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I upgraded my iBook G4 to have an SSD

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Re: I upgraded my iBook G4 to have an SSD

#71

Post by numpad0 »

eisa01 wrote: post #15
exitb wrote: post #13

It's great fun to put SSDs in retro machines, but I usually opt to use SLC drives for SSD-unaware operating systems. It supposedly can have two orders of magnitude more cycles before the cells start to die. On the other hand, there's lots of conflicting information out there, so not sure if it really makes that much of a difference.

You probably don't run 24/7 disk activity on these retro machines, so SLC is probably not worth it?

Old tryhard MLC/TLC controllers tended to lock up and/or slow down when used for boot disks and/or used with OS that had no ATA TRIM command support to explicitly unallocate disk sectors. For this reason, SLC disks and CompactFlash under 8GB were used to be recommended. But that's like 10 years ago.

Re: I upgraded my iBook G4 to have an SSD

#72

Post by SpecialistK »

bluedino wrote: post #39
SpecialistK wrote: post #3

I respect anyone brave or foolish enough to do a drive swap on a iBook.

I remember the first RAM/HD upgrade I did on a Unibody MacBook...mind-blowing simple. Most laptops were such a pain to work on before that. Edit: I remember some models having the drive in a bay and the RAM in an easily accessible panel (or under the keyboard), but most were a sandwich of tiny panels and cables.

I had a Unibody Aluminum MacBook (the 2008 model) and yeah... flip the battery lid, one screw for the HDD.

That machine had thermal issues, but HDD and RAM was easy.

Re: I upgraded my iBook G4 to have an SSD

#73

Post by Pesthuf »

RogerPollack wrote: post #26

This is not an easy task. For those of you that don’t know the iBook G4’s logic board and hard drive are essential hermetically sealed in the plastic case AND a second layer of metal. I ruined my first iBook G4 when attempting this same upgrade as the ribbon cables that connect the power button and LEDs ripped in half from age (very brittle). I bought another used iBook G4. It still has the stock 60 GB hard disk and…

Ah. So this is what Apple did to force you to buy their super expensive storage before custom drives and serialization.

Re: I upgraded my iBook G4 to have an SSD

#74

Post by justsomehnguy »

exitb wrote: post #13

It's great fun to put SSDs in retro machines, but I usually opt to use SLC drives for SSD-unaware operating systems. It supposedly can have two orders of magnitude more cycles before the cells start to die. On the other hand, there's lots of conflicting information out there, so not sure if it really makes that much of a difference.

Even with 0.3 DWPD drives you need to write constantly, 24/7, to reach the claimed TBW in years.

If you are particulary paranoid then just overprovision by bying a larger drive.

Re: I upgraded my iBook G4 to have an SSD

#76

Post by amatecha »

WoodenChair wrote: post #59

I recently did a similar set of upgrades. I wanted to create a Mac OS 9 computer for my son. So, I bought three untested G4 Mac minis (Late 2005) after learning that there is now a version of Mac OS 9 that has been hacked to run on them: http://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php?board=127.0 When they shipped they were Mac OS X only. They are actually, with this hack, some of the fastest machines you can get to run Mac…

Wow nice, I would be interested in one of those (preferably the 1.33) if you’d at all be willing to sell directly (and dependent on asking price). I’m in Vancouver BC, Canada.

Re: I upgraded my iBook G4 to have an SSD

#77

Post by justinclift »

jsheard wrote: post #40
ndiddy wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it’s worth worrying about on an iBook. The hard drive is in between the motherboard and the palmrest, so replacing it basically involves taking the entire machine completely apart (including having to deal with a ton of really tight snap points). It’s definitely not something you want to do more than once, and I’m not sure how many disassembly cycles the 20 year old plastic can take.

If you do want some insurance, the old over-provisioning trick should still work to prolong the life of the drive when used in a system that doesn't support TRIM. Format the drive on a modern system that does support TRIM, or secure erase it with the manufacturers utility, then create a partition which doesn't fill the entire drive and use that on the classic system that doesn't support TRIM. As long as the system ne…

This kind of sounds like a use case where 2nd hand enterprise SSD's (Ebay, etc) might be appropriate.

Those things fairly commonly still have a shed load of endurance left, though it is a luck of the draw thing.

Re: I upgraded my iBook G4 to have an SSD

#78

Post by winrid »

thoughtpeddler wrote: post #75
WoodenChair wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes exactly and no Internet access.

Is there a large market for this?

you can just take any laptop and disable (or even remove) the wifi chip, so no. It's only done because people like to do nerd stuff. :)

Re: I upgraded my iBook G4 to have an SSD

#79

Post by boredzo »

lloeki wrote: post #7

> Tiger’s dd doesn’t have status=progress Maybe sending it SIGINFO (^T in terminal) could help? Dunno if it's supported as far back as Tiger's. (BSD thing, it's SIGUSR1 on GNU dd / Linux, the usability difference is that on darwin the terminal can conveniently send SIGINFO via ^T)

I think it is, but it does print an overall speed estimate at the end anyway. It's just not as conveniently formatted as `status=progress`, which gives you MB/sec (or GB/sec if appropriate), so you gotta do math to it.

Here's what the output at the end or from SIGINFO looks like (this is running on my Mac mini and copying from /dev/zero to /dev/null):

``` 148908277760 bytes transferred in 6.917856 secs (21525206330 bytes/sec) ```

If I add `status=progress`, then it _also_ prints this every second:

``` 150617456640 bytes (151 GB, 140 GiB) transferred 7.001s, 22 GB/s ```

Re: I upgraded my iBook G4 to have an SSD

#80

Post by WoodenChair »

amatecha wrote: post #76
WoodenChair wrote: post #59

I recently did a similar set of upgrades. I wanted to create a Mac OS 9 computer for my son. So, I bought three untested G4 Mac minis (Late 2005) after learning that there is now a version of Mac OS 9 that has been hacked to run on them: http://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php?board=127.0 When they shipped they were Mac OS X only. They are actually, with this hack, some of the fastest machines you can get to run Mac…

Wow nice, I would be interested in one of those (preferably the 1.33) if you’d at all be willing to sell directly (and dependent on asking price). I’m in Vancouver BC, Canada.

Sorry, I would've but it's already on eBay: https://www.ebay.com/itm/126406855301

That one I unfortunately broke the plastic on while upgrading (pictures of that on eBay too).

The 1.25 Ghz one (1.25 Ghz G4, 120 GB Kingston SSD, 1 GB RAM, new clock battery) which is intact I have not listed yet. Feel free to contact me through X, email, etc. which you can find in my hacker news profile if you want to make an offer to buy that one directly.

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