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| Thread ID: 29873 | 2003-02-05 01:09:00 | Mac hard drives...same as PC hard drives? | Scott Bartley (836) | Press F1 |
| Post ID | Timestamp | Content | User | ||
| 118483 | 2003-02-05 01:09:00 | Hi all, Hoping someone can clear a little confusion for me here...do Mac's use the same hard drives as those found in PC's? Say I bought a plain old ATA100 IDE hard drive from ascent.co.nz....would this work fine in a G4? While we're at it...what sort of drive interface do Macs use...IDE, SCSI? Cheerz Mac Newbie |
Scott Bartley (836) | ||
| 118484 | 2003-02-05 02:58:00 | Ahem. google.co.nz is most informative, as usual. :D Give it "mac g4 disk interface", and have a look at the 5th link (at developer.apple.com/.. ). Very interesting. SCSI is now an option. But even using "industry standard" components, Apple prices are still high. |
Graham L (2) | ||
| 118485 | 2003-02-05 03:16:00 | Ahem yourself . . . . None of my "google's" produced any straight answers . . . next stop for me is Usenet followed by PF1 . Here's the story so far . . . My wife uses a 2 year old G4 at her work and it desperately needs more hard drive space . The guy at her local Mac store quoted her over $400 for a 20GB drive which is totally outrageous . Especially considering you can get a 120GB, 7200RPM drive with an 8MB cache for less than that at Ascent . co . nz . I know her Mac uses a standard IDE interface so am I right in assuming it will take a standard ATA 100 IDE drive bought from a local PC store at a fraction of the price of an Apple dealer? I can't find anywhere that categorically states this one way or the other . Any Mac experts out there that can confirm this? |
Scott Bartley (836) | ||
| 118486 | 2003-02-05 03:25:00 | Ahem blody ahem . That google search gives you a link to the word from the horse's mouth, Scott . You didn't try it, did you? I have just repeated my search using exactly that string . It gives me the same information . Apple say, (and I think they are Mac experts) that the two upper slots can take Ultra DMA/66 ATA-5 disks . The interface can accept PIO Mode 4, DMA Mode 2, and Ultra DMA Mode 4 . The boot disk is configured as Master . The two lower slots can use disks attached to a PCI interface card . (This is suggested to be a SCSI) . It's a very good article, It's the "Disk Drives" section . It give information about the removable media ones too . |
Graham L (2) | ||
| 118487 | 2003-02-05 03:41:00 | Yes I checked the link. It's fantastic. It's my new home page. It tells me all I need to know about the types of interfaces that are supported by Macs and that's great. That's sorted. But it still doesn't tell me if there is any difference to the drives that plug into them. Macs seem to have quite a lot of proprietry technology inside so all I want to know is does this proprietry nature extend to hard drives? As I said in my previous message, I'm assuming they don't. But can anyone confirm this? |
Scott Bartley (836) | ||
| 118488 | 2003-02-05 03:54:00 | I would guess that since they mention the standards by name that a disk which is an IDE ATA/66 (or better) will work at that speed. That's what standards are. ;-) Have a look at the make and model of the existing drive. If that is the same as is sold for PC use, the should be no problem with any other brand. Apple's formatting programme (at version 6 or so) used to check for the brand and model number of the SCSI drives, and refuse to format "non-approved" SCSI drives. Of course the users produced a ResEdit script to patch the formatter so people could use non-approved disks. :D But it appears that putting in a "PCI SCSI card" lets you use a SCSI drive (and there have never been Apple-only SCSI drives ... the only restriction was that Apple wanted to "approve" them). I think that Apple will have realised that IDE drives are a commodity now. |
Graham L (2) | ||
| 118489 | 2003-02-05 03:58:00 | I used to know this but have forgotten :( The Mac hdd has some coding built in somewhere that tells the Mac that it is ok to use. You can use a Mac hdd on a PC, but you cant use a PC hdd on a Mac. Thats all I can remember. |
Terry Porritt (14) | ||
| 118490 | 2003-02-05 04:01:00 | *Cough* Unless I'm very much mistaken, on perusing the recommended Google link it seems quite clear that an IDE PC drive is the same as an IDE MAC drive apart from the cost of course . I always understood that earlier MACs used SCSI drives . Thinking about it a bit more, given the low market penetration of MACs, if drives had to be specially designed for them then 20GB would cost a lot more than $400 . Thinking further, market share figures are probably based on sales of "name brand" systems so if we were able to look at the actual user numbers which includes all those PC systems built by small businesses or PC enthusiasts at home, the installed user base market share of MACs would probably be much smaller again . That would not support the economic manufacture of dedicated MAC drives . But then, I could be wrong:8} Cheers Billy 8-{) :D At least you don't get flamed on PF1 for not worshipping MACs |
Billy T (70) | ||
| 118491 | 2003-02-05 04:06:00 | Terry: that code was in the formatting programme; it just read the drive's ID and compared it with a list in the programme. The patch just took out that test. The SCSI drives were standard. | Graham L (2) | ||
| 118492 | 2003-02-05 04:06:00 | Right...no one knows do they. I'm gonna take a gamble that even Apple isn't so silly as to demand hard drive manufacturers create two versions of the same product to suit their marketing whims. I'll tell my wife to get a drive nice and cheap from a PC store...plug it in and if it doesn't work take it back. |
Scott Bartley (836) | ||
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