Maximum Mac Pro (2006) Hard Drive Capacity??

There is no (practical) size limitation. Put in whatever you want.

3TB is the biggest 3.5" SATA drive that is currently available.

charlestrippy said:

So if I was to get this drive from newegg

Seagate Barracuda LP ST32000542AS 2TB 5900 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Hard Drive -Bare Drive


It'll be okay? Or better yet - are there any suggestions that you guys might have for hard drives? WD or Seagate?

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Its reviews aren't too good if you look at NewEgg. Only 3 stars and a lot defective ones.

Personally, I prefer WD. Caviar Green is 20$ more than the Seagate in NewEgg. If that 20$ isn't an issue, I would go for that.

charlestrippy said:

So if I was to get this drive from newegg

Seagate Barracuda LP ST32000542AS 2TB 5900 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Hard Drive -Bare Drive


It'll be okay? Or better yet - are there any suggestions that you guys might have for hard drives? WD or Seagate?

Click to expand...

You might want to take a closer look at the egg ratings posted by users. 1x egg has 31%, which is way too high (avg. defect rates of recent drives is ~ 10 - 13%, which is bad enough). This is more than double the worst case, so I'd recommend you stay away from it. I'm no fan of Hitachi either since they moved production to China (Malaysian made units are fine, but these are older units no longer available AFAIK in terms of the DeskStar series, which is the consumer line).

Of recent drives, I've had the best luck with Western Digital (BTW, even the consumer units have enterprise rated platters at 1E15 Bit Error Rates, when other consumer models are 1E14; so it's an order of magnitude improvement).

charlestrippy said:

If I get it, the MacPro doesn't register the drive's 2TB space...

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Don't worry, it will address the full capacity. This is 100% confirmed. There are a lot of users with 2TB drives in the 2006 Mac Pro.
Reports for 3TB drives are still missing, mainly because such drives haven't been available till recently. There is no single reason why these drives won't work, though.

charlestrippy said:

Is this the one you were talking about here: Western Digital Caviar Green WD20EARS 2TB 64MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive


I'm so nervous that my MacPro wont "play nice" with that size of drive - i'm not sure why it wouldn't though?

If I get it, the MacPro doesn't register the drive's 2TB space - does newegg allow returns on drives?

Thank you guys for the help!

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newegg will take a return, but the drive will work. you won't need to return it.

Ahhh it's the real Charles Trippy! CTFxC love

And yep, it will work

I believe it says 750GB in the specs because that was the largest capacity available at the time...same way the '10 models say the max size is 2TB.

Haha wow I didn't believe you were the real Charles Trippy until I read your Twitter. Anyway I'm glad you figured it out, CTFxC FTW!!!

Hellhammer said:

charlestrippy said:

So if I was to get this drive from newegg

Seagate Barracuda LP ST32000542AS 2TB 5900 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Hard Drive -Bare Drive


It'll be okay? Or better yet - are there any suggestions that you guys might have for hard drives? WD or Seagate?

Click to expand...

Its reviews aren't too good if you look at NewEgg. Only 3 stars and a lot defective ones.

Personally, I prefer WD. Caviar Green is 20$ more than the Seagate in NewEgg. If that 20$ isn't an issue, I would go for that.

Click to expand...

I've been using 5 of those drives for over a year each running 24/7 and they are still going strong. *knock on wood*

But they are a bit slow, but otherwise very quiet and runs cool. I use them in an external enclosure.