Special buying considerations when choosing a drive for an Apple Macintosh.

G4-based Macintosh computers

Most Macintosh computers based on the G4 processor use a Parallel ATA (PATA) port. If you are purchasing an additional drive or replacement drive for one of these computers, choose a drive with a model number ending in “A.”

Many G4 systems have a 137-GB limit and will not utilize the full capacity of a larger drive. For information on G4 computers that can use the full capacity of larger drive visit the Apple support site and review this document.

G5-based Macintosh computers

Most Macintosh computers based on the G5 processor use a Serial ATA (SATA) port. If you are purchasing an additional drive or replacement drive for one of these computers, choose a drive with a model number ending in “AS.”

The 137-GB limit does not apply to the G5 system; however, the operating system should be MacOS 10.2 or higher to support the full capacity of the drive as a single volume (partition).

The SATA port on most G5 systems is based on 1.5Gb/s SATA technology and does not support a feature called Spread Spectrum Clocking (SSC). This feature is enabled in the NL35 and Barracuda ES products and is disabled by default on the Barracuda 7200.10. When choosing a drive, please take this into account and stay within the Barracuda 7200.10 family.

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