Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

philipma1957

macrumors 603
Apr 13, 2010
6,367
251
Howell, New Jersey
are you running snow leopard leopard or tiger? I don't think it will work with tiger. I also don't think the sata I or sata II matters in your case. I have wd 3tb's they work but in my 2010 pro
 

NoManIsland

macrumors regular
Feb 17, 2010
207
0
It should work without problems, as SATA III is backwards compatible. I have a 3TB (same model) running in my 2008 without a hitch, and it only has SATA II ports like the 2006 does. As per the above poster, your OS may affect it, especially if you are using Windows under Boot Camp, but I'm pretty sure any flavour of OSX can handle it.
 

NoManIsland

macrumors regular
Feb 17, 2010
207
0
I'm running snow leopard

Than I can't see a problem as your setup is effectively identical to mine, just one generation on of MP, but with no change in the connection standard. You may want to confirm this with another member, though, as there may be some difference between the 2006 and 2008 of which I am not aware. The thing is, a SATA drive is a SATA drive, and OSX doesn't care about volumes in excess of 2TB the way that older versions of Windows do - I would be very surprised if this was not the case.
 

twoodcc

macrumors P6
Original poster
Feb 3, 2005
15,307
26
Right side of wrong
Than I can't see a problem as your setup is effectively identical to mine, just one generation on of MP, but with no change in the connection standard. You may want to confirm this with another member, though, as there may be some difference between the 2006 and 2008 of which I am not aware. The thing is, a SATA drive is a SATA drive, and OSX doesn't care about volumes in excess of 2TB the way that older versions of Windows do - I would be very surprised if this was not the case.

thanks. i think the same, but i wanted to make sure before i spent the money. hopefully someone who has tried this will post in here, but if not, i might go ahead and get it anyways
 

mmulin

macrumors 6502
Jun 22, 2006
404
0
thanks. i think the same, but i wanted to make sure before i spent the money. hopefully someone who has tried this will post in here, but if not, i might go ahead and get it anyways

The MP doesn't care what size the drive is as long it supports SATA II. The only downside, the connection speed will max at 3.0Gb/s instead of 6.0Gb/s.

OSX doesn't care as long the drive is formatted in the standard HFS+ format and doesn't exceed HFS+ limitation (8EiB) .

Simple as that.
 
Last edited:

twoodcc

macrumors P6
Original poster
Feb 3, 2005
15,307
26
Right side of wrong
The MP doesn't care what size the drive is as long it supports SATA II. The only downside, the connection speed will max at 3.0Gb/s instead of 6.0Gb/s.

OSX doesn't care as long the drive is formatted in the standard HFS+ format and doesn't exceed HFS+ limitation (8EiB) .

Simple as that.

I have one running fine in my MP 1,1. I may get a second.

thanks guys. that makes me feel better.
 

jimtron

macrumors member
Jul 27, 2008
91
4
I have a very similar Hitachi 3TB drive (H3D30003254S) and a MP 1,1, and I can't get the drive to work internally. I originally used this drive with a Seagate Freeagent dock--I formatted it in the dock. It works fine externally, but when I installed it inside the MP (where I'd like to leave it), the drive shows in Disk Utility but thinks it's not formatted. It shows 3TB capacity in DU, but thinks the disk is unformatted.

I'd like to try reformatting it while it's inside--I wonder if that would make a difference? But I can't because the disk is filled with stuff.

If anyone has suggestions I'd love to hear them.
 

Mr. Retrofire

macrumors 603
Mar 2, 2010
5,064
519
www.emiliana.cl/en
I've posted somewhere here on MR, that sata-io.org says in the SATA 6 GBit/s specification that all SATA protocol versions are compatible with their respective previous version. So
SATA II drives work on SATA I and SATA II connections
SATA III drives work on SATA II and SATA III connections

Regarding the OS version and large HDDs, i've the following info:
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht2422
 

twoodcc

macrumors P6
Original poster
Feb 3, 2005
15,307
26
Right side of wrong
I have a very similar Hitachi 3TB drive (H3D30003254S) and a MP 1,1, and I can't get the drive to work internally. I originally used this drive with a Seagate Freeagent dock--I formatted it in the dock. It works fine externally, but when I installed it inside the MP (where I'd like to leave it), the drive shows in Disk Utility but thinks it's not formatted. It shows 3TB capacity in DU, but thinks the disk is unformatted.

I'd like to try reformatting it while it's inside--I wonder if that would make a difference? But I can't because the disk is filled with stuff.

If anyone has suggestions I'd love to hear them.

so you have stuff on the drive, and you can't format it? is there any way to copy that stuff to another drive, and then format the drive, and copy the stuff back? that's the only way to do it (that i can think of)

Not on it's own...

how do you have 50 TB hooked up to a mac mini?
 

jimtron

macrumors member
Jul 27, 2008
91
4
so you have stuff on the drive, and you can't format it? is there any way to copy that stuff to another drive, and then format the drive, and copy the stuff back? that's the only way to do it (that i can think of)

Yeah, it's almost full and I don't have room to temporarily copy it elsewhere. So it's possible that formatting the drive while it's inside could have different results than formatting it when it's external?
 

twoodcc

macrumors P6
Original poster
Feb 3, 2005
15,307
26
Right side of wrong
Yeah, it's almost full and I don't have room to temporarily copy it elsewhere. So it's possible that formatting the drive while it's inside could have different results than formatting it when it's external?

how did you format it?

well, if it sees it in disk utility like you said earlier, then yes, you have to format it again to use it. but if you don't have a way to back up the data, then there's not much you can do
 

MovieCutter

macrumors 68040
May 3, 2005
3,342
2
Washington, DC
how do you have 50 TB hooked up to a mac mini?

It's not all hooked to the Mini. I've got 12TB hooked to the Mini, then another 12TB in seperate drives that I dock to the mini to backup the primary 12TB. Then I had another 10 TB on my Mac Pro before I sold it in addition to 10TB in drives to back that data up. Then another 5-10TB in drives lying around and in Time Capsule. I basically just have a lot of bare drives with rotating labels and uses.
 

twoodcc

macrumors P6
Original poster
Feb 3, 2005
15,307
26
Right side of wrong
It's not all hooked to the Mini. I've got 12TB hooked to the Mini, then another 12TB in seperate drives that I dock to the mini to backup the primary 12TB. Then I had another 10 TB on my Mac Pro before I sold it in addition to 10TB in drives to back that data up. Then another 5-10TB in drives lying around and in Time Capsule. I basically just have a lot of bare drives with rotating labels and uses.

oh ok. i was about to say, 50 TB hooked up to a mac mini would be impressive.
 

jimtron

macrumors member
Jul 27, 2008
91
4
how did you format it?

well, if it sees it in disk utility like you said earlier, then yes, you have to format it again to use it. but if you don't have a way to back up the data, then there's not much you can do

I formatted it in an external drive FW drive connected to my MP. Would the formatting be different if I formatted the drive installed internally vs externally? The drive works fine with the external dock, but I'd rather have it inside the MP.
 

MovieCutter

macrumors 68040
May 3, 2005
3,342
2
Washington, DC
oh ok. i was about to say, 50 TB hooked up to a mac mini would be impressive.

Because having 50TB in a home ISN'T impressive...

Anyway, I'd have it all hooked to the min if I didn't need various drives for various purposes. Having 25TB hooked to the Mini is quite fine though.
 

twoodcc

macrumors P6
Original poster
Feb 3, 2005
15,307
26
Right side of wrong
I formatted it in an external drive FW drive connected to my MP. Would the formatting be different if I formatted the drive installed internally vs externally? The drive works fine with the external dock, but I'd rather have it inside the MP.

well i'm really not sure. i've never ran into this problem before. what format did you use?

Because having 50TB in a home ISN'T impressive...

Anyway, I'd have it all hooked to the min if I didn't need various drives for various purposes. Having 25TB hooked to the Mini is quite fine though.

oh having 50 TB is impressive, but having 50 TB hooked up to one machine, especially as one partition, is so much more. and that machine being a little mac mini is just icing on the cake.

if i added up everything in my house, i might have 10-15 TB. but that's scattered across several machines
 

jimtron

macrumors member
Jul 27, 2008
91
4
well i'm really not sure. i've never ran into this problem before. what format did you use?

Mac OS Extended (Journaled) GUID.

If it works fine externally, it should work equally well inside.

That's what I would have thought, but no dice.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.