What PC hard drives will work on a PowerMac?

prestonpreston
Posted:
in Genius Bar edited January 2014
Hi, I'm planning on buying a really big hard drive for my PC (i only have an ibook right now), but am planning on replacing the PC with a PowerMac G4 later on.



Are the current generation of Powermacs ATA/100? Are they backwards compatible? Are ATA/100 or ATA/133 hard drives backwards compatible with ATA/66 or ATA/33 computers?



Yeah my PC is getting aged and is only equipped with 16gigs on ATA/33. I'm thinking of going upwards of 100gigs, but want something that is going to be relatively futureproof.



Wow guys thanks for reading and helping me out!



Pres

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 6
    macaddictmacaddict Posts: 1,055member
    [quote]Are the current generation of Powermacs ATA/100? Are they backwards compatible? Are ATA/100 or ATA/133 hard drives backwards compatible with ATA/66 or ATA/33 computers?<hr></blockquote>



    Yep, everything in the ATA world is backwards compatable. An ATA/100 drive will work on an ATA/33 bus (granted, at ATA/33 speeds though), and an ATA/33 drive can be used on an ATA/66 or /100 etc bus. They're not platform specific either.



    However, ATA/100 can only recognize a maximum of a 137GB HD I'm pretty sure, and ATA/33 probably cannot recognize even that.
  • Reply 2 of 6
    prestonpreston Posts: 219member
    hmmm thats interesting about the 137gig rule.



    guess I wont shell out for the 160gigger!



    thanks muchly!



    anyone know the ATA/33 size ceiling?



    thanks again!



    Pres
  • Reply 3 of 6
    eskimoeskimo Posts: 474member
    ATA33 ceiling like ATA66/100 is 137GB, here is a nice little chart I found at Maxtor's website.







    Green = Operating system will recognize drive's full capacity



    Yellow = Requires Maxtor Ultra ATA/133 PCI Adapter Card to recognize full capacity



    Blue = Requires Mac-compatible Utlra ATA/133 PCI Adapter Card to recognize full capacity



    [ 04-20-2002: Message edited by: Eskimo ]</p>
  • Reply 4 of 6
    prestonpreston Posts: 219member
    wow, thanks eskimo!



    looks like I'll be moving to win2000 earlier than i thought... no more unstable win98



    thanks again



    Pres
  • Reply 5 of 6
    marcukmarcuk Posts: 4,442member
    Surely you cannot be telling me that win98 systems can't have bigger drives than 32GB?
  • Reply 6 of 6
    zozo Posts: 3,117member
    [quote]Originally posted by MarcUK:

    <strong>Surely you cannot be telling me that win98 systems can't have bigger drives than 32GB?</strong><hr></blockquote>



    yes they can, they just need the appropriate driver from the manufacturer.
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