External Hard Drive

M

Mac Boy

Registered
Hello...I build my own external hard drives by buying the case and hard drive seperately. As Hard Drive prices have dropped, I am looking at building a 200Gb external hard drive.

I have been told that OSX cannot deal with a hard drive that is bigger than approx 130Gb. I am just wondering if this is true???

Maybe it might work to partition it into 2 100Gb drives????? I am not really sure and I would like to know before I go out and buy the drive. Thanks in advance

P.S I am running Tiger
 
01. It is the ATA / IDE hard disk drive (HDD) controller chip set inside the Macintosh computer itself, that limits the size of a, or each, HDD that can be installed within it.
Mirrored Drive Doors (MDD) or later model Macs can support HDDs greater than 130 GB, while earlier models cannot (unless a PCI card - such as the Tempo ATA133 is installed, or a software driver - such as speed tools is installed).
View these links for additional information: The Macintosh Guy and MacNN forum.

02. Purchasing a new external Firewire enclosure, which will include the latest Firewire chip set, will allow you to place HDDs of 500+ GB into it, even without the need to partition it.
By doing this, you can connect the external Firewire enclosure, with an installed HDD greater than 130 GB, to any Firewire capable Macintosh, regardless of the Macintosh'es internal HDD limitation.
 
Thanks very much...it makes more sense now. One of the links talked about trying to get the Hard Drive to work on a G3 or G4. I will be using the Hard Drive on a G5. Do the G5s have Mirrored Drive Doors??? or do I still need one of the latest enclosures with the new firewire chip set.

The enclosure I am intending to use is about 4-5 years old. It is one of the ICE CUBE series. Here is a link to a newer model http://www.firewiremax.com/fire-wire-1394-ilink/icecu80035in.html

Thanks again
 
The iMac G5 and PowerMac G5 computers use high speed serial ATA hard disk drives (HDD), while the external Firewire enclosures use parallel (think a wide flat ribbon cable) ATA / IDE HDDs.
A serial HDD and a parallel HDD are not interchangeable.

The MDD PowerMac, is an earlier model, containing a G4 microprocessor.

'The enclosure I am intending to use is about 4-5 years old. It is one of the Ice Cube series'. That model uses the Oxford 911 Firewire chip set. Not the latest chip set; but, it does support 400+ GB parallel ATA / IDE HDDs.
You may / may not have to update the Oxford 911 based Ice Cube's firmware; though, it seems many users, with the Oxford 922 Firewire chip set based enclosures, had / have to.
 
Thankyou again for your reply. I just have 2 questions about the firmware:

1. Where can I download it from?
2. How do I know what model my ICE BOX is so that I download the right firmware?

Thanks again
 
First, you (will) have the Oxford 911 chip set, if it is the 'IceCube 400'. It is the Oxford 922 chip set that has various problems with MacOS X since 10.3.0.
If the 'IceCube 400' works, 'as is' - do not change its firmware.

Second, 'Where can I download it (the firmware) from?', I do not know. You will need to some ''google''ing or equivalent.

Third, 'How do I know what model my ICE BOX is ... ?', it should be identified somewhere on the enclosure or provided literature.
 
Install your IDE/ATA hard drive inside your G5 then format it with the Disk Utility. When finished, shut computer down, and remove your drive and install it into your external case then your mac should be able to see it and use it.
 
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