I'm going to be getting a Beige G3 300 soon. I would like to use it to backup my iBook (I will be buying at least a 60gig hard drive for the beige) and I would also like to use it as an iTunes jukebox hooked up to my stereo (with an ati remote wonder). I would like to use the machine to rip/encode AAC files in iTunes (to save wear on my iBooks optical drive) I would also be using it as a backup desktop machine when my iBook breaks. Any suggestions are welcome. Here are my questions

1) What brand/model/speed hard drive should I get? I was thinking a 7200 rpm WD or Hitachi I would be getting at least a 60gig
2) How much ram should I get? I'm thinking at least 384 megs, more like 512megs.
3) Is it worth it to upgrade the processor?
4) Does the AV card work with OS X? If the video in does not work would the RCA audio out still work?
5) Is it possible to do firewire target disk mode using the iBook as the target? The beige will have a PCI firewire card.
6) Would it be worth it to upgrade the video ram?
7) Overall what would should I do to make the machine Rip cd's faster? Should I buy a new cdrom drive? What model? (I dont need a burner in this machine, I can simply use the one in my iBook)

Thanks!

For upgrade you can consult those 2 Web Site with tons of usefull info post by users, Disc,video,processor card etc at:
http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/index.html
or
http://macspeedzone.com/
My only experience with upgrade is with a Sonnet G3 400 mhz in a PPC 7600 120 mhz. this was a easy upgrade an give new life to my computer.

The only drawback, I find the resulting system a little bit more fragile... Well I got so much stuff on it graemlins/nuts.gif
Have fun

I just found some cheap ram on ebay for this machine (256 + the existing 128megs) and a 6meg vram upgrade.

Be careful - if you have a desktop the RAM MUST be low profle or you could damage you motherboard trying to close the case.

Much of the 256 RAM out there will not work in beige unless it is double sided.

Drive speeds are meaningless - the bus is too slow
Processor upgrades are good things and cheap
Yes the iBook will Target I do not think the beige will :cool:

I got two 128meg sticks, and they were pulled from a beige g3 300mhz so they should work (a desktop case too)

Now for target disk mode - I can use the iBook as the target and access it via the beige. RIGHT?

Yep the 128s will be fine.
The iBook shuld target to the beige no problem - just not vice versa. :cool:

Perfect. The iBook is back in for service.... again..... If only the ibook was as solid as the beige...