The Computer Blog

Tuesday, March 22, 2005

G5…..Arriving (almost)!

My G5 PowerMac is still in transit from California. I’m making plans to get off work early on the planned delivery day so I can be home when it arrives and not spend days trying to pry it loose from my carrier. In the meantime, all the other little goodies I ordered to help me with this transition have been arriving. The IOGEAR ADC KVM switch (ordered from Provantage) I’m going to use to run the G5 and my G4 PowerMac with the same 20 inch Apple Cinema Display is here, as are the Parallel to Serial ATA converters from Other World Computing, and a Firmtek Seritek 1V4 Serial ATA PCI-X card from Firewire Depot. I’m awaiting the arrival of the Tranintl Swift Data 200 kit as I write this.

Once the G5 gets here, I intend to check it out right away. Not only will I check its condition and operation, but I intend to run Apple System Profiler to see what kind of DVD burner is in it. Then, I’ll run Software Update and play with various applications to look for any problems. If I see none, then I’ll load up the extra twin 512MB memory sticks I’ve bought and see how it does. At that point, if everything is honkey-dorey; I’ll shut the machine down, hook up the KVM switch, and test operation of both PowerMacs using it.

Assuming that works okay, I plan to boot the G5 using Firewire Target Disk Mode and then boot the G4. Using a Firewire cable, I’ll clone the G4’s boot drive onto the G5 and shut down both machines when I’m done. Then, I’ll boot up the G5 and check it out. If it did the job, I won’t have to reconfigure the G5 at all.

The next step is to disconnect the G4, pull out its hard disks, and mount the Parallel to Serial ATA converters on them. Once that’s done, I’ll mount one hard disk in the G5’s internal bay and then rig up the Swift Data kit and load the remaining 3 hard disks into it. Hopefully, I won’t blow the G5’s power supply with that load!

If that all goes well, I’ll put the G5 up, pull two 120GB hard drives I’ve got in a closet out, and mount the drives in my G4. I then will boot the G4 using an external LaCie 120GB Firewire hard drive and clone that drive onto the boot disk for the G4. The second hard drive in the G4 will be for data archiving and backup; and I’ll be able to add more hard disks to the G4 later if I need to. (I wouldn’t buy any more parallel ATA drives. Instead, I’d replace the converted parallel drives in the G5 with real SATA drives.)

Voila! My Creative Corner will be made! I’ll have a desk where I’ll sit down only to do creative work…either writing or video. And have a great time doing it!

It just doesn’t get any sweeter than that!

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