/Hitachi drives get hotter, which might result in the fans running louder...).

And turtle: I wouldn't update the internal drive of the MacMini. The 2.5" drives are typically slower than 3.5" drives, more expensive (esp. for bigger sizes), and less optimized for "server work". (If you buy an external drive, you can use it on your next computer, too (i.e. for backups).

[Ghostnine]

i second the Seagate HDD's, great track record... i've never had one fail, and the 5 year warranty

[brianwah]

What do you guys think of this one?

IOGear 320GB Combo Hard Drive w/ Tri-Select Back-Up
Our Price: $209.99
Price After Rebate(s): $179.99 more info

i just picked one up at buy.com. Not sure if it's even any good?

any opinions?

[Voxapps]

I'd be cautious about the IOGear drive. I have an older (about 2 yrs.) 120GB IOGear "Ion" external version (FW/USB2) and the chipset it uses (Prolific Technology) prevents it from functioning as a bootable FireWire drive. It also freezes regularly when I attempt to backup to it over FireWire although it's fine as a USB2 drive.

I've had to switch it to USB2 only, and I don't use it for live backups any more (what's the point if it can't be booted from to restore a munged primary drive?).

I bit the bullet and bought a WiebeTech FW/USB2 external drive: expensive but absolutely reliable, whisper quiet, and built like the proverbial tank.

[BenP]

Best Buy has a 300 GB external USB/FW Seagate HD on sale for $200 after mail-in rebate. I'm buying one tomorrow.

[Ghostnine]

Best Buy has a 300 GB external USB/FW Seagate HD on sale for $200 after mail-in rebate. I'm buying one tomorrow.

might want to check out Newegg man... buying a regular drive + external enclosure can be cheaper...

[turtle]

IIRC, there's a way to add additional directories to the apache configuration file (found here (you might have to use the terminal): /etc/httpd/httpd.conf).

Probably an easier way is to create a symbolic link to the external directory (I didn't check if an alias from the finder works too):

1. Open Terminal and navigate to your web root directory (Enter cd <drag your Web-Sites folder to the terminal to get the path, then press enter)
2. Enter: ln -s <drag the folder from the external disk to the termal> folderAliasName. (i.e.: ln -s /Volumes/AnotherDrive/Pictures mypictures).
3. Now you should be able to access this folder from http://localhost/mypictures
I tried this and it didn't work for me. Here is what I had in my terminal:tonys-macmini:/Library/WebServer/Documents Tony$ ln -s /Volumes/Mac\ 80GB\ FW400/website/
ln: ./: File exists
tonys-macmini:/Library/WebServer/Documents Tony$ ln -s /Volumes/Mac 80GB FW400/website/
ln: FW400/website/: No such file or directory
tonys-macmini:/Library/WebServer/Documents Tony$ ln -s /Volumes/Mac80GBFW400/website/
ln: ./: File exists
tonys-macmini:/Library/WebServer/Documents Tony$
The first time I dragged the directory in. The second I typed it in manually. The third I renamed the external drive to remove the spaces from the name. As you can see it didn't work, can you tell me what I did wrong? I would really love the extra space and the external really seems to be my best bet. Thanks.

Well it looks like I have it now as I was able to navigate to an index.html file through Safari at http://localhost/morepictures/index.html. It tried to display my index file though the links weren't good (it wasn't written for this drive). So next question is what would my address be in an html ref for a pic or index file? Instead of something like "Gaston/index.html" would it be something like "morepictures/Gaston/index.html"?