The bus for the optical drives on that machine is ATA-3, which is 16MBps, which is dog slow. The hard drives are on an ATA-100 bus (100 MBps). While the hard drives are backwards compatible, I really don't think you'd want to use that pokey slow bus. (FW 400 is 400MBps in ideal conditions, just for comparison purposes, and SATA drives are anywhere from 1.5GB/s to 6GB/s - a HUGE difference)
I also wouldn't rely on something that is starting to show failure in SMART status. Even if you move it, the damage may well be done (and may in fact have nothing to do with its current position).
I'm also not sure that the cooling for the optical drives is anywhere near the same as the cooling for the hard drives. Optical drives don't tend to get hot the way HDs do, so I don't know that moving the existing drive would help and in fact might make the situation worse. Heat rises, and all that...
If it was me, I'd get an external FW drive enclosure, put a new SATA drive in it, and use that. It would be forward compatible should the G4 croak, and should be considerably more reliable than an aging PATA drive. Hard drives do fail eventually and the older they are, the more likely they are to fail.
No i wouldnt want to use that slow bus at all, i was just concerned as the drive was showing signs of failure (According to SMART status) in temperature sensing areas, but for all i know that could mean the temperature sensor of the drive itself has gone. I removed the unused optical drive anyways, at least that might give a bit more airflow.
Besides, the system isnt used for much. Maybe the odd old game or two, video editing (Screenflow may be slow, but it gets the job done!
) and as a media system for watching videos and the occasional internet browser use.
I do plan on a FW enclosure soon when i get some cash together since theres a 500GB SATA HDD sitting on desk in a custom setup i did from an old IDE enclosure, could use that with the Powermac too.
