Quick PCIe Mac question.

Has anyone got a SSD drive in theirs?

Just interested, as I am thinking about getting one for my G5 Quad and I know they can be picky on which ones work.

Having done some research, I was thinking about a OWC Mercury Electra 3G in a 3.5" drive adapter.

I've got a 120GB SanDisk SDSSDA12 in mine. Works OK.

I tested all low price SSDs made by SanDisk from 16GB till 480GB and they all work. There is no need to get faster and more expensive SSDs as the G5 hardware is not able to utilizes those high performance anyway.

SanDisk is using a flash controller that supports SATA V1,V2 and V3, while others only go one revision backwards. So a V3 SATA controller usually only supports V2, while the PowerMac requires V1.

[ Edited by geit 09.02.2021 - 14:39 ]

> Has anyone got a SSD drive in theirs?

Dedicated thread with some recommendations: https://morph.zone/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?topic_id=12583&forum=11

Would be a bonus if PCIe NVMe-SSDs could be supported too.

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Just to confirm, in case anyone looks for this information again, Jacadcaps was absolutely right (as he usually is) and once I put the NVidia card back in I was able to install 3.15 from CD Rom.

Bit of pain, as it means I will have to reinstall the card ever time I need to upgrade, but I suppose that is usually only twice a year.

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Can't you just leave it in one of the upper slots? You've got three to pick from. Then when you need to update MorphOS from CD you'd just have to plug the video cable back to nVidia.

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I know I could do, but I get worried about heat build up, as even though it isn't being used it gets very hot.

My x1900xtx takes up two slots, due to the fans, and then I also have a network card in that uses another so I've only actually the one slot left.

I'm probably being over the top but I am just worried about the whole thing overheating.

Okay, so I've now got my new SSD (OWC Mercury 3G and 3.5" adapter) ready to install, but before I do so I just want to check how everything will work.

What I am aiming for is to use the SSD to be my main drive but leave the existing HDD in but only in case I need further storage in the future and also so I can initially move stuff over to the new SSD.

Therefore, am I best to physically install the drive and then do a fresh install of MorphOS 3.15 on the new drive, or could I copy the exact same partitions from the old drive to the new drive?

Also, if I end up with two drives each with a bootable partition how do I select which drive is the one that should be booted from? Am I correct in thinking the Mac has an early boot menu (sorry my Mac knowledge is very low)? If so how do I permanently make the boot partition on the SSD the one that the computer usually boots from?

I know these are noddy questions, but the last time I installed any new harddrive was probably in about 1997 and involved a Elbox PowerFlyer and even then it didn't go to plan as far as I can remember!

[ Edited by Zetec-s 27.02.2021 - 21:39 ]

Hey zetec, to help with the heat, look up PCI fans, you can get blower and exhaust fans as well as fan brackets, this way you can direct more air at the card or away from the card heat source, you just need a spare molex power connector, you can use a Y splitter if you used up all connectors. The fans would add 12V 1A at most, so 12W.

I was just curious how much faster a quad core 2.5 is or even a 2.7 compared to a 2.3? Not so much in just raw numbers but:

Is there a noticeable difference with browsing in Wayfarer?

Real world every day usage?

My 2.3 for certain items it perfectly fast, but for especially with wayfarer gets bogged down with some sites.

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I've got a quad core 2.5 and its a fair bit faster on Wayfarer than my MacMini 1.5 and PowerBook 1.7 but it still gets bogged down on certain websites and my iphone 13 can easily outrun it, as you would expect. Sites like Facebook (non-mobile version) and Microsoft applications it gets there in the end, as Wayfarer is so good and modern, but can still take time.

Its still my MorphOS machine of choice though, as its fairly rare for the CPU to load up in the same way as the MacMini and its still the quickest by some margin. It's ability to play higher resolution videos on YouTube is also much better.

Is it faster than a slightly older 2.7 or 2.3? It should be as its DDR3 memory and I've also installed a SSD to try and speed it up as much as possible, but in real use I bet its hardly noticeable.

> Is it faster than a slightly older 2.7 or 2.3? It should be as its DDR3 memory

In fact, it's DDR2 (vs. DDR). Besides, PCIe is significantly faster than AGP for software taxing the graphics bus.

Edit: added "than AGP"

[ Edited by Andreas_Wolf 15.09.2022 - 22:05 ]

So I'm best to leave well enough alone :).

Sound like the 2.7 may be faster than the 2.5 in some situations.

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Best configuration for a 2.5?

What video card is best (esp. with the new updates...)?

What cards can do dual monitor in a 2.5? Will I need 2 cards for best results for multimonitor?

My 2.3 is on the way out and I'm looking at options right now...

Do I need to purchase anything else to make it work with MOS 3.17?

Hi matt3,

first, you must find a compatible graphic card.

Radeon X1950 Pro or GT are nice

I think dual monitors will be supported with MorphOS 3.8 with this card.

SSD is good too.

On my Quad G5, I added a Silicon Media sil3432 SATA II PCIE card. This driver is still probably NOT going to work in MorphOS in the short term. Now I have a problem with ethernet, I use a TP-LINK 1Gb Ethernet PCIE card. I don't have the speed over a 400Mb connection as normal. I only get 500KB a second on average, and am pTulling my hair out at how slow it is. Is there anyone who has experienced this?

Andrew H.

[ Edited by huffandy 07.10.2022 - 22:12 ]

@huffdandy

If you have a local Win/Linux machine that could be used as a proxy, try running that one one. There's setup instructions here: https://wayfarer.icu/faq under How can I use a VPN for geo-blocked websites?. Essentially this works around a problem in our networking stack (which is under investigation).

I have a PowerMac MDD here (Wiltshire, UK) that needs to find a good home. It has an NVidia gfx card, so would need a Radeon, and I have done a PSU fan replacement so it doesn't sound like an airplane taking off permanently, but is there anyone who would like to discuss taking it off my hands?