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rickey939 · Nov 9, 2005, 10:15 AM

Are the largest SATA internal HD's for a Power Mac G5 500GB? Due to the chassis, I know that you can only have a max of (2) internal HD's. Is their a limit to the size of the HD's can be? Would a 500GB SATA internal HD work in all Power Mac G5 models, or only the latest?

CatOne · Nov 9, 2005, 11:12 AM

Largest drive I know of today is 500 GB SATA. I'm sure a year from now there will be bigger ones. Biggest drive 8 months ago was 400 GB... biggest 12 months ago was 250 GB.

When they get the vertical technology going, should be able to get 800 GB to 1 TB on a single drive.

mduell · Nov 9, 2005, 11:45 AM

Serial ATA uses LBA48, which theoretically limits drives to 144PB, but the implementation in the G5 may have a lower limit (still well above any drive available today).
A 500GB SATA drive should work in all the G5 PowerMacs.
500GB is the largest SATA drive available today (and rather pricey at $375).

rickey939 · Nov 9, 2005, 11:47 AM

Thank you CatOne, and just so I am clear, the full 500GB drives will work in a 2nd Generation Power Mac G5, correct? Will the full capacity (minus the formatting chunk of course) be read and usable through OS X? I remember reading something about you would need to partition the drive into 250GB chunks in order for the OS to read the entire drive, is that the case?

mduell · Nov 9, 2005, 01:01 PM

Originally Posted by rickey939

Thank you CatOne, and just so I am clear, the full 500GB drives will work in a 2nd Generation Power Mac G5, correct? Will the full capacity (minus the formatting chunk of course) be read and usable through OS X? I remember reading something about you would need to partition the drive into 250GB chunks in order for the OS to read the entire drive, is that the case?

Yes, you'll be able to use ~465GB of the drive in any G5 PowerMac. Most of the "loss" is due to the difference between 1 billion bytes and 1 gigabyte.
250GB chunks? 128GB I've heard of (a limitation on older G4 PowerMacs), but not 250GB. Where did you hear this?

hmurchison2001 · Nov 9, 2005, 01:03 PM

I'd recommend you do little research. I've seen some issues with the 500gb Seagate SATA drive. Maxtor's 500GB should be shipping now.

mduell · Nov 9, 2005, 01:19 PM

Originally Posted by hmurchison2001

I'd recommend you do little research. I've seen some issues with the 500gb Seagate SATA drive. Maxtor's 500GB should be shipping now.

Hitachi's is shipping too.

rickey939 · Nov 9, 2005, 01:46 PM

Originally Posted by hmurchison2001

I'd recommend you do little research. I've seen some issues with the 500gb Seagate SATA drive. Maxtor's 500GB should be shipping now.

Have a link to the Seagate issues? That is one of the drives I am looking (Seagate Barracuda 7200.9) at, the other is the Hitachi Deskstar 7K500 model.

rickey939 · Nov 9, 2005, 01:47 PM

Originally Posted by mduell

Yes, you'll be able to use ~465GB of the drive in any G5 PowerMac. Most of the "loss" is due to the difference between 1 billion bytes and 1 gigabyte.
250GB chunks? 128GB I've heard of (a limitation on older G4 PowerMacs), but not 250GB. Where did you hear this?

That was probably what I remembering reading about, sorry for any confusion and thanks for the clarification/information.

hmurchison2001 · Nov 9, 2005, 02:14 PM

Originally Posted by rickey939

Have a link to the Seagate issues? That is one of the drives I am looking (Seagate Barracuda 7200.9) at, the other is the Hitachi Deskstar 7K500 model.

No links yet Rickey. I work for a reseller and we've had issues with multiple Seagate 500GB drives installing in our config warehouse. Once I get further clarifications I'll update when I can. I followed up today and was told we found no fix yet. Hitachi or Maxtor may be the best bet or at the least if you get a 7200.9 be sure that you have a decent exchange policy.

rickey939 · Nov 9, 2005, 02:36 PM

Originally Posted by hmurchison2001

No links yet Rickey. I work for a reseller and we've had issues with multiple Seagate 500GB drives installing in our config warehouse. Once I get further clarifications I'll update when I can. I followed up today and was told we found no fix yet. Hitachi or Maxtor may be the best bet or at the least if you get a 7200.9 be sure that you have a decent exchange policy.

Good to know, thank you very much.

rickey939 · Nov 9, 2005, 02:37 PM

Originally Posted by hmurchison2001

No links yet Rickey. I work for a reseller and we've had issues with multiple Seagate 500GB drives installing in our config warehouse. Once I get further clarifications I'll update when I can. I followed up today and was told we found no fix yet. Hitachi or Maxtor may be the best bet or at the least if you get a 7200.9 be sure that you have a decent exchange policy.

The 'NN Database went buuurrrpp!

OreoCookie · Nov 9, 2005, 03:40 PM

All SATA drives will work in a PowerMac G5. 500 GB drives are way too expensive, though, I'd get 400 GB drives if you really need the space. 500 GB drives are veeeery expensive per GB.

rickey939 · Nov 9, 2005, 03:45 PM

Originally Posted by OreoCookie

All SATA drives will work in a PowerMac G5. 500 GB drives are way too expensive, though, I'd get 400 GB drives if you really need the space. 500 GB drives are veeeery expensive per GB.

Company $$$, so they don't care. I have shown them the prices of both configs though, thank you!

mduell · Nov 9, 2005, 04:33 PM

Originally Posted by OreoCookie

All SATA drives will work in a PowerMac G5. 500 GB drives are way too expensive, though, I'd get 400 GB drives if you really need the space. 500 GB drives are veeeery expensive per GB.

I'll second that. 250GB is the best price/size ratio at the moment, but even up through 400GB it's reasonable.

500GB - $.74/GB
400GB - $.50/GB
300GB - $.41/GB
250GB - $.39/GB
200GB - $.43/GB
160GB - $.48/GB

voo · Nov 9, 2005, 05:08 PM

Wonder how long 500GB takes to format, 4 - 5 hours?

mduell · Nov 9, 2005, 05:40 PM

Originally Posted by voo

Wonder how long 500GB takes to format, 4 - 5 hours?

Quick format should take about a minute... why bother with a full format?

BuD-TheDude · Nov 10, 2005, 11:56 AM

It sounds like you are trying to add as much HD space as possible.

Don't forget that you can add even more HD's through adding additional drive brackets, which several companies produce. For instance:

http://www.g5drivebracket.com/

rickey939 · Nov 10, 2005, 03:28 PM

Originally Posted by BuD-TheDude

It sounds like you are trying to add as much HD space as possible.

Don't forget that you can add even more HD's through adding additional drive brackets, which several companies produce. For instance:

http://www.g5drivebracket.com/

That is overkill for what we need, but thanks for the information nonetheless, pretty cool stuff!

elrah · Nov 22, 2005, 02:02 PM

Hi

I bought a 500gb Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 Hard Drive for my Dual 2Ghz Power Mac G5.

The computer doesn't see it. I went back to the shop and they tested it on their PCs, upon which it worked fine.

Its SATA 2. I read that this shouldnt be a problem as it should be backwards compatible with SATA 1.

Could someone in the know tell me if this is a) problem with the interface, b) problem with size of hard drive, or c) as someone mentioned in this topic, problem with Seagate.

Is it worth hanging onto? will there be any software updates or whatever that will make it work? or should i exchange it for something else? (Fortunately the guys at the shop are very friendly www.span.com and said they would be happy for me to return or exchange it).

Thank you

G5 Power Mac Dual 2Ghz 2GB RAM June 2004

mduell · Nov 22, 2005, 03:58 PM

elrah: I've heard of other people having problems with large capacity Seagate drives in G5s. I'm not sure why, but your experience is echoed in other anecdotes. I'd return the drive and get a Hitachi instead (others will surely recommend Maxtor or WD... do some research and pick the brand you like).

The whole point of publishing standards is to eliminate incompatibilities, but not everyone follows the standards to the letter (for worse or for better [like the 108Mbps wifi hardware!]) or the standard could be poorly written.

Rev-O · Nov 22, 2005, 07:33 PM

I just slapped a 400gb Hitachi in my first gen dual 2GHz G5 (after a logic board death drug my oem 250 screaming to the grave), and my G5 sees the 400gb drive just fine, so I figure it should see a Hitachi 500gb too. But maybe not.

Side note: Data Rescue II is a life saver. Ya know, I buy an external drive for back-ups, then become lazy and stop backing stuff up. Stupid stupid stupid.

elrah · 10:20 AM

After a bit of research it seems the Seagate 7200.9 hard drives have SSC, Spread Spectrum Clocking. I can't say I know what it means other than you will need a PCI card that is compatible with SSC to use it.

I think I will return the drive and maybe opt for the Hitachi.

(Warning: It seems that at one point Hitachi shipped drives with SSC enabled. So watch out! The most recent ones have it disabled, but it is certainly worth checking out).

hmurchison2001 · Nov 23, 2005, 11:03 AM

Just disable the SSC and you should be able to see the drive.

elrah · Nov 23, 2005, 02:31 PM

hmurchison2001: Is it possible to disable the SSC myself?

I have just received an email from Seagate telling me...

"The issue is actually with the controller card in question. The devices
that ship with that computer are SATA 1 units. The device you have is a
SATA II. The controller does not support the advanced commands
incorporated by the SATA II specification or the speed. We have found that
there are a few controllers that do not have any support for these
features.

There is a fix for the controller issue. We can turn off the features on
the device.

Get back to us if you wish to use this fix or if you are going to use a
SATA II controller card."

This is a bit misleading as I thought that it was not just that it is Sata II but that it is SSC enabled.

tooki · Nov 23, 2005, 03:10 PM

Why start a thread when there is http://forums.xlr8yourmac.com/drived....drivedb.lasso ?
tooki

Big Mac · Nov 23, 2005, 03:20 PM

Hate to have to disagree, but I can't find anything on the topic over that with that search engine.

hmurchison2001 · Nov 23, 2005, 05:34 PM

Elrah

Damn it looks like the SSC cannot be disabled on the Seagates.

[APi]TheMan · Nov 24, 2005, 12:57 PM

For the record, MaxConnect offers a product that will allow installation of bunches of more drives into a G5. I have not tried it, but I read the rundown on MacNN's front page a few days ago:

http://www.macnn.com/articles/05/11/...es.maxconnect/

clinexo · Dec 6, 2005, 11:26 AM

Originally Posted by hmurchison2001

Elrah

Damn it looks like the SSC cannot be disabled on the Seagates.

There is a DOS based utility called sscset.exe that a Seagate technician E-mailed me when I called this problem in. It will allow you to toggle SSC off or on. I used it to disable SSC on a 160GB Seagate 7200.9 drive and the G5 was then able to recognize the drive. If for some reason Seagate won't send you the utility, I can E-mail a copy to you.

Cei · Dec 7, 2005, 11:23 AM

I've had a 500Gb Hitachi in my dual 2.5 for about a month now, works like a dream. Formatted in about a minute and was ready to use. 463.4Gb listed as available.

Al G · Dec 7, 2005, 01:30 PM

Storage Review shows the new Hitachi 500GB SATA as the current 7200RPM performance king.

It runs a little hotter than other drives, but that's no surprise for the fastest, largest drive.

(I'm pretty sure it was SR but Google just in case it's Tom's Hardware, AnandTech, etc.)

hmurchison2001 · Dec 7, 2005, 04:58 PM

Originally Posted by clinexo

There is a DOS based utility called sscset.exe that a Seagate technician E-mailed me when I called this problem in. It will allow you to toggle SSC off or on. I used it to disable SSC on a 160GB Seagate 7200.9 drive and the G5 was then able to recognize the drive. If for some reason Seagate won't send you the utility, I can E-mail a copy to you.

clinexo thank you for this info. I haven't run into a problem but my config warehouse at work was caught.

I'm not surprised that Hitachi is on top. I've seen them beating Seagate on the desktop and laptop regarding storage drives.

elrah · Dec 8, 2005, 02:27 PM

Got my Seagate drive back with the SSC disabled and it now works perfectly

Listen to clinexo, and use this DOS utility if you can. I had mine fixed by the peeps at Seagate and had to wait just over a week to get it back.

spillenger · Jan 16, 2006, 07:42 AM

When you disable SSC, does it diminish the performance/speed of the drive in any way?

I've had the same problem with my new PM G6 Quad recognizing a Seagate 500gb SATA internal drive, and I'm just on the verge of returning it and getting a Hitachi.

Paul S.