Howdy guys & gals,

I have been do a bit of research on the mac pro's I plan on buying one a little later this year and cant wait while I save my pennies.

Anyway, i have an external drive at home that has USB2 which is quite poor as we now and esata connector. I just did a quick google for an esata card for the mac pro and come across a great article over on macinstein. On every mac pro motherboard there are 2 hidden sata connectors behind the fan assembly, and as it happens Newer Technology make a esata connector that uses those two connectors for $25 USD giving you a possible 6 drives.

I wont go over the article again, just found it interesting and though other may like to know

heres a link

Macenstein | Review: Newer Technology’s Mac Pro eSATA Extender Cable; The $25 way to add eSATA to your Mac Pro

J

Hmmm... that could make for an interesting "once a week offsite clone backup" set up, especially considering that an eSata enclosure can be had for around $45 vs nearly $200 for a FW800 enclosure.

and its using two connectors you never knew you had, freeing up your usb/fw ones

duplicate

Jeremy, would you mind fixing the spelling in the title? Where should read were.

You'd make an old man a little happier.

done diddly Edge

Those connectors aren't exactly hidden, but not easy to get to under the fan assembly. You have to take out the memory cage, CPU cover and fan assembly, because they all interlock. It's not hard, though, nothing like the horror stories you read sometimes. Just make sure your Mac is still warm when you take it apart, it makes those plastic parts far more willing.

The SATA extender cable fits perfectly and is good value indeed. I'm using it with an external 2 disk SOHOtank case that I bought off Clockwork - much faster than FW800. I'm running the two eSATA disks as RAID-0 stripe, for added effect.

Other people use the two extra SATA connectors on the main board for optical drives. AFAIK, Blu-Ray drives are all SATA, and couldn't be put into the optical drive cage otherwise.

Cheers
Steffen.

That rocks! Thanks for the info. I already have 3 drives inside, so knowing that I have 3 connectors free is good news

Yep, knew about those. I took out my IDE cable and put a Blu-ray writer and DVD writer that both have a SATA interface.

Good man.

Good tip, too. Just wish I could justify the cost of a Mac Pro. Will make do with my look-alike Hack Pro instead.

I ordered one of these when I ordered my extra RAM but it's still sitting on the shelf waiting for a need. Glad to hear from dotnet that they're not hard to install. I must say I looked at the instructions and wondered whether I could ever be bothered doing it. Think I will now though - cheers!

I know jeremy did mention it, but it might be worth noting again that it's not just the new model Mac Pros that have this - it's all of them.

Nice! That's pretty handy. eSATA rocks
All I need now is a Mac Pro, heh

I have 4 Raptors striped together in the normal bays and then added a big 750 GB drive into the second optical bay via a 5.25 to 3.5 adapter frame from a PC store. Ran the cable up from one of the "hidden" connectors. Probably took all of 15 minutes drive and all. I have split the drive down for a smallish bootcamp partition and mostly for quick seamless time machine. That way I only have to hook up my external on the very rare occasion and can store it offsite.

I tried to turn on my mac tonight and all i got was a single beep and a running fan.I opened the optical drive door and restarted with my install disc but no joy .Unplugged the machine for 10 minutes to reset but no luck.Is there a simple fix like replacing the HDD or is it somthing worseI understand that replacing anything in a 20" G4 imac is a little more interesting than working on a pc and i have swapped both drives on my ibook so maybe access workshop manual would be a help Any help would be most appreciated,thanks.
PS. Iwas meant to start new thead but i pressed the wrong button,Oops

I could be wrong andrew but usually if its the harddrive the machine will start but you will get a folder icon with a question mark. What you have described sounds more like a ram fault. Have you tried to reseat the ram or tried different ram sticks?