Upgrading a Performa 6300CD hard drive

[amishallin]

I did some poking around and couldn't find the amount the IDE/ATA bus can "see." However, HFS does supports a max volume size of 2TB and max file size of 2GB. That would be really nice since I have some 2TB SATA spinners and can get some adapters (wishful thinking). I remember the Blue and White G3 was limited to 128GB using the built-in bus.

The original 1.2GB drive still works but it wont last forever and should be replaced.

 

[velocityg4]

I’m pretty sure that 128GB limit still applies. I don’t think it’s any smaller. I think larger drives are useable. You just can’t address all the space.

However, the Mac OS version you use will limit partition size. As low as 2GB or 4GB for the oldest supported version. I don’t recall if System 7.5.1 had jumped to 4GB.

You can make multiple partitions though. To use as many GB as possible. Later versions of Mac OS support larger partitions. This is to get around the OS limit. You still won't get past the 128GB limit with multiple partitions.

I’m not sure if you need a patched HD SC setup utility. I know you do for SCSI Macs of that era. I don’t recall needing anything special on later Classic Mac OS Macs using IDE. As I recall IDE always used a different utility.

I’d use an SATA SSD with an adapter. They’re so cheap now. You may as well.

 

[amishallin]

Ok so the computer doesn't support a 2TB size disk... but I'm curious what computer did around 24ish years ago. This archived article from Apple sparked my curiosity. What it did do was see the 1st 130GB or so of a 2TB spinner and 256GB SSD. The 256GB SSD was comical since files tended to "vanish" but were still visible on screen but can't be found when interacted with.

What I did do was buy an IDE/SATA adapter from OWC here and attach it to a 120GB 2.5" SSD. The SSD and original HDD (upgraded to System 7.6.1) were then connected to my B/W G3 in a master/slave configuration while booted from a 9.1 CD to copy the files over. The drive was partitioned into 4 equal parts from the Drive Setup utility on the 9.1 CD as a (hopefully) work around for the file count limitation of HFS. This setup seems to be quite stable and instead of hearing the loud spinner "think" there are faint odd sounds coming from different areas within the case. Its not like coil wine from a modern graphics card but it tends to change based on what I do. For example, there is a different tone for unstuffing a stuffit archive, opening a program, and downloading a file from the internet via ethernet PDS card. At first I thought it was the Multiple Scan 15 display but the faint sounds persist when it's turned off.

On a side note I found an ethernet card compatibility chart from Harvard here.