News Power Mac G4 Gets M.2 SSD Upgrade, Despite 133 MBps PCI Bus Limitation

[Admin]

Dedicated enthusiast installs a modern PCIe/AHCI SSD.

Power Mac G4 Gets M.2 SSD Upgrade, Despite 133 MBps PCI Bus Limitation : Read more

 

[King_V]

I saw this, and all I could think of is this particular quote from Cave Johnson:

Science isn't about WHY. It's about WHY NOT??

 

[IJustWantToReadOldThreads]

...such as graphics boards (yes, since the system is based on a Power processor, it lacks AGP as well).

Uhhh, what? Did the author just completely fail to do the minimal research before writing this article? It's a PowerPC processor, not POWER, and I don't get the implication that it'd prevent AGP. Hell, the later PowerMac G5s did have PCIe. Maybe next time, research before you write...

 

[artk2219]

I applaud the effort, but, why not just use a sata ssd with a sata to ide adapter board? It'll still be way faster than 133 mbps, so it will saturate that bus entirely, and it will be generally easier to get up and running.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/303898589958?chn=ps&_trkparms=ispr=1&amdata=enc:1TdQq-7N-TiWGs0hex092fQ49&norover=1&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-117182-37290-0&mkcid=2&itemid=303898589958&targetid=1262376588936&device=c&mktype=&googleloc=9010796&poi=&campaignid=15275224983&mkgroupid=131097072938&rlsatarget=pla-1262376588936&abcId=9300697&merchantid=260814878&gclid=Cj0KCQiA8ICOBhDmARIsAEGI6o0x4uR2LZ3ZfmAgR7V0MSccul4lKZFdVoKuooScSzZ6N5L3gGMJCJwaAsJrEALw_wcB

 

[TheScrubofNick]

Only the very first G4 was lacking AGP. All the others had it.

 

[Executor32]

I applaud the effort, but, why not just use a sata ssd with a sata to ide adapter board? It'll still be way faster than 133 mbps, and generally easier to get up and running.

<link snipped>

Or better yet, use a 2.5" SATA SSD (or for maximum jank, an M.2 SATA SSD with a 2.5" SATA adapter) with a Firewire-capable drive enclosure like this one to get those sweet 400 Mbps transfer speeds.

 

[Krotow]

Indeed a project with "why not" moto. Although it have very little use in real life like old 8086 CPUs for NASA satellite repairs in orbit which they hoarded 2 decades ago. But probably is useful for classic computer collectors as failed original drive substitute.

 

[Co BIY]

I would like some benchmarks run on this upgrade vs. original setup.

Great project.

 

[Genralkidd]

I'm actually very curious what kind of performance you can expect from a GPU using this method? More specifically I wonder if a traditional PCI bus would even have enough bandwidth for crypto mining. People already use PCIe x1 risers for GPU mining and apparently that's enough for crypto mining, but going down to PCI I'm not sure if that'd be too much of a bottleneck for even crypto mining.