If putting it into the mini, it needed to be PATA, but why bother buying a drive that's probably twice the price in an old format to put into a FW enclosure?
On Jan 24, 4:51 pm, Albert Carter <slvrmoonti...@yahoo.com> wrote: > Ok now I'm lost. I thought Kris was referring to IDE not SATA. SATA II and > SATA III in a Firewire enclosure will of course run slower than plugged > directly into a SATA II or SATA III Controller. > > From: JoeTaxpayer <joetaxpaye...@gmail.com> > To: G-Group <g3-5-list@googlegroups.com> > Cc: > Sent: Monday, January 24, 2011 4:46 PM > Subject: Re: Mac Mini HDD speed > > Kris, why so hostile? Since FW400 is limited to 400Mbs, and a 5400RPM > drive will run 3Gbs, how will a 7200RMP offer more performance when > the bottleneck is in the FW400 itself? In any system, one needs to > look at where the bottleneck is, and iJohn's guess passed the common > sense test with me. An SSD addressed through FW400 will perform no > better. > Definitely faster? You sure? > > On Jan 24, 2:51 pm, Kris Tilford <ktilfo...@cox.net> wrote: > > > On Jan 23, 2011, at 9:51 AM, iJohn wrote: > > > > That's a hard one to guess at. But my guess would be no, I don't think > > > you'd see a gain. Or if there was one, it would not be as large as you > > > hoped. > > > What? Why are you "guessing"? These are measurable "facts". "Guessing" > > about things isn't acceptable. Either you know some factual > > information or factual reasoning about a topic, or you don't. In this > > case, YOU DON'T, so you shouldn't have posted. > > > > I suppose it's possible that a 7200 RPM drive would still appear to > > > perform faster > > > than an internal 4200 RPM, but I wouldn't count on it. > > > A 7,200 RPM HD is DEFINITELY faster in a FW400 enclosure than either a > > 5,400 RPM or 4,200 RPM. Have you ever even booted from Firewire on a > > daily basis? Have you made measurements? Have you streamed video off a > > Firewire enclosure? Obviously your experience is limited. > > > > More to the point, I feel fairly confident that you would not really > > > be able to tell the difference between a (recent) SATA 5400 versus > > > 7200 when connected via Firewire 400. > > > BASED UPON WHAT FACTS? In my experience MEASURING the difference in > > speed, the difference is LARGE and EASY to "tell the difference > > between". > > > > In other words, if you're going > > > to go with a Firewire 400 external drive I'd suggest going with a 5400 > > > drive and save a few bucks. With the recent improvements in platter > > > bit densities over the last year or two, the throughput of 5400 drives > > > has increased noticeably. The difference between 5400 and 7200 is not > > > as noticeable especially when you put that 400 Mbps cap on the drive > > > throughput. > > > It's the HD ITSELF that's the limiting factor here, NOT the Firewire > > connection. Any gain you make to the HD will transfer directly, > > arithmetically to the Mini's HD performance. > > =================================================== > > > On Jan 23, 2011, at 10:22 AM, John Carmonne wrote: > > > > OK then let me ask is the internal drive Bus 167 speed going to be > > > faster than the same drive connected to the FireWire 400? > > > A 2.5" HD connected to the internal ATA bus is going to be slightly > > faster than any HD connected via Firewire 400, but if the internal > > 2.5" HD is the standard OEM 5,400 RPM and the external FW400 is a 3.5" > > 7,200 RPM the difference will be minimalized substantially. The > > fastest you can achieve will be a SSD connected to the internal ATA; > > followed by a 7,200RPM 2.5" or 5,400RPM 2.5" connected to the internal > > ATA; followed by a 7,200RPM 3.5" connected via Firewire 400, and then > > any slower HDs connected via FW400. > > > > And does that relate to overall performance of my G4 PPC Mac Mini > > > 1.25? > > > The best thing you can do to your 1.25GHz Mini for performance is to > > overclock it to 1.42GHz. It's a simple overclock IF you can see well, > > the resistors are TINY. I never soldered mine, they were too small for > > my soldering ability. Instead, to remove one I cut the solder with an > > exacto knife (any tiny sharp knife or razor blade might work?), and to > > add one I used conductive circuit paint using a toothpick. It's a free > > 15% speed gain with no downside unless you screw-up and botch the job. > > > As Newertech and several other companies noticed, there isn't much > > downside to booting a PPC Mini from a 3.5" 7,200RPM HD instead of the > > 2.5" 5,400 RPM OEM drive, and the proliferation of MiniStack > > enclosures is a testament to that concept. I've been using my Mini as > > a media-center computer and I'm trying to squeeze every last bit of > > performance from it, so I boot from a small internal 2.5" 7,200 RPM > > drive and use a 1 TB Apple Time Capsule for media storage, but this > > isn't much better than booting from a MiniStack or any good Firewire > > enclosure with a modern 3.5" HD. Note, there is NO difference in speed > > between a 3.5" ATA133/150 HD and a 3.5" SATA HD inside a FW400 > > enclosure. If an SATA HD & enclosure are cheaper, that's the best > > deal, but if you have an older ATA 7,200 RPM HD & enclosure it should > > be identical in performance. There are some Firewire 400 enclosures > > with poor performance chipsets, but these are rare in more modern > > enclosures. Definitely avoid anything by GeneSys Logic which will NOT > > work. Oxford is best, and anything by a HD manufacturer is good. > > > The 1.25 Mini is going to be a little bit too slow to play modern HD > > video smoothly, the bottleneck isn't the HD, it's the Radeon 9200 > > video which unfortunately can't be upgraded at all, and severely > > limits these older PPC Minis. I suspect slower G4 PowerMacs with > > better video cards can outperform these G4 Minis. About the only thing > > you can do to get better video card performance is limit the > > resolution to something smaller. Unfortunately on my HDTV the only > > proportional resolution available is the highest resolution 1,920x1080 > > which kills the video performance and renders HD quality video to a > > stuttering mess. Any lower resolution would increase performance, but > > in my case, such isn't possible. Tiger 10.4 is about 15-20% faster on > > the G4 Mini than Leopard 10.5; but they offer DIFFERENT sets of > > resolution/refresh rates, so that's something to consider also if > > you're using the Mini with a HDTV as a display. -- You received this message because you are a member of G-Group, a group for those using G3, G4, and G5 desktop Macs - with a particular focus on Power Macs. The list FAQ is at http://lowendmac.com/lists/g-list.shtml and our netiquette guide is at http://www.lowendmac.com/lists/netiquette.shtml To post to this group, send email to g3-5-list@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/g3-5-list
