Consider this page just a curiosity, since the PCI IDE card used was a prototype, never released to the public and clearly had some performance bottlenecks. The firmware in the IDE PCI card (prototype UltraTek card, never released) was a very early version. (The ultratek card was later to be sold by VST, with much improved firmware - dual IDE RAID performance with the retail version and two IBM 75GXP drives had rates more than twice what is shown here, with sustained rates over 50MB/sec.)

The 9600/350 is a "Kansas" motherboard design which is known for lower PCI/Memory performance, which also likely affected scores. (I've seen faster PCI IDE drive performance with one single IDE drive in my Umax S900 with an Acard ATA/66 PCI IDE card for instance than the very, very low rates seen with the 9600 noted below.)

Although I wish I'd had a G4/450 CPU Upgrade for the 9600/350 (instead of a G4/350) so that the CPU speed would be comparable to the G4/450 AGP (aka sawtooth) modern Mac, that was no possible. Hopefully this comparison will still be of interest. (Older motherboard design, slower bus speed mac vs modern Mac with better/faster PCI/memory controller and SDRAM.)

Although the prototype controller card is likely the major factor in the low rates shown below, the two drives used here were IDE Maxtor 27GB models, which seem to have much lower write speeds than normal - even when tested with modern macs and onboard IDE controllers. (See the Maxtor 40GB review, which had nearly 30MB/sec sustained rates in Read and Write with the B&W G3 onboard IDE controller). The rates from a single Maxtor 40GB drive were higher than dual drive RAID in either system with this early firmware PCI IDE card and two Maxtor 27GB drives.

For more current articles on IDE or IDE RAID, see the IDE articles page.

(For a more complete guide, including Softraid setup - see the IDE RAID How-To Article.)

The photos below illustrate the steps required to install two IDE hard drives in an Apple B&W G3 or G4 system (since the case designs are identical). The photos don't go into the simple step of installing the IDE PCI card, since it's assumed you know how to install a PCI Card.

Since the dual drive IDE RAID has each drive on a separate cable, there's no need to change the default Master drive jumper setting of most IDE drives. (Most IDE drives come already set for Master or single drive setting.)

Tools Required:

Hardware & Software Required:

• Two IDE Hard Drives (ATA/66 or 7200 RPM drives preferred)
• Two IDE cables (ATA/66 cables if using an ATA/66 card)
• Mac Compatible PCI IDE Controller (Turbomax, FirmTek or Acard)
  (ATA/66 cards may perform better in modern macs with ATA/66 drives)
• Mac RAID Software (I used Softraid 2.2.1)
• Power Supply "Y" Cable
  (needed if you don't have two spare power supply connectors)

I welcome other feedback on IDE Raid Performance - please list your Mac model, OS version, IDE PCI Card, drives used, Raid Software/version, etc.

Related Links:

• IBM 75GXP Dual Drive IDE RAID Performance Tests
• IDE RAID Hardware and Software Install incl. Performance tests
• Acard ATA/66 vs TurboMax ATA/33 Performance
• ACard ATA/66 vs Onboard ATA/33 Mac IDE Real World Tests
• IDE RAID Feedback (Turbomax card owners)
• My TurboMax IDE Card Review
• Promax's TurboMax product page
• Thad Brown's TurboMax Performance Tests in a Umax S900
  (IBM/Maxtor IDE drives compared to S900's SCSI IBM and Barracuda drives)
• PowerCenter Pro owner compares TurboMax/WD Expert to IBM 9LXZ drive
  (updated for more IDE vs SCSI drive comparisons).
• Motorola Starmax 4200MT (Reader article by Jeff Relm)
• Beige G3 IDE Hard Drive Upgrade guide
• B&W G3 IDE Slave Hard Drive Upgrade guide
• Proline's low-cost/easy install Hard Drive Bracket (see my installation article.)
• Links to IDE standards and definitions (thanks to Jeff Relm)
• Proline's low-cost B&W G3 HD Bracket (adds a drive over the CDROM)
• 9600 Onboard SCSI vs PCI Card (with stock 4GB Drive)
• More Onboard SCSI vs PCI Card Tests (Narrow SCSI drives)
• 8600 4 Drive Internal RAID (works w/9600 as well)
• Raid in a 7500 (tips on installing two drives inside)
• Cheetah HD & PCI SCSI card upgrade to 8500 (illustrated guide)
• Complete List of Controller/Disk/RAID Articles including RAID tests (5 SW packages) and 4 UW SCSI card head-to-head review. Too many articles to list.