[t_hah]

Is it 2GB or can you create a file larger than that?

[Jupeman]

You can definitely go larger, as I work with 16GB+ video files. I have no idea what the max is, though.

[tooki]

http://developer.apple.com/technotes/tn/tn1150.html says that the maximum file size of an HFS+ volume is 2^63 bytes -- that's... uhhh... a lot.

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=25557 has more practical info: "The theoretical maximum file size for a Mac OS Extended file system is millions of terabytes. In practice, the maximum file size is equivalent to the maximum volume size, except for a small amount of disk space reserved for file system information."

The maximum volume size in Panther is 16TB, or 16,384GB.

Chances are that will meet your needs!

tooki

Edit: P.S. http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=24601 has info about earlier Mac OSes. Under HFS+, Mac OS 8 had a maximum file size of 2GB. Mac OS 9's limit is 2TB (2048GB). HFS (not HFS+) has a limit of 2GB per file.

[wadesworld]

If a disk is formatted as HFS and not HFS+, then files will be limited to 2 GB. This bit me when I ordered a new external drive and just plugged it in and started using it. By default, the manufacturer formats all their drives as HFS. They're reasoning was they didn't know whether you're plugging it into a G5 running OS X, or an ancient Mac running OS 7.

So, make sure you check the formatting or just reformat in HFS+ when you get a new drive.

Wade

[bradoesch]

Originally posted by wadesworld:
If a disk is formatted as HFS and not HFS+, then files will be limited to 2 GB. This bit me when I ordered a new external drive and just plugged it in and started using it. By default, the manufacturer formats all their drives as HFS. They're reasoning was they didn't know whether you're plugging it into a G5 running OS X, or an ancient Mac running OS 7.

So, make sure you check the formatting or just reformat in HFS+ when you get a new drive.

Wade

What brand was the drive? My Maxtor 40 GB FireWire HD came formatted as FAT32 in order to work with Macs and PCs out of the box.

[larkost]

One last note for this conversation. The maximum file size can also be limited by what API you are using to access it. There is a pre-Carbon call, two Carbon sets, I think 2 Cocoa calls, and I am not sure about what is available through the BSD layer.

Many of the big applications are using the first of the Carbon calls, which limits file-size to 2GB.

[Horsepoo!!!]

Originally posted by wadesworld:
If a disk is formatted as HFS and not HFS+, then files will be limited to 2 GB. This bit me when I ordered a new external drive and just plugged it in and started using it. By default, the manufacturer formats all their drives as HFS. They're reasoning was they didn't know whether you're plugging it into a G5 running OS X, or an ancient Mac running OS 7.

So, make sure you check the formatting or just reformat in HFS+ when you get a new drive.

Wade

If someone still has a HFS-formatted HD, that person is living in the past. HFS+ has been around since, what? 8.5? or was it 8.1?

You can recognize HFS-formatted HDs by the cobwebs attached to them and the 1-inch layer of dust on them.

[tooki]

HFS+ was introduced by 8.1.

However, a client of mine bought a Maxtor One Touch 250GB drive about a year ago, and it came formatted as HFS Standard! (It was awful... the amount of slack was horrible, on the scale of about 90GB wasted space!) Of course, then we backed everything up, reformatted it as HFS+, and now all is happy.

What dolt over at Maxtor did that? I mean, any Mac OS capable of using FireWire supports HFS+.

tooki