Welcome to the MacNN Forums.

Freeflyer · Jan 9, 2004, 07:49 AM

Hi, been browsing for some info on this, and couldn't find anything definitive. I know some systems were limited in the size of the drive you could put in. I don't think the sawtooth has a limit, but I wanted to check.

I'm considering a 200-250Gb drive as a second drive to be for serving itunes/backups/storage etc.

Thanks,

J.

BobW · Jan 9, 2004, 08:54 AM

Anything up to 128GB on the onboard IDE Controlle. For anything larger, you need to install an IDE Controller card to support larger drives. Sonnet has them.

Misanthrope · Jan 9, 2004, 08:58 AM

Originally posted by BobW:
Anything up to 137GB on the onboard IDE Controlle. For anything larger, you need to install an IDE Controller card to support larger drives. Sonnet has them.

Fixed.

(He's spot on other than that.)

emdash · Jan 9, 2004, 02:55 PM

Does anyone know if there are any *problems* with using a bigger drive? i.e., installing a 180-gig drive but only using the 137-gig part of it that is accessible to ATA-66?

I'm doing that right now -- didn't feel like returning the drive when I realized my mistake, so I just formatted it to 120GB. It seems to work fine so far, but am I going to have a harsh awakening one of these days?

Thanks.

Misanthrope · Jan 9, 2004, 02:58 PM

There's nothing wrong in doing it. In fact I think you can partition out the remaining space for use.

Freeflyer · Jan 9, 2004, 11:01 PM

Thanks for the responses.

Looks like I'll either get a 120Gb drive or look for a card.

What specs do I need for the card to support the larger disks?

Thanks,

J.

tooki · Jan 10, 2004, 02:47 PM

Originally posted by Misanthrope:
There's nothing wrong in doing it. In fact I think you can partition out the remaining space for use.

You cannot. It's a hardware limitation: the IDE controller cannot see the rest of the drive. It's not a formatting issue that can be circumvented in software.

tooki

Freeflyer · Jan 10, 2004, 03:57 PM

Is there any limitation to the size of a firewire drive?

I already have a 120Gb external firewire drive, I could put the 120 from that inside the G4 and buy a 200-250Gb drive for the external case.

Would that work?

J.

Nerozwei · Jan 11, 2004, 01:01 AM

Originally posted by Freeflyer:
Is there any limitation to the size of a firewire drive?

I already have a 120Gb external firewire drive, I could put the 120 from that inside the G4 and buy a 200-250Gb drive for the external case.

Would that work?

J.

Firewire itself does not limit the size of the HD. The maximum drive size depends on the enclosure (the bridge, ide controller, etc. that's in there). Which external case have you got? If the same case is available with say 200Gb drives you shouldn't have any problems.

Freeflyer · Jan 11, 2004, 08:41 AM

I'm not sure about the enclosure, it was a no-name brand, and has no specs like that. I looked in apple system profiler and it says it's an Oxford IDE device.

How would I find out more than that?

Sorry to ask so many questions, but this is stuff I didn't need to know about before.

Cheers,

J.

Nerozwei · Jan 11, 2004, 12:34 PM

Originally posted by Freeflyer:
I'm not sure about the enclosure, it was a no-name brand, and has no specs like that. I looked in apple system profiler and it says it's an Oxford IDE device.

How would I find out more than that?

Sorry to ask so many questions, but this is stuff I didn't need to know about before.

Cheers,

J.

No problem.. It's just too bad that I've no exact idea on where to dig for more specific information

Maybe there's some HD utility that could dig up the exact model. In any case this could give you some hints. You could try looking here.

My personal uneducated guess is that the chip is the OXFW911, since they've been really popular. Hope you get it working!