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2.8TB in a Power Mac G5?

Posted by pudge on from the yes-have-some dept.

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!'"

7 of 104 comments (clear)

  1. Power by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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. More drive space is always nice by cheide · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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...

    1. Re:More drive space is always nice by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      What, you mean like systems based on whatever Intel processor they're currently trying to wrest the CPU crown away from AMD?

      I say that generically because it's a moving target, those systems are virtually impossible to get ahold of until ~3 months after Intel's announcement. Shortly after supply catches up and ship dates get realistic, another king-of-the-mountain comes out and Intel magically can't meet demand for the new, faster-than-fast, processor all over again.

      Intel's gotten away with this for over a decade, now somehow Apple's supposed to change the laws of physics (not to mention economics) to make demand not outstrip supply?

      Granted, Intel's track record shows this routinely amounts to preannouncing products, done in a vain effort to "steal thunder" from a competitor who's actually shipping product the day of their announcement. The marketing wonks are in charge at Intel, and man, their current lineup shows this. Thank god the 90nm process effectively derailed their maniacal plan of ever-smaller-processes with ever-smaller-realworld-performance-gains, now they have to concentrate on making well designed processors again without blockbuster clockrate increases.

      XServe G5s are shipping. You may not get one for a while. If you've ordered a particularly odd hardware combination that depends on one part that Apple is having trouble sourcing for some undisclosed reason, your ship date may keep getting pushed back... and back... and back...

      Just like how if you want the latest "Intel EXTREME! " processor, you will have to play the waiting game. By the time your proc comes in, Dell might have sold out of some other esoteric bit you asked for, maybe - maybe not, all depends on how wacky you want to configure your system.

      Wacky/Odd being relative terms of course, nobody outside of Apple or Dell really knows what qualifies, and even internals may not entirely understand since supply constraints - you know, like an earthquake knocking out the sole factory - aren't always predictable.

    2. Re:More drive space is always nice by Valar · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Ok, I guess I should clarify. G5 xserves don't seem to be happening where I work, because IBM can't meet demand for the chips in question. Thusly, our xserves and the xserves of a lot of other people have been delayed for... well, awhile. Yes, I know, they are shipping some. But a lot of people can't get theirs yet :|

      --

      ====
      Crudely Drawn Games
    3. Re:More drive space is always nice by Hungus · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Why the smeg are you going off on me? I am not complaining about the lack of product, if I wanted a G5 Xserve I could go pick one up. The units just are not shipping at the levels one would expect. I was commenting on the fact that the grandparent to my post said none were shipping and the parent replied they had one. I was merely then suggesting that the GP should have said they were not shipping at reasonable levels. Is wrong to complain about shipping levels for production equipment? You seem to think so, but I certainly don't.

      Steve Jobs has made me more money that anyone other than Bill Gates and crew, and while I own PCs (like the Via Eden embedded systems) they serve no working purpose for me. I was born on a PDP 11, but I will die on a Mac. That doesn't mean that if I choose to be I wont be critical of a company however, but in this case I wasn't.

      Apple isn't stupid, they have a reasonable idea of the demand for something like the G5 Xserve. The issue is not the processors but some other factor, I don't know what, but then I haven't asked anyone I know out at 1 Infinite Loop about it either.

      I am no fan of intel and as a matter of fact I have only ever purchased 1 intel X86 proc for a PC ever and it was when the 386/16 was hot stuff. So take a step down off of your AC Soapbox and read the posts before you go off and blather incessantly next time.

      --
      Bad Panda! No Bamboo for you! In matters of importance ACs will not be responded to. Want to say something critical,OK
  3. Re:4 or 5 bay Firewire case? by FredFnord · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Just bought one from Granite Digital. It's a hardware-RAID-5 4-drive chassis that works with Firewire 400, and it costs $900 or so. The Firewire 800 version costs $1100 or so.

    There are alternatives, ones without the hardware RAID that only cost $250 or so, but if you're going for reliable and fast, the Firewire 800 hardware-RAID-5 case is the way to go. (For us, it was reliable and large and Linux-compatible we were going for).

    -fred

    --
    Sign #11 of Slashdot overdose: You see the phrase 'moderate Republican' and you wonder if that would be a +1 or a -1.
  4. Re:RIP Floppies... by shaitand · · Score: 2, Interesting

    "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."

    The problem is apple didn't banish them, and you can't banish the floppy without having some other standard removable cross platform convient AND GLOBALLY AND UNIVERSALLY ACCEPTED removable media replace them.

    Without a doubt there are better solutions, gazillions of them... the problem is that none have ever caught on. I suppose one day the CD may catch on, but cd burning isn't as simple as floppy copying and rewritable cd's are too damn expensive.

    Unfortunately for the Mac users, Apple does not define the desktop. The IBM PC Clone world defines the desktop... Apple cannot banish anything.

    For better or worse Apple is now #3 on the desktop with no real growth in sight. On the good side they don't seem to be shrinking either... there is just another wolf growing and it's not the Mac users that wolf is taking.