On Aug 28, 11:43 am, Oliver Fairhall <o.fairh...@gmail.com> wrote: > From memory, > the SCSI maintains some level of backwards compatibility, as long as the > appropriate cabling is used (eg SCSI 1 devices on SCSI 2 host). > > Thanks everyone for you help so far. Are there any suggestions for a > suitable G4 with more PCI slots?
Forgot a couple of questions. Yes, as far as I know all the SCSI controllers will drop back to earlier protocols if an older device is present on the bus. Some of the newer U320 SCSI drives won't, but that's probably not an issue for you in this case. The MDD has the most PCI slots you can get in a G4 PowerMac. It has four PCI slots, plus the AGP slot for the graphics card. It was a very nice machine in that way. The only way to get more PCI slots in one box would be to get a PowerMac 9500 (or 9600, or Daystar Genesis, or PowerComputing PowerTower Pro) and install a G4 upgrade. The 9500/9600 has six PCI slots. However, the 9500/9600 would have a much slower memory bus. The fastest G4 upgrade available is 800 MHz (was there a 1 GHz?). There's no AGP slot so your effective PCI slots drop to 5, because you spend one on a graphics card. There's no USB nor Firewire, so if you need those, that's another slot and you're back down to the four that the MDD has. It does have SCSI built-in, so potentially, that saves you a slot, but the faster of the two SCSI busses is only Fast SCSI (10 MB/s theoretical). The slow built-in SCSI also means that your hard drive access is slow unless you add a fast SCSI card and drives, or an ATA or SATA card, which would cost another PCI slot. Finally the built- in ethernet is 10 Mbps. So, unless you could live with all those limitations, I think the MDD has the most available PCI slots you can get. Jeff Walther -- 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
