8 GB limitation, FOREVER?

T

tk4two1

Professional Crastinator
How long must we suffer with the 8 GB limitation in OS X? I find it hard to believe that I have to partition my drives so that I have an 8 GB or smaller partition to put my system. It seems that I can fill it up faster than anything. On my current machine I have a 6 GB disk that holds the system and all of my apps. I dont even put my docs on this drive, and it still is full. How is Apple able to ship new machines with 80GB drives and only one partition? I don't get it.
 
Every partition on my g4/450 tower is larger then 8G, installed from the retail box. It's not an OS X issue, maybe it's an issue with your mac and it's firmware? Do you have an older G3 or something?

Brian
 
Or maybe you formatted with the Standard filesystem? Don't really know if that's the answer 'cause last time I used the Standard my HD was 2GB, and now I have a 20GB for system and apps and an 80GB for documents, and they're both single-partition, MacOS Extended, with no limitations. I know because I formatted them myself prior to installing Jaguar.

Cheerz
 
I have a G4 450 DP. I tried to install a 20 GB HD and ended up putting in a 6GB to go with it just for the system because X would not install on a 20GB partition formated with HFS+. Any other machine that I have tried to install X on new HD's would not let me install unless it was 8GB or Smaller. Those machines were ranging from an iMac Rev C to Beige G3 to B&W G3 to G4 300.
 
not sure what you're doing wrong or where you've messed with a pref or what, but i've never seen a modern mac that had a limitation in how small a drive/partition should be. i've go no partitions on my 10gb internal and 40 gb external and os x boots fine off both. are you choosing some sort of custom install? are you formatting with disk utility? it's hard to even know where to begin to look for your solution it is so unheard of. there are some older macs that require os x to reside on the first partition or on the first portion of the hd to function properly, but those came out long before the DP's i think.
 
I too had to make a 8 GB partition to install OSX on my iMac (G3 233). But had no probs when installing to my G4.
 
I did some research and it seems that older G3's namely Beige G3s, iMac G3/233-333Mhz models, PB wallstreet G3's have to boot the OS from a partition that is completely located within the first 8G of the disk due to ROM issues. Basically from boot, those machines can't access the entire 8G partition, and because the OS can have needed files for booting all over that 8G, it won't install on it. Supposedly 9 and below will work with larger then 8G drives because what it actaully has to access in the intial bootup stuff is always located in the first 8G of the drive, OS X isn't able to guarantee this. Supposedly this limitiation of the older hardware is listed in the readme for the OS X install. As to some of the newer boxes having problems, do you have any 3rd party ide cards or the like installed in them?

Brian
 
This makes more sense... I guess I was thinking that the limitation was in the OS not the ROM. But as you all have confirmed I am retarded.:D
 
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