TweetFollow Us on Twitter

Expansion Options from Sonnet

Volume Number: 22 (2006)
Issue Number: 4
Column Tag: Review

Expansion Options from Sonnet

by MacTech Staff

Expandability

One of the beautiful things about a PowerMac G4 is how expandable it is. Even more so than today's PowerMac G5s in some ways. The PowerMac G4 has an ample power supply, plenty of room for drives, and was designed that way in the beginning. With 5 drive slots in addition to the optical drive and floppy, there's a lot of room in there.

The problem is that, depending on the model, earlier PowerMac G4s do not natively support drives other than IDEs that are less than 128GB. Obviously, for a backup system, you'll want to take advantage of the larger drives that are available and economical today, and you have two choices as to how to go about doing this.

In addition, since this is a backup system, you may want to take your PowerMac G4 from 10/100 Ethernet to gigabit. Just throw in a PCI card and you'll have it. You can also make use of multiple Ethernet interfaces simultaneously, another handy setup for a backup system. Also, don't forget about IP over Firewire as another network connectivity option.

Modern ATA and SATA

The first way to increase the storage capacity of a G4 is to go with a more modern version of the ATA standard. With a PCI card you can put into your PowerMac G4, you can handle drives larger than 128GB. You can do this either with individual drives, or as a RAID setup.

The second way is to put Serial ATA (or SATA) drives into your PowerMac. They look very similar to the former ATA drives but both the power and the interface cabling (not to mention the interface itself) is different. SATA drives are what newer Macs (PowerMac G5's, iMacs, and Xserves). SATA has the benefit of being very economical and available in the larger sizes.

We'll take a look at interface cards for both of these options, but unless you have a specific need, or drives you are trying to support, we advise moving everything to SATA that you can.

Tempo RAID133

Tempo RAID133 is an ATA hardware RAID controller that can be used to connect high-performance ATA hard drives into Power Mac G3 or G4 to create fast hardware RAID volumes economically. Tempo RAID133 is compatible with Apple Power Macintosh G3 and G4, and it supports Mac OS 8.5 through 9.2.2, and OS X (which is obviously where we're focused). Tempo RAID133 supports Apple Drive Setup Utility (version 1.5 or later) or other third-party software for drive formatting, but also Mac OS X's Disk Utility.

Equipped with hardware RAID level 0 (striping), Tempo RAID133 supports up to two volumes (two ATA/IDE hard drives per volume, four drives total) of internal drives. Tempo RAID133 supports drive types including any ATA/IDE fixed media hard drive such as Ultra ATA/33, Ultra ATA/66, ATA/100, and ATA/133. Tempo RAID133 features onboard 32-bit PCI Bus Master and it supports drive protocols through ATA6. Tempo RAID133 offers data transfer rate of 133 MB/s per channel with Ultra ATA/133 and up to 133 MB/s in burst master cycle.


Tempo RAID133

Tempo RAID133's striping function provides significant performance gains over a single hard drive. The improvement makes Tempo RAID133 suitable for disk-intensive tasks such as multimedia authoring, image editing, and of course, our goal of backups. Tempo RAID133 utilizes onboard Open Firmware, which allows booting from attached drives to shorten start up times and speed Mac OS operation. The onboard firmware automatically recognizes and configures the drive type, in addition to 80-wire cable with Ultra ATA/66, ATA/100, and ATA/133 drives. It is backward compatible with ATA/33, ATA/66, and ATA/100, and is Flash-ROM upgradeable.

Advance features of Tempo RAID133 include coexistence with SCSI and onboard IDE devices, support for simultaneous operation of multiple cards, and CRC error checking ensuring data integrity with Ultra ATA/133 drives. Tempo RAID133 comes with 40-pin/80-wire IDE cables (two included; 80-wire cable required for full Ultra ATA/66, ATA/100, and ATA/133 support). The package also contains a quick start guide, power supply "Y" cable, and 8 hard drive mounting screws. Tempo RAID133 is priced at $149.95 and it is available with 3-year limited warranty.

We found this product to be a great experience. It's not only flexible in allowing you to work with different sizes and kinds of drives, but it's simple to install and works as advertised ... just as you would expect on the Mac.

Tempo Serial ATA and Tempo Serial ATA Cable Kit

Sonnet's Tempo Serial ATA PCI adapter card enables connection of Serial ATA (SATA) and parallel hard drives to older Macintosh computers. Tempo Serial ATA can be used to take advantage of SATA's higher data transfer rates and improved cabling performance. Tempo Serial ATA features 48-bit LBA support for drives larger than 128GB and support for mirroring and striping features of OS X. Tempo Serial ATA requires Mac OS 8.0 through 9.x, and Mac OS X version 10.2 or later. It supports Mac OS bootability from attached drives. Tempo Serial ATA runs on a 32 bit, 33/66MHz PCI bus and it is compatible with 32-bit PCI bus version 2.2 and hard drive or peripheral power connectors. The card comes with 2 internal Serial ATA interface connectors that each support up to 2 hard drives. Each port also offers data transfer rates of up to 150 Mbytes/second or burst data transfer rate of 1.5 Gbits/second. Drives modes supported by the product include Serial ATA, Ultra DMA modes 6/5/4/3/2/1/0, and PIO modes 4/3/2/1/0.


Tempo Serial ATA PCI Card

Advanced data features include compliance with the Serial ATA 1.0a specification, bus mastering that off-loads data I/O handling from the CPU, 32-bit CRC error checking for all bits transmitted (command, data and status), offering enhanced data protection for high-speed Serial ATA drives. It also sports dual independent data channels allowing separate device timings, automatic identification and configuration of drive types, and automatic detection and support for devices utilizing many transfer modes.

Amazingly, these cards can go in a wide variety of older systems even beyond the PowerMac G4 that we're focused on for this series of articles. Specifically, Tempo Serial ATA can be used with Mac compatible computers including Power Macintosh Series 4400, 6400, 6500, 7200, 7215, 7220, 7300, 7500, 7600, 8200, 8500, 8515, 8600, 9500, 9500/180MP, 9515, 9600, 9600/200MP; Macintosh Server G3, G4; Power Macintosh G3 All-in-one, Blue & White, Desktop, Minitower; Power Mac G4, Power Mac G5, Performa Series 6400, 6410, 6420; Workgroup Server 7250, 7350, 8550, 9650; Daystar Genesis and Millennium Series; Mactell XB-Pro; Power Computing PowerBase Desktop and Tower, PowerCenter, PowerCenter Pro Desktop and Minitower, PowerCurve, PowerTower, PowerTower Pro, PowerWave; StarMax 3000, 3000 Minitower, 4000, 4000 Minitower, 5000, 5500; and UMAX C500, C600, C600X, J700, S900. Phew!

Cooling in a PowerMac G4 works fairly well, but nevertheless, it's always good to know what these cards require for an operating environment. The operating temperature ranges of Tempo Serial ATA are 5 to 55 degrees C. The operating and non-operating relative humidity ranges are 20 to 80 % and 15 to 90 %. The package of this product contains Tempo Serial ATA 2-Port PCI controller card, quick start guide, 1 Serial ATA data interface cable (22 inches), 1 legacy-to-Serial ATA power cable, and drive mounting screws.

Tempo eSATA data cables are designed to connect a SATA host controller such as Sonnet's Tempo SATA E4P, Tempo SATA X4P, Tempo-X eSATA 4+4, or Tempo-X eSATA 8 to Serial ATA drive enclosures. The cables feature external Serial ATA (eSATA) connectors, equipped with springs similar to USB, designed for over 5,000 insertions and removals. They are equipped with extra shielding and metal contacts for better EMI protection Tempo eSATA data cables come in length of 1 meter and eSATA-to-eSATA, or eSATA-to-SATA I styles SATA-2/1 connects a host controller card with eSATA connectors to an external drive enclosure with SATA I connectors. SATA-2/2 connects a host controller card with eSATA connectors to an external drive enclosure with eSATA connectors.


Tempo Serial ATA is priced at $79.95 whereas Tempo eSATA data cable kit costs $24.95. Both products come with 3-year limited warranty.

Gigabit Ethernet

In our scenario, we not only wanted Internet backups to happen, but also faster gigabit Ethernet connectivity. By adding in a Sonnet Gigabit card, we were able to focus the LAN backups over the faster gigabit Ethernet interface, while letting the connectivity over the Internet go over the built-in Ethernet interface.

Presto Gigabit is a 10/100/1000 Gigabit Ethernet PCI adapter card that is compatible with most PCI Power Macintosh configurations. Presto Gigabit is based on Sonnet's Simply Fast Design, making it easily installable. Presto Gigabit supports full and half-duplex communication and it features 1000/100/10BaseT auto-negotiation. Presto Gigabit features one RJ-45 connector that supports 1000Mbps, 100Mbps, 10Mbps network speed and Auto-MDI/MDI-X, and PCI V2.2/2.1, 32-bit, 66/33 MHz bus interface. Presto Gigabit supports IEEE 802.3 10BaseT, IEEE 802.3u 100BaseT, and IEEE 802.3ab 1000BaseT standards. Presto Gigabit supports transmission rates of 10Mbps/20Mbps, 100Mbps/200Mbps, and 1000Mbps/2000Mbps. The IRQ line and I/O addresses for Presto Gigabit are assigned by system.


Presto Gigabit

Like the Sonnet ATA and SATA cards, the Presto Gigabit can be used with a wide variety of computers similar to the other cards. Check the Sonnet web site for specifics on your model. Presto Gigabit is compatible with above listed Mac compatible computers running Mac OS X Version 10.2 or later. Presto Gigabit can also be used with Windows computers with available PCI slot, running on Windows 98SE, ME, 2000, or XP.

Presto Gigabit costs $89.95 and it comes with 3-year limited warranty.

http://www.sonnettech.com/


MacTech Staff

 

Community Search:
MacTech Search:

Software Updates via MacUpdate

Latest Forum Discussions

See All

Top Mobile Game Discounts
Every day, we pick out a curated list of the best mobile discounts on the App Store and post them here. This list won't be comprehensive, but it every game on it is recommended. Feel free to check out the coverage we did on them in the links... | Read more »
Price of Glory unleashes its 1.4 Alpha u...
As much as we all probably dislike Maths as a subject, we do have to hand it to geometry for giving us the good old Hexgrid, home of some of the best strategy games. One such example, Price of Glory, has dropped its 1.4 Alpha update, stocked full... | Read more »
The SLC 2025 kicks off this month to cro...
Ever since the Solo Leveling: Arise Championship 2025 was announced, I have been looking forward to it. The promotional clip they released a month or two back showed crowds going absolutely nuts for the previous competitions, so imagine the... | Read more »
Dive into some early Magicpunk fun as Cr...
Excellent news for fans of steampunk and magic; the Precursor Test for Magicpunk MMORPG Crystal of Atlan opens today. This rather fancy way of saying beta test will remain open until March 5th and is available for PC - boo - and Android devices -... | Read more »
Prepare to get your mind melted as Evang...
If you are a fan of sci-fi shooters and incredibly weird, mind-bending anime series, then you are in for a treat, as Goddess of Victory: Nikke is gearing up for its second collaboration with Evangelion. We were also treated to an upcoming... | Read more »
Square Enix gives with one hand and slap...
We have something of a mixed bag coming over from Square Enix HQ today. Two of their mobile games are revelling in life with new events keeping them alive, whilst another has been thrown onto the ever-growing discard pile Square is building. I... | Read more »
Let the world burn as you have some fest...
It is time to leave the world burning once again as you take a much-needed break from that whole “hero” lark and enjoy some celebrations in Genshin Impact. Version 5.4, Moonlight Amidst Dreams, will see you in Inazuma to attend the Mikawa Flower... | Read more »
Full Moon Over the Abyssal Sea lands on...
Aether Gazer has announced its latest major update, and it is one of the loveliest event names I have ever heard. Full Moon Over the Abyssal Sea is an amazing name, and it comes loaded with two side stories, a new S-grade Modifier, and some fancy... | Read more »
Open your own eatery for all the forest...
Very important question; when you read the title Zoo Restaurant, do you also immediately think of running a restaurant in which you cook Zoo animals as the course? I will just assume yes. Anyway, come June 23rd we will all be able to start up our... | Read more »
Crystal of Atlan opens registration for...
Nuverse was prominently featured in the last month for all the wrong reasons with the USA TikTok debacle, but now it is putting all that behind it and preparing for the Crystal of Atlan beta test. Taking place between February 18th and March 5th,... | Read more »

Price Scanner via MacPrices.net

AT&T is offering a 65% discount on the ne...
AT&T is offering the new iPhone 16e for up to 65% off their monthly finance fee with 36-months of service. No trade-in is required. Discount is applied via monthly bill credits over the 36 month... Read more
Use this code to get a free iPhone 13 at Visi...
For a limited time, use code SWEETDEAL to get a free 128GB iPhone 13 Visible, Verizon’s low-cost wireless cell service, Visible. Deal is valid when you purchase the Visible+ annual plan. Free... Read more
M4 Mac minis on sale for $50-$80 off MSRP at...
B&H Photo has M4 Mac minis in stock and on sale right now for $50 to $80 off Apple’s MSRP, each including free 1-2 day shipping to most US addresses: – M4 Mac mini (16GB/256GB): $549, $50 off... Read more
Buy an iPhone 16 at Boost Mobile and get one...
Boost Mobile, an MVNO using AT&T and T-Mobile’s networks, is offering one year of free Unlimited service with the purchase of any iPhone 16. Purchase the iPhone at standard MSRP, and then choose... Read more
Get an iPhone 15 for only $299 at Boost Mobil...
Boost Mobile, an MVNO using AT&T and T-Mobile’s networks, is offering the 128GB iPhone 15 for $299.99 including service with their Unlimited Premium plan (50GB of premium data, $60/month), or $20... Read more
Unreal Mobile is offering $100 off any new iP...
Unreal Mobile, an MVNO using AT&T and T-Mobile’s networks, is offering a $100 discount on any new iPhone with service. This includes new iPhone 16 models as well as iPhone 15, 14, 13, and SE... Read more
Apple drops prices on clearance iPhone 14 mod...
With today’s introduction of the new iPhone 16e, Apple has discontinued the iPhone 14, 14 Pro, and SE. In response, Apple has dropped prices on unlocked, Certified Refurbished, iPhone 14 models to a... Read more
B&H has 16-inch M4 Max MacBook Pros on sa...
B&H Photo is offering a $360-$410 discount on new 16-inch MacBook Pros with M4 Max CPUs right now. B&H offers free 1-2 day shipping to most US addresses: – 16″ M4 Max MacBook Pro (36GB/1TB/... Read more
Amazon is offering a $100 discount on the M4...
Amazon has the M4 Pro Mac mini discounted $100 off MSRP right now. Shipping is free. Their price is the lowest currently available for this popular mini: – Mac mini M4 Pro (24GB/512GB): $1299, $100... Read more
B&H continues to offer $150-$220 discount...
B&H Photo has 14-inch M4 MacBook Pros on sale for $150-$220 off MSRP. B&H offers free 1-2 day shipping to most US addresses: – 14″ M4 MacBook Pro (16GB/512GB): $1449, $150 off MSRP – 14″ M4... Read more

Jobs Board

All contents are Copyright 1984-2011 by Xplain Corporation. All rights reserved. Theme designed by Icreon.