[Brad]

One of my three internal drives died recently, leaving me with two. Now, one of those is starting to buzz like it's on its last leg. So, I'm looking to buy some new hard drives. However, my old Power Mac is of the variety that is limited to ~120 GB drives on the main ATA bus and I am interested in buying a PCI card to alleviate this limitation.

I see that OWC has a PCI card available for US$70.

Has anyone else here purchased a card for this purpose? Is the US$70 price tag a fair price, or are there better deals available that are fully compatible with Mac OS X and the "gigabit ethernet" G4 towers?

[Luca]

I'd go SATA, personally. SATA hard drives are more common and the cards are actually cheaper. The cheapest one on OWC is just $40, but it only has two ports. The 4-port version is $58.

[Brad]

Interesting. I didn't realize SATA was cheaper now; I've not been following the market at all.

Thanks, Luca!

[709]

I think that's a fair price. I've had a Tempo ATA133 in my Dual 1Ghz GE for a few years now and it's been a real trooper. Never had a problem with it. (*knocks on wood*)

[Luca]

It just doesn't make much sense to invest more money in dying technology when you could get something newer for cheaper.

Maybe it would be worth it if Brad had some old ATA drives he wanted to keep using, but if you need to replace the hard drives themselves too, you may as well just go with SATA. This also means that you'll be able to move your newly purchased hard drives to a new machine if/when you get one.

[Brad]

Originally Posted by Luca This also means that you'll be able to move your newly purchased hard drives to a new machine if/when you get one.

That's precisely my line of thought now too. Future-proofing an investment like this is a big plus.

I have one ATA drive in there that seems to be doing okay, but it will continue to operate just fine off the built-in ATA bus.

[709]

Originally Posted by Luca It just doesn't make much sense to invest more money in dying technology when you could get something newer for cheaper.

Agreed. I didn't even think about a PCI/SATA card. Good call.