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2.8TB in a Power Mac G5?
Pfhreak writes "Bare Feats has a couple of reviews: one of WiebeTech's G5Jam, and one of the Swift Data 200. Both add extra drive space to a G5. The G5Jam puts two extra drives in the space that would be taken up by long PCI cards, so you'll be limited to the shorter cards in two of the three PCI slots. The Swift Data puts three drives in the space in front of the CPU fans. The writer of the Swift review has an interesting thought in the conclusion: 'Hey! Maybe I could install both the G5Jam and the Swift -- that would give me 7 drives -- and if I get seven 400GB Hitachi 7K400s, that's 2.8 Terabyte total -- Moo hah hah!'"
The article mentions cooling, but is there enough power (5V) to handle that many drives? Drooping voltages can lead to all sorts of strange behavior.
2.8 Terabytes?! I thought a 1.4 MB floppy was enough for just about anybody.
Of course, now that we're going liquid cooled, some of that will be less of an issue, but overall the case still needs good airflow if it's going to stay cool (i.e., not melt), right?
To reign is to serve.
Personally I think the G5s should have come with three drive bays standard and let you set up a RAID-5 array. Power users like reliability too...
2.8 Terabytes and still only one free hand...life's just not fair.
ha ha ha ha.
The next comment I write will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and see it early!
NO, they dont go in the same space - one (the G5Jam) goes in the space in front of the PCI slots; the other (the Swiftech) goes down the bottom at the front between the air intake for the CPU's and the fans.
*wonders if parent looked at the pictures*
Apparently your eyes aren't so great,
The Swift Data 200 puts the drives down in the bottem left of the case where the PCI cards would normally go, While the G5Jam puts it's drives in the space between the powersupply and the area where the cards are, suspended off of the case side. These are 2 distinctly different sections of the case. So both kits would in fact fit.
They'll let anyone post comments these days won't they?
> ..if they didn't go into the exact same space.
Did you miss the fact that the poster states he is directly quoting the author of both articles? Whom it seems had far more to go on than pictures.
> They'll let anybody post these days, won't they?
Oh fer sure! But we'll mod you Flamebait.
Operator, give me the number for 911!
I have 7 drive spaces (plus the DVD burner) in my Quicksilver 2002 but I have routinely run my systems with external drives. A dremel tool and 10 minutes of work make a nice slot on an expansion slot cover (what do you call those little metal strips anyway?) and I feed the ribbon through and into another case. No problems with having enough power (seperate power and ventilation) oe heat build up. Why force the drive to be internal? I would rather have a lower system temp than internal drives.
Note this does not assauge the geek factor of mounting 2 different hacks in a box where one should be and I admire the thought, I just think external via SCSI, Fibre, or Firewire is a better solution and it needn't cost any more.
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It's insane putting that many hard drives in that small of a space. Many HD's that close together is just asking for a heat related failure, plus the additional hard drives will obstruct the hot air outflow at the back of the G5, and they'll generate a fair amount of additional heat. Add in the additional cables and this will case a drastic increase the case temperature leading to more noise and potentially component failure.
You can't just cram hard drives into a case as long as there's an open drive bay. I've put 3 hard drives in adjacent drive bays with one 80mm fans for cooling(I now use 2 30mm fans per drive)., and all of the drives overheated causing drive failure and data corruption.
Combining these two ideas will likely cause several of the drives to die within 6 months or less due to the extreme heat.
"Moo hah hah!"
Not to be overly picky, but the correct usage is Mwahaha!. Moo hah hah makes you sound like a retarded cow.
You say Tomatoe, I don't know how to spell it, but the point is that I don't see a whole lot of users needing all this storage capacity at their desktop. I think of my local workstation as a place for my OS, applications, and a temporary workspace. The file server is for storing source and production files, and sharing them too.
Yeah, if you are working on some 200 GB photoshop image, having it local would be the way to go...but who works on a 200 GB photoshop image?
I would RATHER have a large network storage device that was backed up, RAID 5, etc...not unlike the Xserve RAID.
I only came here to do two things; kick some ass, and drink some beer...looks like we're almost out of beer.
if you're dealing with a desktop system in the first place, provided you have a clue or two about arranging your space, and choose some nicely stackable drives such as the ones offered by LaCie, you would avoid cluttering the guts of your G5. Hopefully you'd structure most of the disk usage around your external drives so THEY'll do most of the spinning while your internal drive remains cool, and your G5 fans don't run all the frickin' time. Long gone are the days of painful SCSI chains. Firewire is crazy easy via hubs or daisy-chain.
or something?
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i know this might sound dumb, considering i have no clue if such a thing even exists, but why not just get a firewire case thats capable of housing 5 or 8 or so disks, and using that instead?
...
seems to me someone has to have made that kinda mammoth firewire enclosure by now
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
A 2,8 TB floppy drive....now that would be something. Actually, a 1,44TB one would be ok too...
Do you realize how much data Apple's saved forcing people to use more reliable storage and transfer methods? Floppies should have died long before Apple rightly banished them, and should definitely not be used by anyone this day and age, unless you have some sick fondness for losing data. You can plug in and use an external floppy drive if you really must have one, but you'll be much better off using flash memory, hard drives, optical media, or electronic transfers, as they will be much more reliable and cost-effective. Only an idiot would use a floppy by choice these days.
"I like systems, their application excepted", George Sand (French)
The power supply is on the bottom, so the area between the power supply and the PCI cage is filled with G5s.
Two 3ware 12-port adapters, 24 400GB drives, a double-width ATX case and you're almost there.
We had a bunch of these (well, 3*8-port and 80GB PATA it was back then) as el-cheapo RAID-0 disk servers in 2000. Losing a drive was no biggie, the boxes were part of a HSM solution so the master copy of the data was always on tape, these were just temporary caches.
The one I actually got was from Firewire Depot (fwdepot.com). It's a three-drive RAID-5 hardware, with hot-swappable IDE drives that rebuild on the fly. Does onlyRAID 5 though. But it's firewire 800 and costs $800. Works fine with 250 gig drives, so that's 500 gigs of redundant hot-swappable storage.
The Granite Digital one is one I evaluated but which turned out to be software RAID, not hardware.
FW Depot also has a really nifty clustering 5-drive RAID-5 box (so it can be used with multiple hosts) that does Firewire 800, USB2, and SATA for $1450, I believe. Damn good deal.
-fred
Sign #11 of Slashdot overdose: You see the phrase 'moderate Republican' and you wonder if that would be a +1 or a -1.
The one I actually ordered was from Firewire Depot (fwdepot.com). It's a three-drive RAID-5 hardware, with hot-swappable IDE drives that rebuild on the fly. Does onlyRAID 5 though. But it's firewire 800 and costs $800. Works fine with 250 gig drives, so that's 500 gigs of redundant hot-swappable storage.
The Granite Digital one is one I evaluated but which turned out to be software RAID, not hardware. However, if the speed tests I've seen are to be believed, it is quite a lot faster than even other Oxford 911/922 chipset cases, so it still might be worth it to someone.
FW Depot also has a really nifty clustering 5-drive RAID-5 box (so it can be used with multiple hosts) that does Firewire 800, USB2, and SATA for $1450, I believe. Damn good deal.
-fred
Sign #11 of Slashdot overdose: You see the phrase 'moderate Republican' and you wonder if that would be a +1 or a -1.
You see any other companies making a PC with that kind of ability? Nooooooo. Yay, Apple! I gotta get me one of these 2.8TB thingy-doos. Of course, the noise eminating from the tower would be mind-blowingly loud if left to its own devices.
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That's without drives or controller. Just the metal brackets. I'm not a machinist, but that seems pretty damn expensive for just a few small metal plates with threaded holes and screws. I wonder how long it will be before similar items will be on sale on ebay for $50.
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
Given that this is a Mac, shouldn't that be Moof hah hah?
-fred
Sign #11 of Slashdot overdose: You see the phrase 'moderate Republican' and you wonder if that would be a +1 or a -1.