Max Hard Drive Size

[hugemullens]

I am on a 800 DP Quicksilver and was wondering if there is a maxium size HDD i can hook up with out an add on card. I know windows cant use like beyond 180gb, and i am interested in about 180 or 200gb. Thanks in advanced.

[NavyIntel007]

You can use any size drive.

[arn]

Originally posted by NavyIntel007
You can use any size drive.

not true... I believe you are limited to about 128GB on the internal IDE bus. (on the dual 800)

External Firewire can handle any size.

arn

[MacCoaster]

Originally posted by hugemullens
I know windows cant use like beyond 180gb, and i am interested in about 180 or 200gb.
Wrong. Windows can do hundreds and hundreds of gigabytes, even terabytes!

The problem was most PCs used to use 28- or 32-bit (forget which) LBA addressing, but now they have 48-bit which can do beyond 136 GB, up to a theoretical 128 petabytes. [edit] However, don't forget SCSI, LVD, RAID, et al.

The only limitation here is the Windows NTFS filesystem, which can do above 2 terabytes. [edit #2] Just looked up HFS+, seems like HFS+'s limitation is 2 terabytes, like FAT32.

edit: oh, by the way, SCSI is the way to go if you want such large storage space, IMO.

[hugemullens]

yeah, i know windows can support large drives and that its a hardware issue, which is why i wanted to know what i can do without an adapter card, so 120 gigs seems to be as big as i can go without adding a card. poop. If it matters i plan to slave it on the built in controller to a 60 gig. thanks all.

[hacurio1]

Originally posted by arn
not true... I believe you are limited to about 128GB on the internal IDE bus. (on the dual 800)

External Firewire can handle any size.

arn

Yes Arn, you are correct. There is a hardware limitation in old PM. OS X is not the problem, but the internal IDE bus on old PM. I bought a PCI ATA 133 controler and I have two 180 GB Hard Drives conected. The internal IDE Bus on old PM can only handle 128GB. if you want biger HDs you have two options: 1) Get and external SCSI array, or FW HD. 2) Get an internal ATA PCI controller that supports HD bigger than 128GB.

Good Luck!!

[NavyIntel007]

Well that's pretty stupid. No wonder everyone dogs us about our inferior hardware.