New 6TB Drive will not mount on 2009 mac

[bfred123]

I have a 2009 MacBook Pro 17 inch and a 2009 iMac. I just purchased a Toshiba X300 6TB SATA Drive and a NewerTech Voyager Q Hard Drive Dock. I can mount smaller drives with the dock but the 6TB drive will not mount on either computer. I am running OS 10.10.5 on both machines. Do older macs have some limit on the external drive size?

 

[MacUser2525]

I have a 2009 MacBook Pro 17 inch and a 2009 iMac. I just purchased a Toshiba X300 6TB SATA Drive and a NewerTech Voyager Q Hard Drive Dock. I can mount smaller drives with the dock but the 6TB drive will not mount on either computer. I am running OS 10.10.5 on both machines. Do older macs have some limit on the external drive size?

No it has nothing to do with the mac it would be in my experience the dock chipset controller that has the problem with it, now I could be wrong but doubt it having seen many such problems in the past. A quick google on that model does say up to 6tb supported though but I will still go with it being the problem as there should be no limit at all, a 8tb following the SATA specification should work in it as the chipset if designed properly would implement that specification.

 

[bfred123]

No it has nothing to do with the mac it would be in my experience the dock chipset controller that has the problem with it, now I could be wrong but doubt it having seen many such problems in the past. A quick google on that model does say up to 6tb supported though but I will still go with it being the problem as there should be no limit at all, a 8tb following the SATA specification should work in it as the chipset if designed properly would implement that specification.

Thanks for your helpful reply! I called OWC where I bought the dock and they told me to connect with USB to format the drive. Once formatted I was able to mount the drive using Firewire. All is good.

 

[MacUser2525]

Thanks for your helpful reply! I called OWC where I bought the dock and they told me to connect with USB to format the drive. Once formatted I was able to mount the drive using Firewire. All is good.

Good to hear so it was the firewires Oxford chipset that was the problem initially like I suspected then. Although it is strange only a non formatted drive caused it, should not be surprised really I have seen some stupid problems in my few decades of using these things...

 

[chscag]

Good to hear so it was the firewires Oxford chipset that was the problem initially like I suspected then. Although it is strange only a non formatted drive caused it, should not be surprised really I have seen some stupid problems in my few decades of using these things...

A 6 TB Toshiba drive would have been factory formatted to NTFS which is why OWC told him to attach the drive via USB and reformat it. I don't think it had anything to do with the chipset.

 

[MacUser2525]

A 6 TB Toshiba drive would have been factory formatted to NTFS which is why OWC told him to attach the drive via USB and reformat it. I don't think it had anything to do with the chipset.

Really so somehow a drive advertising itself as 6tb thru the chipset to a device does not show up, formatted or not at that point the formatting does not come into it. And while I am thinking about it along those lines just how did it work to format with the usb connection if it was not the firewire connection screwing it up???