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You are here: MacNN Forums > Hardware - Troubleshooting and Discussion > Mac Desktops > Can a G4 Quicksilver take a 250 gig drive?

Can a G4 Quicksilver take a 250 gig drive?
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Apr 28, 2004, 09:39 PM
 
I did a quick search and couldnt find the answer. Will I be able to see all the gigs or only 137? I also have an external firewire case with oxford 911, will that take it?
     
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Apr 28, 2004, 10:01 PM
 
QuickSilver 2002 (800, 933, 1000MP) - Yes.
QuickSilver 2001 (733, 867, 800MP) - No.
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Apr 28, 2004, 10:22 PM
 
Originally posted by PowerMacMan:
QuickSilver 2002 (800, 933, 1000MP) - Yes.
QuickSilver 2001 (733, 867, 800MP) - No.
perfect, thank you!
     
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Apr 29, 2004, 04:49 PM
 
Originally posted by PowerMacMan:
QuickSilver 2002 (800, 933, 1000MP) - Yes.
QuickSilver 2001 (733, 867, 800MP) - No.
why?
why not?
     
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Apr 29, 2004, 04:56 PM
 
Because the 2002 motherboard supports 48bit LBA addressing, so it can read capacities in excess of 137GBs.

The 2001 board does not, so it can only read capacities up to 137GB.
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Apr 29, 2004, 07:51 PM
 
Originally posted by PowerMacMan:
Because the 2002 motherboard supports 48bit LBA addressing, so it can read capacities in excess of 137GBs.
According to Apple, only the MDD G4s can use the full capacity of large ATA disks. Refer to this for more information.
     
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Apr 29, 2004, 08:22 PM
 
Apple documentation is rarely correct on important things.
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Apr 29, 2004, 08:30 PM
 
Originally posted by PowerMacMan:
Apple documentation is rarely correct on important things.
why is that not encouraging?

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Apr 29, 2004, 08:58 PM
 
Anecdotal evidence of large HD support in QS2002, iMacs, and eMacs.

Key is to format in 10.2 or higher.
     
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Apr 29, 2004, 09:15 PM
 
How would you be able to determine whether or not your board supports it besides plugging in a >120gb drive? Heheh

I'm tempted to give that a shot on my g4. The board was replaced enough times to where it has an 820-* board which apparently was a replacement for both QS2001 and QS2002..

HRMMMMmmmmMMM...

That'd be interesting
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Apr 29, 2004, 10:40 PM
 
Originally posted by Link:
How would you be able to determine whether or not your board supports it besides plugging in a >120gb drive? Heheh

I'm tempted to give that a shot on my g4. The board was replaced enough times to where it has an 820-* board which apparently was a replacement for both QS2001 and QS2002..

HRMMMMmmmmMMM...

That'd be interesting
If not, you can always format it into 2x120GB partitions.
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Apr 30, 2004, 05:59 AM
 
Alternatively, buy an external firewire case and put the drive in that. If it has an oxford 911 bridge, the G4 shouldn't care what size it is.

I have a 200Gb drive in an external case and it works a treat.

J.
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Apr 30, 2004, 06:41 AM
 
Originally posted by olePigeon:
If not, you can always format it into 2x120GB partitions.
no you can't.

     
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Apr 30, 2004, 03:12 PM
 
You could buy something like Sonnet's Tempo ATA133 PCI card to work around this problem and get better performance at the same time. I put one in my G4/400 and am very happy with the results.

Check it out:

http://www.sonnettech.com/product/tempo_ata133.html
     
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Apr 30, 2004, 03:45 PM
 
I have a 1Ghz Dual Quick Silver (not Mirrored Drive Doors) and I can verify that it does see drives larger than 128 GB. I have a 160 GB drive that is partitioned into two drives on the main ATA Bus. I bought a SIIG RAID card as the Apple documentation said that my G4 would not be able to see the whole drive. The Apple documentation is incorrect. I kept the RAID card and attached two 100 Gb drives to it.
     
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Apr 30, 2004, 03:48 PM
 
It won't matter if you partition the drive. The max the old mother boards can see is 137 (oor is it 128?). One note for those putting drives in Firewire Cases. Not all 911 Oxford Drives can see the larger drives. I'm guessing most new 911 cases will, but check with the venndor. I had an OWC case from about three years ago and it could not see my 250GB drive. I had to buy a newer case. Both cases had the 911 Oxford chipset..
     
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Apr 30, 2004, 03:50 PM
 
stevil beat me to the punch...

From the AGPs up to the QuickSilvers the hard drive controller is ATA/66 (at least up to the first gen of QS, for certain...).

So, if you're laying out dough on a fat drive, not only will the peak speeds be better, but I beleive the more recent ATA-5 and ATA-6 had other advances as far as error correction...

What was funny was the original drive in my 1st gen QS from apple was ATA/100, BUT hooked up to the built in ATA-66 controller....


One other thought....the newer S-ATA controllers are cheaper than the older ATA controllers, the seritek/firmtek one was rated highly...you may just spring for that?

And you can hook up old parallel ATA drives to it with a $20 adapter piece....so you get the best of both worlds, fastest possible speed on new drive, and don't lose the legacy stuff.

good luck.
     
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Apr 30, 2004, 04:07 PM
 
Originally posted by houseofschwartz:
I have a 1Ghz Dual Quick Silver (not Mirrored Drive Doors) and I can verify that it does see drives larger than 128 GB. I have a 160 GB drive that is partitioned into two drives on the main ATA Bus. I bought a SIIG RAID card as the Apple documentation said that my G4 would not be able to see the whole drive. The Apple documentation is incorrect. I kept the RAID card and attached two 100 Gb drives to it.
I also have a QS2002 (not MDD) with a Sonnet Tempo Trio, and I just put a Seagate 200GB - it sees and works with the drive OK, but there is an issue as to why it can't reboot from a system on that drive (keeps reverting to my original system on an 80GB connected to the motherboard ATA bus - I can select the drive from that system and it will boot into it then... wierd). I'll post again if I can figure it out - unless anybody else knows...
     
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Apr 30, 2004, 04:13 PM
 
This is all based on per drive right? I could have 2-3 128G drives though. correct?
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Apr 30, 2004, 04:19 PM
 
Originally posted by KidRed:
This is all based on per drive right? I could have 2-3 128G drives though. correct?
Correct.
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Apr 30, 2004, 04:33 PM
 
How about a Sawtooth? I have a G4/500 upgraded to 1 GHz and a SuperDrive, with two hard drives (80G & 40G). I'm thinking of replacing the 40G with a 120G. Will it work?
     
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Apr 30, 2004, 04:58 PM
 
It'll work just fine.
(Last edited by Lateralus; Apr 30, 2004 at 08:52 PM. )
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Apr 30, 2004, 06:35 PM
 
Just use this and you can use drives larger than 128GB internally . . .


http://www.speedtools.com/ATA6.html


Works great . . .
The Kuz
     
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Apr 30, 2004, 08:17 PM
 
Originally posted by mike3k:
How about a Sawtooth? I have a G4/500 upgraded to 1 GHz and a SuperDrive, with two hard drives (80G & 40G). I'm thinking of replacing the 40G with a 120G. Will it work?
I have a G4-400 that I upgraded to a 1GHz processor and recently installed a 120G drive in it. System Profile says:
Code:
ATA-4 Bus: IC35L120AVV207-0: Capacity: 115.04 GB Model: IC35L120AVV207-0 Revision: V24OA63A Serial Number: VNVD06G4C2048L Removable Media: No Detachable Drive: No BSD Name: disk0 Protocol: ATA Unit Number: 0 Socket Type: Internal OS9 Drivers: Yes India: Capacity: 95.29 GB Available: 95.25 GB Writable: Yes File System: HFS+ BSD Name: disk0s9 Mount Point: /Volumes/India Macintosh HD: Capacity: 19.74 GB Available: 18.04 GB Writable: Yes File System: HFS+ BSD Name: disk0s10 Mount Point: /Volumes/Macintosh HD
     
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Apr 30, 2004, 08:44 PM
 
I have reviewed this forum and can answer several problems occuring for many users.

Certainly my Quicksilver would not support a 250 on it's native controller. That is clear. However Speedtools have released a little tool that allows higher capacity drives on older ATA busses. Give it a go, it may work miracles, although drive performance will be limited by the controller.
http://www.speedtools.com/ATA6.html

However for those putting in new controllers, a Dual channel ATA 133 controller makes huge sense. I used a SIIG one, the standard, not the RAID one. These support fully partitioned large 250 GB drives. I have 2 currently in my box, and aim to get 4 in there (the 4th sitting above the optical drive like I've done for 5 years in my Blue and White without a hitch).

When I moved the Quicksilver I used Panther's disk utility to restore my 80 GB boot drive from my Blue and white to the 250 GB and it booted the Quicksilver like a charm, since the Blue and White was upgraded to G4 and had the SIIG in it extra and was running Panther server.

However when I went to run a system update the Quicksilver did not want to boot from the 250 on the SIIG and defaulted to my 120 GB on the inbuilt controller.

After much considering I figured it was either the SIIG controller or the ATA headers on my 250. I found a firmware update for the SIIG, and noticed an ATA header patch for the G4 sleep issues some ATA controllers had (both on SIIGs site). Once all were installed, I've never had a problem. My machine is currently purring along with the lastest updates, and I'm constantly impressed by the ability of my QS 2001 - 733 MHz to act as a server and handle desktop tasks including full DV video transcoding to DIVXX.

Having a ATA 133 controller makes a huge difference.

Shame those Dual 1.4 processor upgrades are so expensive. :-)
     
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Apr 30, 2004, 11:53 PM
 
Originally posted by mike3k:
How about a Sawtooth? I have a G4/500 upgraded to 1 GHz and a SuperDrive, with two hard drives (80G & 40G). I'm thinking of replacing the 40G with a 120G. Will it work?
Last time I checked, 120 was still less than 137.

So yes, it'll work.

tooki
     
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May 2, 2004, 01:00 AM
 
Originally posted by Stevil:
You could buy something like Sonnet's Tempo ATA133 PCI card to work around this problem and get better performance at the same time. I put one in my G4/400 and am very happy with the results.

Check it out:

http://www.sonnettech.com/product/tempo_ata133.html
Seconded. Same machine, tons of performance enhancement.
     
   
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