The 3rd Hard disk

[Absinth]

Is it possible to attach a 3rd harddisk into the vacant optical drive bay of a Quicksilver '02?

[Adel]

Originally posted by Absinth
Is it possible to attach a 3rd harddisk into the vacant optical drive bay of a Quicksilver '02?

No need. You can attach two more harddisks in the base plate of the QS02, one on top of the other like the first two, for a total of four. I know this for a fact because I own a QS02 as well.

Now if you have a burning need to put one instead in the optical bay, just buy a set of hard disk rails like the ones they use for PCs.

EDIT: I didn't know about the bus speed of the optical drive bay - galing talaga ni Guru Henjie. Well, that fifth drive option's now officially out for me; was thinking about it before.

[Edited on 7-1-2004 by Adel]

[Henjie]

Originally posted by Absinth
Is it possible to attach a 3rd harddisk into the vacant optical drive bay of a Quicksilver '02?

Yup, it's possible. Throughput's gonna be real slow though. No matter how fast the hard drive is, read/write speeds will be restricted to a max of less than 16.7MB/s. This is because the Quicksilver's IDE bus for the optical drive is just an ATA-3 bus. Same thing with the MDD Power Macs. The Power Mac G5s are better in this regard 'coz they use ATA-100 buses for the optical drives.

If you're gonna use the 3rd hard disk for anything other than simple data storage (ex. video editing, etc.), you might be better off buying an external Firewire enclosure for it. You'll get better performance that way. :-)

UPDATE: or if you don't want the external drive option, just buy an OS X-compatible PCI IDE card, install the additional drive the way Adel described above, and connect the two together. ;-)


~Henjie

[Edited on 7-1-2004 by Henjie]

[Absinth]

Thanks for the replies. I was asking because I'm already using the two hard disk slots...

[Henjie]

Originally posted by Absinth
Thanks for the replies. I was asking because I'm already using the two hard disk slots...

Like what Adel said above, the Quicksilvers can accomodate more than two hard drives. You can install additional drives in the empty space right in the middle (if I remember correctly). You'll need to install a PCI IDE card for the third drive though 'coz the Quicksilvers' ATA-66 IDE bus can only accomodate two hard drives. :-)


~Henjie

[Absinth]

Thanks again. I saw the video of how to install drives on that vacant slot and I'm having second thoughts on attempting it. I may opt to just backup the two drives to DVD. Would anyone know DVD-Rs that are stable? Stable meaning it wont rot within a year or two?

[Henjie]

Originally posted by Absinth
Would anyone know DVD-Rs that are stable? Stable meaning it wont rot within a year or two?

For locally-available DVD-Rs, Maxell DVD-Rs (make sure the label specifically says they're made in Japan) and Verbatim DataLife Plus (made in Singapore) DVD-Rs are your best bet for archiving. Dynamic Personal Computer (Acacia Lane, 2/F Virra Mall) sells the Maxell discs while member Extremyks (Mike Llorin) can point you to the source of Verbatim DataLife Plus discs. Both shouldn't cost more than P120/disc. Anything over that and you're getting screwed, hehe.

Apple DVD-Rs are made by Maxell in Japan so they're also good. They cost more than the equivalent Maxell-branded discs though so only buy those if you can't find any made in Japan Maxell DVD-Rs or made in Singapore Verbatim DataLife Plus DVD-Rs. ;-)

If you managed to find any Japan-made 4x Fuji or Verbatim Pastel DVD-Rs for a relatively good price (<P150), buy all the discs you can 'coz those are made by Taiyo Yuden, arguably the best manufacturer of optical discs in the world. :-)


~Henjie

[Absinth]

That pretty much leaves out CD-R King. Thanks again.

[Henjie]

Originally posted by Absinth
That pretty much leaves out CD-R King. Thanks again.

Definitely. Would you trust a piece of DVD-R costing just P25 or P35 for your data archives? :-) Whatever you do, don't buy the orange-top (aka mountain or landscape) Ritek DVD-Rs from CD-R King. Those are really low-quality blanks.

The P49 RiData 4x DVD-R (purple) blanks available from CD-R King are okay though. RiData is Ritek's premium brand so RiData-branded discs are some of the best Ritek-manufactured discs available. Good bang for the buck. Not as good as the discs I mentioned above but way better than the generic P25-P35 discs (ex. Jungle) being sold in the same stores. Ritek quality can be pretty inconsistent though so don't be surprised if you don't get perfect results all the time. One spindle can be great while another one can be crap. ;-)


~Henjie

[mykmarinas]

I bought a Sonnet Tempo ATA133 from Ynzal and it performs very well. I already have 4 hard drives attach to it and it runs from ATA 100 to ATA 133. I also noticed great speed increase. (see my sig.:P)