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)?
61 Answer
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.
You'll have to look into whether TRIM will work on older versions of MacOSX, but SSDs are pretty cheap these days.
2