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I want to replace the old hard drive in my G5 and install an SSD in my Power Mac G5, if that is possible.
The sum total of my knowledge is that the G5 uses SATA 1 technology and new SSD are SATA 3.
Is there an SSD new or old I can buy?
Gary Scotland wrote:
Thanks for your reply, much appreciated.
I forgot to say that I'v tried many SATA lll SSD's and none were recognised by the G5.
SATA 1 hard drives work no problem, but they are no longer available, hence the need for an SSD.
Im in the UK and no one sells OWC here, including Ebay.
A SATA III hard drive should work without issue, but you will need to find a smaller sized drive since I would imagine the G5 won't be able to access an internal drive larger than 2TB. It has been so long since I used a G5 that the maximum drive size could be much smaller. The more recent drives have also changed their default block size from 512 bytes to 4,096 bytes so that drives larger than 2TB are possible, but even smaller drives can have this larger default block size. The drives usually keep the 512B block size reference for backwards compatibility, but it still might cause problems with such an older system.
As for the SSD not being recognized, it could also be related to this default block size.
Here is an article which provides more details about the 512B to 4K block size used by newer hard drives and somewhat applies to SSDs.
Im afraid I do not understand this sentence:
SSDs need to partitioned on 4K boundaries (usually the partition starts at 1M) in order to get the best performance from an SSD, otherwise the SSD can be as slow as a hard drive.
If you could rephrase in everyday language that would be apreciated.
It is a bit hard to explain, but the internal structure of the SSD NAND memory is organized into 4K blocks. All data internal to the SSD requires saving data in 4K blocks. If the partitions are aligned on the 4K boundaries, then it matches perfectly with the internal drive structure allowing for faster (optimal) writes to the internal SSD NAND memory. If the partitions are mis-aligned, then it requires the SSD to work harder to save the data. Aligning the partitions also prevents excessive wear on the SSD.
Here is an excellent article detailing the performance benefits of proper partition alignment for both hard drives and especially SSDs and does a much better job than my attempted summary.
Gary Scotland wrote:
Thanks for your reply, much appreciated.
I forgot to say that I'v tried many SATA lll SSD's and none were recognised by the G5.
SATA 1 hard drives work no problem, but they are no longer available, hence the need for an SSD.
Im in the UK and no one sells OWC here, including Ebay.
A SATA III hard drive should work without issue, but you will need to find a smaller sized drive since I would imagine the G5 won't be able to access an internal drive larger than 2TB. It has been so long since I used a G5 that the maximum drive size could be much smaller. The more recent drives have also changed their default block size from 512 bytes to 4,096 bytes so that drives larger than 2TB are possible, but even smaller drives can have this larger default block size. The drives usually keep the 512B block size reference for backwards compatibility, but it still might cause problems with such an older system.
As for the SSD not being recognized, it could also be related to this default block size.
Here is an article which provides more details about the 512B to 4K block size used by newer hard drives and somewhat applies to SSDs.
Im afraid I do not understand this sentence:
SSDs need to partitioned on 4K boundaries (usually the partition starts at 1M) in order to get the best performance from an SSD, otherwise the SSD can be as slow as a hard drive.
If you could rephrase in everyday language that would be apreciated.
It is a bit hard to explain, but the internal structure of the SSD NAND memory is organized into 4K blocks. All data internal to the SSD requires saving data in 4K blocks. If the partitions are aligned on the 4K boundaries, then it matches perfectly with the internal drive structure allowing for faster (optimal) writes to the internal SSD NAND memory. If the partitions are mis-aligned, then it requires the SSD to work harder to save the data. Aligning the partitions also prevents excessive wear on the SSD.
Here is an excellent article detailing the performance benefits of proper partition alignment for both hard drives and especially SSDs and does a much better job than my attempted summary.
Almost all of the current SSDs use a SATA III controller which in theory should just work, but in practice many SATA III SSDs have issues auto negotiating the SATA link speed which means some SSDs just won't work. If you want to try an SSD, then I would suggest either a Crucial MX500 series or an OWC Mercury Electra 3G SSD. I've used the Crucial SSDs in some older Intel Macs which use a SATA II controller without any issues, but only on systems as old as 2009. Stay away from the Crucial BX500 series though. Check the OWC website to see if they have any information on SSD upgrades for the G5.
The other concern is the OS needs to know how to work with an SSD. SSDs need to partitioned on 4K boundaries (usually the partition starts at 1M) in order to get the best performance from an SSD, otherwise the SSD can be as slow as a hard drive. I know we had a lot of issues with SSDs when we first started using them years ago and then the issues just disappeared. I suspect a macOS or system firmware update helped to resolve these issues with our early SSDs neither of which will be available for a G5 system.
Thanks for your reply, much appreciated.
I forgot to say that I'v tried many SATA lll SSD's and none were recognised by the G5.
SATA 1 hard drives work no problem, but they are no longer available, hence the need for an SSD.
Im in the UK and no one sells OWC here, including Ebay.
Im afraid I do not understand this sentence:
SSDs need to partitioned on 4K boundaries (usually the partition starts at 1M) in order to get the best performance from an SSD, otherwise the SSD can be as slow as a hard drive.
If you could rephrase in everyday language that would be apreciated.
Im in the UK and no one sells OWC here,
I'm not sure it helps with this quest, but OWC has an UK partner:
https://www.megamac.com/collections/owc
The US OWC site does not include the PowerMac G5 among Macs compatible with their SATA II 3GBps SSD, even though that drvie model shows as backwards-compatible with SATA I 1.5GBps.
https://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/S3D7E3G500/
The only SSDs that have worked reliably for me in my PowerMacs are the OWC Mercury Electra 3G models. I've tried the Samsung 860 Pro and Evo models (SATA 6Gbps drives) and they are unreliable in these old machines, for some reason. Sometimes they boot, sometimes they dont. I've also tried brand new Seagate Barracuda 1TB HDD that are SATA 6Gbps and they work perfectly fine.
if you go on Ebay and do a search for APPLE BRANDED SSD you should find at a good price Sata1 or Sata II SSD. The only problem is purchasing one of those with updated firmware which will negotiate at Sata II speed but in your case Sata I is all that is required. To tell you the truth a data I SSD is not much faster than a Seagate Barracuda 1TB HDD that are SATA 6Gbps anyway so this entire effort is most likely not necessary.
SSD for Power Mac G5
