SATA drives 6Gb/s drives in G5 powermac rated 1.5Gb/s

[Kwackman]

Hi,
I'm trying to revive an old G5 powermac for a mate to do some recording on.
I was hoping to put a larger drive than the 160GB that's in there.
Most 1TB SATA drives seem to have a data rate (at least I think what it's called!) of 6Gb/s.
The old G5 spec is 1.5 Gb/s.
If I put the 6Gb/s in, will it work OK?
My thinking is the computer will move data at it's 1.5 Gb/s rate, and the drive will just not work so hard?!

Ta for any advice.

[Guest]

SATA III drives are comparable with SATA I controllers so you should be fine.

[chris...]

Yes, as Bob says, it'll work.

In terms of speeds, I presume you're talking SSD, as in the real world most regular individual hard drives do up to about 100MB/s - ish (and I suspect the SATA controller on a G5 can probably max this easily).

[Kwackman]

Thanks Bob, I've ordered a drive and hopefully it'll all be fine.

Chris, no, I'm not using SSD.
Good ol' spinning platters will do fine for this set up.

[chris...]

Chris, no, I'm not using SSD.
Good ol' spinning platters will do fine for this set up.

Great.

Just for general interest, the drive speeds you mentioned are pretty much b0ll0x. Maybe they're the speed of the drive interface or something. But you won't get meaningful sustained transfers from spinning platters of rust above about 100MB (B for Bytes not b for bits) per second. Some high perf disks may be slightly faster, with some "green" energy saving disks slightly slower.

The 1.5 Gb/s (about 200MB/s) SATA port on the G5 should not only be compatible, but would be expected to max a single drive.

Unfortunately, other aspects of the G5 will be hugely slow, as the CPU design is well over 10 years old, and worse, dates from a period that Apple was well behind the curve in CPU perf. But hopefully your mate can get some use out of it - in particular, just recording should be OK, as there is minimal CPU demand.

[Kwackman]

Just for general interest, the drive speeds you mentioned are pretty much b0ll0x. Maybe they're the speed of the drive interface or something.

I didn't call them drive speeds, it is the interface speed.

The 1.5 Gb/s is taken from a mac spec website
G5 Specs

The 6Gb/s figure is from manufacturers website.
WD drive info

I'm aware the G5 is really old, I was the original owner of it.
In it's day it could run a DAW fine, and it will do so again!

[chris...]

I didn't call them drive speeds, it is the interface speed.

So it turns out.

Sorry I didn't get that from the orig "drives seem to have a data rate ..." wording.

Have fun.

[Kwackman]

When it comes to computers, my terminology accuracy is very dodgy!
Cheers.

[Kwackman]

Update.
6Gb/s drive has been installed and is working fine.
Ta for the guidance.