PowerMac G4 hardrive capacity

[yapi]

Hey guys, what's the largest hard drive a Powermac G4 can handle?

[Kenneth]

It can handle the largest IDE HD money can buy, which I think is a 250gig or 300gig HD at this time.

[Henjie]

Originally posted by yapi
Hey guys, what's the largest hard drive a Powermac G4 can handle?

Graphite and 2001 Quicksilvers don't support 48-bit addressing so max hard drive capacity that they can "see" is 137GB. So if you install say, a 200GB hard drive in one, you can only use 137GB out of the 200GB. UPDATE: apparently, 2002 Quicksilver models have 48-bit support. 2002 Quicksilvers include the single-proc G4/800 and G4/933 as well as the dual-1GHz Quicksilver.

No such issue with MDD Power Mac G4s.


~Henjie

[Edited on 11-3-2004 by Henjie]

[Kenneth]

Guru Henjie strikes again!

[pengski]

hmmm....
is it the same if you install an external FireWire 250GB HD?
Will my Mac "can only see" 137GB?
I have a G4/533 and it can see 233GB of HD space (FireWire)
aside from my 2 80GB internal IDE HDs.
Funny thing is my friend has a G4/dual1GHz and when
we install an external 160Gb FireWire 160GB HD, his
mac can only see 137GB....
hmmm.....

------------
cyuwenicyu

[ultratramp]

follow up question, whats the largest capacity HD for a 'book, i- or power-?

[pengski]

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------------------
cyuwenicyu

[Maverick]

a way to overcome the said limit is to partition the hdd (external/internal) to 2 or more (depending on the size) to fit the limitation...

:2cents:

[pengski]

correct me if Im wrong...
does your Mac slows down
when you partition its hdd?
I still prefer formatting as
one whole volume...

try cable select for jumper
settings



-------------
cyuwenicyu :wound:

[Henjie]

Originally posted by pengski
hmmm....
is it the same if you install an external FireWire 250GB HD?
Will my Mac "can only see" 137GB?
I have a G4/533 and it can see 233GB of HD space (FireWire)
aside from my 2 80GB internal IDE HDs.
Funny thing is my friend has a G4/dual1GHz and when
we install an external 160Gb FireWire 160GB HD, his
mac can only see 137GB....
hmmm.....

Depends on the Firewire enclosure used (not on the Mac itself). Most Firewire enclosures already support 48-bit addressing. If the enclosure doesn't have 48-bit support, it'll only "see" 137GB, and that's all your Mac can access (whether or not your Mac supports 48-bit addressing is irrelevant).

correct me if Im wrong...
does your Mac slows down
when you partition its hdd?
I still prefer formatting as
one whole volume...

Depends on how you partition your hard drive/s. If you do things correctly, it'll actually speed up your Mac (assuming you have two or more hard drives).

Even for single drives, partitioning is still recommended. Having all your data in another partition means you can reformat the system partition and reinstall the OS without having to backup all your data first.

Originally posted by ultratramp
follow up question, whats the largest capacity HD for a 'book, i- or power-?

You can use the highest-capacity 2.5" 9.5mm laptop drives currently available (100GB).

Originally posted by Maverick[/i]
a way to overcome the said limit is to partition the hdd (external/internal) to 2 or more (depending on the size) to fit the limitation...

To use the above workaround, you need to partition the hard drive using a Mac with native 48-bit addressing support. That way, the full capacity of the drive will be available for partitioning. Otherwise, Disk Utility will only "see" a max of 137GB available for partitioning.

Best workaround is to install the drive in an external Firewire enclosure with 48-bit addressing support. Or buy one of those ATA/100 or ATA/133 PCI cards, making sure it supports 48-bit addressing (all ATA/133 cards do, some ATA/100 cards don't).


~Henjie