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I want to upgrade my 17" Powerbook G4 (running MacOS 10.4.11 on 1.5GHz, 2GB RAM, 160 GB HDD (IDE/PATA)) - with, for example, a 250GB mSATA or M.2 (SATA) SDD (60-80 EUR), and a suitable adapter 44-pin (Mini-IDE) to mSATA (<10 EUR) or to M.2 (around 20 EUR).

Is there a potential problem which I should consider in more detail using an SSD, especially non-IDE, in such an old Powerbook? Could there be a problem with fast wearing out of the SSD with any wrong SSD management by MacOS 10.4 (or 10.5)?

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  • I can't imagine a SSD working at PATA speeds. There are zero IDE SSDs that exist, IDE was discontinued over a decade ago, in favor of SATA
    – Ramhound
    Feb 3, 2016 at 0:53
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    @Ramhound You comment is irrelevant to the question, which is specifically asking about mSATA > IDE converters.
    – paradroid
    Feb 3, 2016 at 6:58
  • I disagree its not relevant. The author wants to use a SSD over an IDE bus. There is going to be a huge performance hit by doing that.
    – Ramhound
    Feb 3, 2016 at 12:07
  • @Ramhound I really doubt that the OP didn't realise that, but you can always point out the obvious if you feel that you need to.
    – paradroid
    Feb 3, 2016 at 22:24
  • Great, we agree I can make on topic comment to a question!
    – Ramhound
    Feb 3, 2016 at 22:41

1 Answer 1

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I don't have any experience with doing so on a Mac, but it works with something like a ThinkPad X40 or X41, for example, where it's quite a common upgrade.

Using a modern mSATA SSD with a 1.8" IDE converter, as shown in the picture, is the only feasible way to upgrade a ThinkPad X40/X41, as they used 1.8" IDE drives, which are impossible to find these days.

mSATA > 1.8" IDE converter

You'll have to look into whether TRIM will work on older versions of MacOSX, but SSDs are pretty cheap these days.

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  • thanks for the answer! This seems to be the final solution to use the original connection for the harddrive. I fear that when using an adapter for a SATA HDD or SDD in the IDE-optical Bay, I may not have the same speed as with the mSata with IDE converter in the normal HDD bay. Aug 28, 2016 at 15:23
  • @powerbookg4_17 It will most likely be faster than the original HDD, and run at the maximum speed that the IDE bus can handle, which will be the bottleneck for the usual SSD speed.
    – paradroid
    Sep 12, 2016 at 0:29

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