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peterthorn · Apr 15, 2005, 05:06 AM

I don't know if it's because of the forum software update, but I can't find anything I'm searching for, so the following has probably been answered before... but:
What is the max harddisk capacity in a mirror door G4 - I have seen 120GB mentioned, but that might only be the capacity one could buy it with at that time... Any higher?

Thanks,
Peter

OreoCookie · Apr 15, 2005, 05:39 AM

You can fit four drives in your MDD. The largest drives on the market are 400 gigs. Do the math

The MDD PMs have one ATA 100 (suitable for disks larger than 128 gigs and one ATA66 bus, suitable for hds up to 127 gigs). If you want to use four large hds, you would have to purchase an ATA card (e. g. by Sonnet).

chris v · Apr 15, 2005, 07:04 AM

The 120 GB limit went away with the last generation of Quicksilvers-- the model before the MDDs. You're golden.

peterthorn · Apr 15, 2005, 07:19 AM

Just what I needed to know.
Thank You!!

Peter

OreoCookie · Apr 15, 2005, 07:52 AM

Take a look at the storage FAQ. You could've had your answer in not time

http://forums.macnn.com/65/mac-desktops/246391/the-power-mac-storage-faq/

Taipan · Apr 15, 2005, 01:16 PM

Hi!

The ATA66-bus can address >128GB, too.

peterthorn · Apr 15, 2005, 01:34 PM

The storage FAQ - another bookmark

Thanks!
Peter

OreoCookie · Apr 15, 2005, 01:55 PM

Originally Posted by Taipan

Hi!

The ATA66-bus can address >128GB, too.

You are semi-correct. Natively, no, it cannot. But there is software that circumvents the limit.

Read here: http://cubeowner.com/kbase_2/?page=i...id=133&c=5

ashtoash · Apr 15, 2005, 02:08 PM

You'd think with the small hard drives apple ships it's powermacs with that the limit was 200gb or something... ;-)

Lateralus · Apr 15, 2005, 09:00 PM

Originally Posted by OreoCookie

You are semi-correct. Natively, no, it cannot. But there is software that circumvents the limit.

Read here: http://cubeowner.com/kbase_2/?page=i...id=133&c=5

Actually, both the ATA-66 and ATA-100 busses on the MDD are capable of supporting large drives.

As I noted in the Storage FAQ, this is because the MDD has 48-bit LBA.

tooki · Apr 18, 2005, 04:59 PM

Originally Posted by OreoCookie

You are semi-correct. Natively, no, it cannot. But there is software that circumvents the limit.

There is no relation between maximum drive size and bus speed -- technologically they are two entirely separate factors. There are plenty of 48-bit LBA ATA/66 buses out there. The ATA/100 standard merely makes 48-bit LBA mandatory.

tooki

OreoCookie · Apr 19, 2005, 05:37 AM

Originally Posted by tooki

There is no relation between maximum drive size and bus speed -- technologically they are two entirely separate factors. There are plenty of 48-bit LBA ATA/66 buses out there. The ATA/100 standard merely makes 48-bit LBA mandatory.

tooki

Yes, technically, you are right. But quite often, there are problems to get large drives to work on some ATA66 controllers.

ashtoash · Apr 19, 2005, 04:22 PM

All I know is when I take a 300GB drive to my old MDD powermac it dosen't see most of the disk space. When I put it on the crappy old dell in the closet it sees it just fine.

OreoCookie · Apr 20, 2005, 04:06 AM

It has to work in a mirrored door PM. However, you can get problems if you have used a special software to format the disk so that older machines can see the whole space.

peterthorn · Apr 22, 2005, 08:50 AM

OK, now I bought 4 seagate barracuda 250GB drives but only 2 shows up. After looking into it, I guess it's because they are ATA/100 drives, and the front bay apparently only supports ATA/66 drives.
So is there any way to get around it and use them anyway? Or, does anyone know any good, large (at least 120GB) ATA/66 drives? (it seems all the drives I can find are ATA/100, ATA/133 or S-ATA).

Thanks,
Peter

Tyler McAdams · Apr 22, 2005, 09:28 AM

That does not make any sense... if it's an ATA/66 interface that should mean that the max speed is 66mhz. Some older chips would only have one channel or connection per channel. though. Which drives are showing up? Is it a pair of drives on the same cable or is it one drive on each cable?

peterthorn · 09:47 AM

Originally Posted by Tyler McAdams

That does not make any sense... if it's an ATA/66 interface that should mean that the max speed is 66mhz. Some older chips would only have one channel or connection per channel. though. Which drives are showing up? Is it a pair of drives on the same cable or is it one drive on each cable?

The working drives are the pair in the rear bay - on the same cable. The non-working pair in the front bay (the ATA/66 interface) are also sharing cable (so I guess it could also be a question of an error on the cable - I just found it more logical to be the ATA/66 issue)

Peter

OreoCookie · Apr 22, 2005, 09:57 AM

Try exchanging the cables: use the cable of the rear bays to connect the drives of the front bay and vice versa and tell me which drives show up (please make sure you can identify which drives show up).

peterthorn · Apr 22, 2005, 10:00 AM

Originally Posted by OreoCookie

Try exchanging the cables: use the cable of the rear bays to connect the drives of the front bay and vice versa and tell me which drives show up (please make sure you can identify which drives show up).

Good idea! It may take a couple of days before I can get access to the computer again.
Thanks,
Peter

Luca Rescigno · Apr 22, 2005, 10:10 AM

Not 66 MHz, 66 Megabytes per second. That's what they stand for.

You might want to check the cable placement and jumper settings of the drives. The drive on the IDE connection farthest from the motherboard should be set to master, and the one on the IDE connection between the two ends of the cable should be set to slave. If you have given the drives the wrong jumper settings, they may not show up.

Tyler McAdams · Apr 22, 2005, 10:40 AM

That's what I meant... My Bad... quick posting.

It could be that the interface only takes one device on that channel and that's why it will not find both of them. A lot of earlier ATA/IDE chips would only take one per channel... ATA/66 was the spec at that time along with ATA/33.

peterthorn · Apr 24, 2005, 02:16 PM

Well - it was the jumper settings, but the problem was that I had set them as master and slaves. As I re-read the documentation I noticed that they should all be set to cable select mode and that did the trick! Now all four drives are showing up perfektly (and all with full capacity).

Thanks for all the help!
Peter