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- The Power Mac Storage FAQ -
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Lateralus
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Feb 20, 2005, 01:22 PM
 
Those of you who frequent the Power Mac forum have probably noticed the never ending questions regarding storage upgrading and limitations in the various Power Mac models. So, I felt it necessary to write up a storage FAQ for everybody to refer to.

I am, however, not the hardware expert on the forums and I do occasionally make mistakes and oversights. So if you have a correction or additional information to contribute to the FAQ, send me a private message or make a post below, as I will be leaving this thread open to posts for that very reason.

Over time, I do intend to expand the FAQ as it becomes necessary, so check back from time to time.

So, on with the FAQs;

=====================================
*************************HARD DRIVES*************************
=====================================

Q: I am looking to upgrade the internal storage of my Power Mac. How large of a drive can I use?

A: This is easily the number one question pertaining to storage upgrading here at MacNN. And with good reason, as there is no definitive way for the average user to know the limitations of their machine. As with most things, Apple does not include this bit of useful information in the manual.

There is essentially a wall that exists when it comes to storage capacity, we'll call it the '128GB Barrier'. The 128GB Barrier is prevalent on pretty much every Macintosh with IDE until 2002. If your machine has this limitation, the largest you will ever see any IDE/ATA drive appear as is 128GBs, regardless of actual capacity. Contrary to what is frequently believed, partitioning does not provide a way around this as the limitation is on the bus itself, not the size of the partition.

If you own one of the following Power Macintosh models, you will have to deal with the 128GB limitation when upgrade time comes around;

Power Macintosh G3 - Beige
Power Macintosh G3 - B&W
Power Macintosh G4 - PCI/Yikes!
Power Macintosh G4 - Sawtooth
Power Macintosh G4 - Gigabit Ethernet
Power Macintosh G4 - Cube
Power Macintosh G4 - Digital Audio
Power Macintosh G4 - QuickSilver '2001' (733MHz, 867MHz, Dual 800MHz)


In 2002, Apple adopted a newer IDE controller with the QuickSilver '2002' model that made use of 48-bit addressing, thus alleviating the 128GB barrier and allowing the use of IDE drives in excess of 250GBs+. If you own one of the following Power Macintosh models, you're free to roam the storage prairie with no restraints;

Power Macintosh G4 - QuickSilver '2002' (800MHz, 933MHz, Dual 1GHz)
Power Macintosh G4 - MDD '2002' (Dual 867MHz, Dual 1GHz, Dual 1.25GHz)
Power Macintosh G4 - MDD '2003' (Single 1GHz, Dual 1.25GHz, Dual 1.42GHz)


One common misconception is that ATA-100 or ATA-133 are necessary for large drive support. This is untrue. It just so happens that ATA-100/133 became prevalent at the same time as 48-bit LBA. Thus, pretty much all ATA-100/133 controllers have large drive support, but they are not one and the same.

The QuickSilver '2002' model featured an ATA-66 controller in conjunction with 48-bit addressing, and thus is capable of using large drives. The same goes for the secondary ATA-66 controller in MDD machines, which is also capable of supporting large drives.

Q: I have a machine that cannot see drives larger than 128GBs, what can I do to use large drives?

A: The easiest solution is to pick up an ATA-100/133 or Serial-ATA PCI card. All ATA cards currently on the market feature 48-bit LBA. Currently, these cards can be had for between $60-$80.

For many people, ATA cards are the better solution as they are compatible with older ATA drives. However, the industry is in the progress of migrating to Serial-ATA, which is a faster hot-swappable version of ATA. After a year or two on the market, the prices of Serial-ATA drives and cards are in line with ATA/IDE drives and cards. So if you're looking to assemble a new storage setup and aren't worried about preserving the use of your older ATA/IDE drive, Serial-ATA is the better choice if only because it is more future proof.
( Last edited by Lateralus; Apr 24, 2006 at 10:53 AM. )
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reader50
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Apr 3, 2005, 03:27 AM
 
Question 1. My machine has the 128/137 GB limit, but like most of us, I'm cheap. Less money is good, and I don't want to blow good money on another PCI card or a FireWire enclosure. My PCI slots might even be filled already. Is there another way to use bigger drives?

Answer 1. Yes
Intech has released a software product that will allow G3s and older G4s to use the full size on large drives. It is $25, or $15 when purchased with a drive from OWC.

This is mostly a fix for use with OSX 10.2 or higher, and it has some limitations. You cannot boot from a partition above the 128 GB point, and their kext file must be present in any OSX install that must see the high partition. In other words, recovery CDs that do not have the Intech extension will not see the stuff above 128 GB.

Since the machine may not always see stuff above the 128 GB mark, the drive should be partitioned so that no partition crosses the 128 GB mark.

For OS9 to see above the 128 GB line, you need to buy their full SpeedTools product, and format the drive with that product. On the plus side, OS9 can boot from a partition above the 128 GB mark.

For more precise details on the limitations, read their product page and check out the product's ReadMe file.

-------------------
Question 2. The large drive limitation is sometimes listed as 128 GB, sometimes as 137 GB. What gives? Oh, and when I format a new drive, it comes up smaller than the advertised size. Who is ripping me off?

Answer 2. Uh, it's one of those math things. And the HD manufacturers use different math from the rest of us.

Computer memory capacities are measured in a kind of binary math. 2^10 = 1,024 which is close to 1,000 - a natural decimal size. It is conventional with computers to measure RAM, Video RAM, HD capacity, USB flash drives, buffer sizes, cache sizes, and just about everything else in binary-based math. Using multiples of 1,024.

1 KB = 1,024 bytes
1 MB = 1,024 KB
1 GB = 1,024 MB
1 TB = 1,024 GB

TB = TeraByte, your hard drives will soon be this large. Your system RAM will take a bit longer to get into this range. Sometime around the year 2020 maybe, at current rates. RAM sizes seem to double about every 2 years.

The 128 GB limit is the addressing limit of the earlier ATA spec. Space on a hard drive is divided into "blocks" which are 512 bytes in size. The earlier ATA spec used 28-bit addresses to specify which block you want to address on a hard drive. 2^28 blocks times 512 bytes per block = 128 GB.

The later ATA spec uses LBA-48 (Long Block Addressing - 48 bits) to specify the block address. So the new limit is 2^48 blocks times 512 bytes per block = 128 PetaBytes. That's 131,072 TeraBytes. It will take at least a few years to hit this new limit.

Now about the different numbers for drive size. Someone in the hard drive business noticed that decimal math is more common in the retail world. And it gives smaller numbers.

Conventional binary memory measurements, again:
1 KB = 1,024 bytes
1 MB = 1,024 KB or (1,024 x 1,024) or 1,048,576 bytes
1 GB = 1,024 MB or (1,024 x 1,024 x 1,024) or 1,073,741,824 bytes
1 TB = 1,024 GB or (1,024 x 1,024 x 1,024 x 1,024) or 1,099,511,627,776 bytes

Suppose they offer you a 100 GB drive, but measure it with the decimal size? Here is how the sizes compare:
100 GB decimal = 100,000,000,000 bytes
100 GB binary = 107,374,182,400 bytes

So with nothing more than different math, they can offer you a smaller 100 GB drive. Costs less to make, and the numbers can be defended as honest. After all, pure decimal math is used just about everywhere outside of computers. Even with computers, you don't usually order 1,024 computers for your office building. You order 1,000 computers for your 1,000 secretaries. Actually, most of us here don't order that many computers at all. Pity, it would be cool to get your computers delivered by a truck with a fork lift.

You buy your new 100 GB drive from them, with some fine print on the side of the box. Install the drive. Once your computer recognizes the drive, it reports the size in the more conventional binary sizes used by computers. Congratulations, you just bought a 93 GB drive. Uh, wait ... you paid for a 100 GB drive. Where's the rest of it?

Read the fine print that came with your new drive. The fine print will say that the manufacturer measures 1 GB as one billion bytes exactly. Now divide 100 billion bytes by (1,073,741,824 bytes per binary GB) and you get the binary size of approx 93 GB.

So that is how they do it, and this is true of all hard drive manufacturers. Oh, and the 128 GB / 137 GB limit? It is the same size, measured both ways.

128 GB binary = 137,438,953,472 bytes.

137 GB in HD factory GigaBytes. Do you remember why you liked math?
( Last edited by reader50; Mar 21, 2018 at 02:53 AM. Reason: updated a link)
     
holsteinson
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Apr 27, 2005, 06:23 PM
 
What is the maximum size internal HD for a PB17? are they any 7,200RPM 16mb HD for it?

could a internal SATA HD be installed? if not could a external be used?
     
anamexis
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Apr 28, 2005, 08:38 PM
 
Originally Posted by holsteinson
What is the maximum size internal HD for a PB17? are they any 7,200RPM 16mb HD for it?

could a internal SATA HD be installed? if not could a external be used?
Probably a question for the PowerBook forum, but oh well.
PBs have LBA, too, but I believe the largest currently available 2.5" drive is 100GB at 5400RPM. I don't know about cache size or what the highest capacity for 7200RPM drives are. Check out Newegg.
     
Lateralus  (op)
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Apr 28, 2005, 11:45 PM
 
Notebook ATA controllers play by the same rules. I'd be willing to bet all of the aluminum PowerBook series supports high-cap drives. But since the highest capacity available drive is only 100GBs, with Seagate having just announced 120s, it is irrelevant for the time being.
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saranwarp
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Jun 26, 2005, 01:39 PM
 
I just used that Intech software and it worked like a charm. Thanks for the link.
     
sledsbehave
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Jul 22, 2005, 01:39 AM
 
is this limit across two drives?

i have a 20GB and a 60GB now, but i want to replace the 20GB with a larger drive.

if i get a 160GB, will it recognize 128GB plus the old 60GB? or just 68GB?

does that make since?

i have a gigabit G4 powermac.
as ever,
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Lateralus  (op)
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Jul 22, 2005, 02:08 AM
 
If you picked up a 160 and put it in with your current 60 you'd see the 160 as 128 and your 60 at full capacity.
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sledsbehave
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Jul 22, 2005, 02:11 AM
 
thank you.

i almost shyed away from asking that question, but i did want to make sure.
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Aug 20, 2005, 01:34 PM
 
Hello,

I have a Digital Audio 667 running Panther and I just installed a 160 with no mods. It's showing up in "Get Info" as a 148, which seems to be breaking the rules above. Any insight into this? Do I have a magic G4?
T-bob
     
reader50
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Aug 23, 2005, 10:15 PM
 
My guess is the drive had already been formatted on a system that supports large drives. In such a case, your Digital Audio will 'accept' the format info and report the drive as 148 GB. But since it cannot read/write past the 128 GB barrior without help, it will presently glitch up while using the drive. It would be best to reformat the drive to 128 GB.
     
serranot
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Aug 24, 2005, 04:19 AM
 
Originally Posted by reader50
My guess is the drive had already been formatted on a system that supports large drives. In such a case, your Digital Audio will 'accept' the format info and report the drive as 148 GB. But since it cannot read/write past the 128 GB barrior without help, it will presently glitch up while using the drive. It would be best to reformat the drive to 128 GB.
Thanks. You are correct. Disk utility in fact reports as a smaller drive. I have since ordered a Sonnet PCI card to solve this issue. Thanks for the reply.
T-bob
     
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Aug 24, 2005, 07:08 AM
 
Question: I was thinking about purchasing a 400GB firewire HD. Will I be able to access the entire drive partition using a Quicksilver 2001 model or earlier with Firewire?

Answer: ?? (Anyone?)

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Lateralus  (op)
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Aug 24, 2005, 09:45 AM
 
Yes, since the drive is controlled by the chipset in the FireWire enclosure and not the onboard IDE controller of your Power Mac.
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Sep 1, 2005, 04:05 PM
 
A FireWire enclosure can be a good way to recover from an uninformed purchase. At least it was for me! I bought a 160GB drive for my QuickSilver 2001 Dual 800. I was familiar with losing a little capacity during formatting, but I knew something was wrong when it was less than 128GB (I had not heard of this issue before). Google quickly brought me up to speed. Rather than buy an internal PCI ATA, I got the external FW from OWC. Works great, and I get all 160GB.

My Dual 800 has Ultra160 SCSI, so I really didn't want to cram another PCI card in there. Besides, after I opened that thing and remembered that I upgraded to SCSI back in 2001 when I purchased it, I realized why that old machine still seems so speedy. The 10,000 RPM Cheetah drive from Apple really makes a difference! Now I should get another SCSI to bump up the internal capacity.

P.S. Is there a thread in this forum on adding SCSI to the G5's?
     
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Sep 12, 2005, 12:20 PM
 
What brand of s-ata drives do you use for Powermacs?Does it make any difference, wether i use Seagate or Western Digital etc...What kind of manufacturer do you recommend regarding 250gb drives?
I understand you can use 2 drives, am i right in this?
Two 250gb drives should live up to my expectations.
What's your opinion?
     
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Nov 27, 2005, 03:52 PM
 
Hello, there's two HD (500GB + 300GB) in my G5. Can I mirror them or do they both need to be same size for doing that? If I can, will there only be 300GB of space I can actually use available? Thanks, Chris
     
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Feb 22, 2006, 08:58 AM
 
Hello all,
can i partition an IDE drive larger than 128, such as 160gb, temporarily in an external firewire case, into 2 @ 80gb for example and then install it inside my early G4 tower and expect to see 2 new drives on my desktop?
thanks
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reader50
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Feb 23, 2006, 02:39 AM
 
Originally Posted by spork
Hello all,
can i partition an IDE drive larger than 128, such as 160gb, temporarily in an external firewire case, into 2 @ 80gb for example and then install it inside my early G4 tower and expect to see 2 new drives on my desktop?
thanks
Yes, you can do this and two new drives will mount. Each will claim to be 74.5 GB in size. However, only the first partition would be safe to access.

Since your motherboard IDE controller cannot read/write past 128GB without help, it will do fine on the first partition. But it will screw up whenever it tries to get past 53.4 GB into the 2nd partition - that is 128 GB into the physical drive.
     
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Mar 26, 2006, 10:44 AM
 
Originally Posted by Lateralus
....
However, the industry is in the progress of migrating to Serial-ATA, which is a faster hot-swappable version of ATA. After a year or two on the market, the prices of Serial-ATA drives and cards are in line with ATA/IDE drives and cards. So if you're looking to assemble a new storage setup and aren't worried about preserving the use of your older ATA/IDE drive, Serial-ATA is the better choice if only because it is more future proof.
I think that you should mention that most of the cheaper SATA cards don't support hotswapping, nor do most of the cheaper drives. To hotswap SATA you need both a SATA controller that supports hotswapping and SATA drives which support hotswapping.

I think that the explaination of Hard drive sizes (how big is a gig) could do with some updated info. The current official IEEE 'convention' (yes, not so many use it) is to use the prefix K/M/G etc for x1000^X and the prefix Ki/Mi/Gi etc for x1024^X. Ki is short for Kibi, Mi for Mebi, and Gi for Gibi. The idea is to separate the usages to make them clearer. M, G, T etc are already SI standard prefixes in the metric system corresponding to x10^6, x10^9 and x10^12, a lower case k is 10^3

Some Linuxes are using Ki, Bi etc for RAM related info. Mac OS X still uses the old standard. So things are just as confusing as ever

Some explanations of the terms:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_prefixes

Notice that I don't follow this standard in my sig!

Originally Posted by holsteinson
What is the maximum size internal HD for a PB17? are they any 7,200RPM 16mb HD for it?

could a internal SATA HD be installed? if not could a external be used?
SATA, no. All Powerbook G3s and G4s are Parallel ATA. The new Mac Mini and Macbook have S-ATA, though.

The largest shipping notebook drive is 120Gb, Seagate has one in 4200RPM and 5400RPM flavours. Remember that in the laptop drive world 5400RPM is like 7200RPM in the desktop world, and 7200RPM is like 10000RPM. They use slower spindle speeds to increase capacity. They also have a 100Gb drive at 7200RPM. Both drives have 8Mb Cache.
Their notebook page is at:
http://www.seagate.com/products/notebook/index.html

Toshiba have some drives with 16Mb Cache. I believe Fujitsu do, too.
( Last edited by Lateralus; Mar 29, 2006 at 02:25 AM. )
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Cory Bauer
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Mar 29, 2006, 04:13 PM
 
I too am wondering what brand drive anyone would recommend for a Powermac G5? We want to add a 400GB SATA drive. Reliability and Speed are critical. Also, is SATA going to be around for a while yet, or is there a replacement for it on the horizon? If the drive probably won't be compatible with the next generation Powermac, then we'll go with something significantly smaller than 400GB. Thanks.
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Lateralus  (op)
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Mar 29, 2006, 04:24 PM
 
S-ATA is going to be the standard for many years to come, though in updated specifications, which will be backwards compatible.

It's hard to get the best speed and the best reliability from one drive. Seagate makes the highest quality, quietest drives by most accounts, but their current designs are lacking in the speed department. Though they just purchased Maxtor, who made less reliable but faster drives so things may change soon.

Your best bets for speed and reliability, I think, are Samsung and Hitachi.
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reader50
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Mar 30, 2006, 03:52 AM
 
Originally Posted by ShazamItsDavish2
...
The largest shipping notebook drive is 120Gb, Seagate has one in 4200RPM and 5400RPM flavours.
...
This is outdated. Seagate has a 160 GB available now from newegg. Also, Fuji has announced a 200 GB notebook drive to ship in the 3rd quarter.
Originally Posted by ShazamItsDavish2
...
I think that the explanation of Hard drive sizes (how big is a gig) could do with some updated info. The current official IEEE 'convention' (yes, not so many use it) is to use the prefix K/M/G etc for x1000^X and the prefix Ki/Mi/Gi etc for x1024^X. Ki is short for Kibi, Mi for Mebi, and Gi for Gibi. The idea is to separate the usages to make them clearer. M, G, T etc are already SI standard prefixes in the metric system corresponding to x10^6, x10^9 and x10^12, a lower case k is 10^3
...
... or, we could stick to our guns with the standard binary measurements used for all other computer memory measurements. I fail to see why all the rest of us have to change our terms just so hard drive manufacturers can sell us smaller drives using our labels.

That is the reason why I didn't include references to the supposed 'standard' labels of the IEEE. Once a single HD manufacturer starts selling drives with honest labels, the whole artificial problem will go away.

Besides, the proposed alternate prefixes sound stupid. 'gibi', anyone? I'll stick with my GBs of HD space.
     
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Apr 2, 2006, 02:59 PM
 
Originally Posted by reader50
... or, we could stick to our guns with the standard binary measurements used for all other computer memory measurements. I fail to see why all the rest of us have to change our terms just so hard drive manufacturers can sell us smaller drives using our labels.

That is the reason why I didn't include references to the supposed 'standard' labels of the IEEE. Once a single HD manufacturer starts selling drives with honest labels, the whole artificial problem will go away.
There's two problems with this, as far as I can see. One is that there has never been a real, single, unified standard. As far as SIS is concerned (the accepted metric standard) the k, M, G, etc prefixes always stand for 1000, 1000 000, 1000 000 000 etc This is the reasoning used by hard drive manufacturers. And it is the reasoning behind the IEEE standard. Secondly, IEEE is more about consistency than bending to the whims of the hard drive manufacturers.

The 1kbyte = 1024bytes is really convenient when dealing RAM and CPU centric issues, especially where things will necessarily be powers of 2. But it just a useful approximation. Theoretically, a hard drive (or any other kind of storage medium) can be any size.

In any case, time will tell.
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May 20, 2006, 02:25 AM
 
Originally Posted by Cory Bauer
Also, is SATA going to be around for a while yet, or is there a replacement for it on the horizon?
SATA will be around for quite some time, and the original specs have already been updated to SATA/II, which doubles the (theoretical) max throughput from 150 to 300mb/s, while still using the same cables, connectors etc. And this will be updated again next year, unless someone suddenly comes up with something better before then.

Seagate, Hitachi, Fujitsu are the leaders in computer HDD technology right now, and they all are committed to SATA for the foreseeable future, so everyone else in the HDD business follows their lead........

BTW Cory, are you related to Jack ? Just curious
Personally I find it hilarious that you have the hots for my gramma. Especially seeins how she is 3x your age, and makes your Brittney-Spears-wannabe 30-something wife look like a rag doll who went thru WWIII with a burning stick of dynamite up her a** :)
     
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May 26, 2006, 01:30 PM
 
I have a Quicksilver (2001) with two internal 120GB drives. If I install the PCI ATA card as noted in this forum, I plan to re-route each of the two internal drives over to the PCI card (for better performance) and upgrade later to larger capacity drives.. My two questions are:
1) Is my assumption correct for better performance ?
2) Can I boot as I can now, from either drive when connected to the PCI ATA card ?

Mike
     
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Jun 28, 2006, 08:55 PM
 
I registered an account here, just to add some pertinent and recently discovered info about the mysterious "137 GB hard drive limit."

Let me post an email I just sent to someone who seems to have some definitive, actual, practical information on the "137 GB limit" where it concerns eMacs. I was about to submit an order to Amazon for a Seagate Barracuda 160 GB Ultra ATA as a replacement for the internal 40 GB Maxtor in my 1GHz ATI Graphics eMac. But something told me that I should do a little research first to make absolutely sure the 160 GB drive I wanted would be compatible with my eMac.

Before I GoogleStumbled onto this thread, I went round and round in circles, trying to find dead-specific info on the Apple Discussion boards and in the K-Base technical notes. I extracted myself from Apple's website after 45 minutes when I realized I was no more well-informed than when I started.

Then, I found the following page about upgrading eMacs, written by someone who has actually done it:
http://www.lbodnar.dsl.pipex.com/eMac/eMac-upgrade.html
G'Day Leo...

I just wanted to express my deeply sincere thanks for the nice eMac upgrade article you've written at

http://www.lbodnar.dsl.pipex.com/eMac/eMac-upgrade.html

I have 1 GHz ATI Graphics eMac with the 40 GB Maxtor, and I wanted to replace it with a Seagate Barracuda Ultra ATA 7200/160 GB.

Before submitting my order to Amazon for the Seagate, I called Seagate to make sure about compatibility.

The snotty Customer Service Rep I talked to very harshly and bluntly told me that the eMac I have would only recognize up to 137 GB. I tried to mention that I didn't think that was true, but he again sharply cut me off and said that I should just buy one of their 120 GB drives and be done with it. I hung up and went a-Googling.

I couldn't make heads nor tails out of the conflicting info I found on the Apple discussion boards, and couldn't find a definitive reference to the maximum HD limit in Apple's K-base tech articles.

Then, I found your page, linked above.

It was nice to see an actual dead-certain answer from someone who had actually installed an internal drive larger than 120 GB, and to see that the full capacity was recognized.

What I ultimately intend to do is to pop the 160 Gigger into a MacAlly FW/USB enclosure, dump everything from the internal Maxtor onto it, then swap the drives, reload Tiger onto the now-internal 160 GB Seagate and reload my application files, etc. onto it. Then, once I'm sure everything is working well on the 160, I'll reformat the now-external 40 GB Maxtor to use as a Photoshop scratch disk and for backup storage.

I'd certainly appreciate it you'd look through this plan I've outline and warn me of any "Gotchas" I may be overlooking.

Either way, I'm so happy to have discovered your eMac upgrade page. And to heck with the Mr. Young Snot-Nosed Jackass at Seagate tech support center!

Best Regards, and thanks again!
[My real name signed here]
The moral of the story here is that it pays to pay attention and to exercise due diligence in finding corroborative information, and it's smart to be a skeptic.

Even though I called the manufacturer of the drive I wanted to purchase I was given completely false information by a customer service representative that sounded VERY authoritative and absolutely sure that the information he was giving me was correct.

I'm off to hit the "Submit" button on my Amazon order!

Cheers, everybody!
Phos....
     
PB2K
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Aug 10, 2006, 07:15 AM
 
My Lacie Biggerdisk 1 terabyte just flew in. well , actually it's 930Gigabytes, but many specialists told me this model of disk is not reliable and prone to defects because of overheating.

1-What is a good method cooling this box?
2-it has 4x250gb ATA disks, can I replace these by 4x 500Gb ATA disks later on?
3-do you recommend partitioning such a large drive ?

( Last edited by PB2K; Aug 10, 2006 at 08:49 AM. )
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Goldfinger
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Aug 21, 2006, 05:25 AM
 
I have a question. I've been looking at ATA PCI cards. Do I REALLY need to get a "Mac" compatible ATA/IDE card ? (it's a ATA/133 card, no SATA). The Acard "mac-compatible" (Acard AEC6280M) card is €72 euros. While exactly the same card "Acard AEC6280" (without the M) is €35... Maybe the Mac card comes with OS9 drivers ? Or is there really a difference in the firmware or anything ?

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Lateralus  (op)
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Aug 21, 2006, 06:50 AM
 
Yes, the card *must* be designated as Mac compatible. It has nothing to do with drivers, it's all in the firmware.
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Goldfinger
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Aug 21, 2006, 07:10 AM
 
Hm that sucks. Are they all that expensive ?

EDIT: I see a SATA card that's cheaper. Are they backwards compatible with PATA ?

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reader50
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Aug 21, 2006, 12:31 PM
 
SATA can be made backwards compatible with PATA, but it requires a bridge chip to do so. Small converter boards are sold, they cost $15 - $46 each. OWC has a couple that they've apparently tested and found to work well in the G5, newegg has a bunch more.
     
Goldfinger
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Aug 21, 2006, 12:37 PM
 
I'll probably go with the more expensive cards then . Thanks

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onthink
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Dec 17, 2006, 02:02 AM
 
Sometimes more expensive one doesn't work
     
cgc
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Feb 4, 2007, 11:09 PM
 
I want to get another hard drive for my Mac Pro and was hoping to find a 10K RPM at 250GB or more. Can't find any... Do they exist yet?
     
Lateralus  (op)
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Feb 4, 2007, 11:18 PM
 
The largest 10K S-ATAs that I know of are 150GB.
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dantewaters
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Apr 26, 2007, 03:53 PM
 
I have been checking out a lot of different storage systems:

Medea
Wiebetech
Firmtek

I have come to the conclusion that a case
with a bunch of drives would be my best move really with the use of esata.
Because it would be a lot better to have 3 drives than 8 different drives that cannot connect at the sametime,
or that create a bandwidth bottle neck by saturating the firewire connection

Without getting into all the details of what I'll be doing it blows down to space and speed (compressing, exporting, saving projects, creating reference files) all to be down in finalcut pro.
I am working with mainly DV footage, but I will be going DVCPROHD come 3rd quarter so I will need something that can last.

Then I saw this:
Maxtor 1TB Shared Storage II Gigabit Network Hard Drive with USB Expansion

I wanted to know what the pro's think of this item.

What are some pros and cons of network storage (using gigabit that is)
     
Appleman
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Sep 19, 2007, 09:32 AM
 
It might be a good idea to update this "sticky" thread as it appears a bit old: mention of PowerMac G4 isn't very helpful if you look for upgrading your harddisk in a PowerMac G5 or Mac Pro. Maybe the mods can make a kind of menu?

Anyway, i want to upgrade my 70GB 10.000 rpm to a 1 TB 7200 rpm, as I have the constant problems of using all hard disk space available on that relative small harddisk, in such a way the Mac becomes unstable and freezes.
My guess is the following: I have 10 GB available. I then start syncing my iDisk (10 GB) and there is no space available anymore for the system -> system crashes as iDisk reserves the last 10 GB.
Am I right or is that bull?

Does two 1 terabyte hard disk fit in a PowerMac G5 Dual 2.0 GHz?
Or am I too greedy?
Or do you have better alternatives?

Speed wise: am I going to sufffer a lot from going back from 10.000 rpm to 7200 rpm?

Thanks.
     
OreoCookie
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Sep 30, 2007, 03:39 PM
 
I would like to add these two threads on (RAID) storage solutions: here and here.
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red rocket
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Nov 24, 2007, 08:00 AM
 
I want to install a second internal SCSI drive in my Sonnet G3/500 upgraded Power Macintosh 7500/100.

The information on MacGurus and xlr8yourmac is a bit confusing, and I can begin to understand why the computer's previous owner went with an external solution instead of sticking a drive in the second internal bay.

That said, I'd like to take on the project, anyway.

The thing is, whilst I can deal with possibly having to buy an 80 to 50 pin adapter and a drive tray, having to install another PCI card just to be able to use one of the majority of SCSI drives strikes me as undesirable, especially in light of the fact that the computer's two internal SCSI drive bays were praised as such a great advantage at the time and I assumed the point was that I'd be able to buy any drive and just pop it in there.

I'd like at least 8.5 GB.

Suggestions appreciated.

Update: Decided to take the easy route and bought a used 18GB Seagate Barracuda ST318418N. Opened the 7500's case, noticed I didn't have a second drive sled, so replaced the original 1GB Quantum drive with the 'Cuda. Straightforward enough: unplugged power and SCSI cables from old HD, removed Quantum from sled, installed 'Cuda in sled, changed jumper to terminate drive per instructions on drive, slotted sled back into bay, re‑attached cables, closed case. Currently zeroing the HD, Drive Setup saw it right away. Not bad so far. The drive came with a not‑Mac‑compatible PCI SCSI controller card which I'll sell on eBay. Once I get hold of another drive sled, I'll stick the old Quantum back in there, as well, use it as a scratch disc for Photoshop.
( Last edited by red rocket; Dec 5, 2007 at 11:22 AM. Reason: Update)
     
reader50
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Nov 28, 2010, 02:17 PM
 
PowerPC Macs may not top out at 2 TB bootable drives after all. The industry is transitioning to 4KB-per-sector drives, particularly for drives bigger than 2 TB. If our PPC Macs can recognize such drives, then the largest drive Apple Partition Map can format would rise to 16 TB.

Unfortunately, all 4K drives currently pretend to be 512-byte-per-sector drives. Such "512e" drives can only format to 2 TB using Apple Partition Map, which we require for booting. We'll have to wait for drives that expose 4KB sectors to the operating system before we find out if PPC machines are compatible, and under which OS versions.
     
IggyJReilly
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May 24, 2011, 11:34 PM
 
I have a Power Mac Quicksilver 2001 867MHz with a Maxtor 60GB hard drive that was failng. I didn't want to spend any money on it, for I'm hoping to purchase a new iMac soon, but I still needed use from it not to mention I was running out of space. Looking online I found out about the 128GB limit with this model and the only real solution was a PCI card or Intech's driver. I found an equal alternative free of charge. This person created a script to modify the drivers in Mac OS. I've used it to create a 127.99 Gigabyte OS volume and allocate the rest to a second partition. It worked perfectly. Check it out here
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Miniryu
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Jan 23, 2012, 02:50 AM
 
I'm trying to upgrade my storage, and the SSD I bought isn't working.

Basically, I purchased this Solid State Drive to install in my Power Mac G5 single 1.6 Ghz (2004). The Corsair website claims that the drive (SATA 3- 6 gb/s) is backwards compatible with SATA 1 (1.5 gb/s) and Mac OS X. However, my G5 doesn't recognize it. It doesn't show up in the Finder, in Disk Utility, and as far as I can tell, not in Open Firmware either.

Assuming that the drive is not defective (it's brand new), could there be a compatibility with the software? I only have Tiger installed (10.4.11). Would a Leopard update fix this issue? Thanks in advance.

"Sing it again, rookie beyach."
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reader50
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Jan 23, 2012, 02:54 PM
 
Remember to Partition it, and set the partition scheme to Apple Partition Map. The drive likely comes preformatted with GUID or MBR schemes. What do you see in Disk Utility when you look at it?
     
Miniryu
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Jan 23, 2012, 03:24 PM
 
Originally Posted by reader50 View Post
Remember to Partition it, and set the partition scheme to Apple Partition Map. The drive likely comes preformatted with GUID or MBR schemes. What do you see in Disk Utility when you look at it?
I can't see it in Disk Utility. It's as if the drive was never installed.
I haven't tried switching the drive bays with the main HDD (to see if the cables are working correctly), but beyond that I don't see anything else that can be done.

As you already know, I'm working on getting the operating system upgraded

"Sing it again, rookie beyach."
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bellajanekim
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Nov 20, 2019, 01:34 PM
 
Wow! This thread is absolutely full of information that is great for people like me that are trying out a Power Mac for the first time. I was browsing this forum to see if I could find anything about the setup process, and I found this fabulous FAQ! Thank you for all of your help and the great information that you’ve put on here.
     
andi*pandi
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Nov 20, 2019, 01:57 PM
 
Wow, which powermac do you have? Beige forever!

     
chandkumar3g
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Jan 18, 2021, 07:46 AM
 
I have a Digital Audio 667 running Panther and I just installed a 160 with no mods. It's showing up in "Get Info" as a 148, which seems to be breaking the rules above. Any insight into this?
     
alberttjohn8
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Nov 11, 2021, 07:24 AM
 
I was browsing this forum to see if I could find anything about the setup process, and I found this fabulous FAQ! Thank you for all of your help and the great information that you’ve put on here.
     
   
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