PowerMac Disk Drive Capacity Limit?

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theflythefly
Posted:
in Current Mac Hardware edited January 2014
Okay, I need some enlightenment.



After doing some serious searching, I found that the newest PowerMacs include 48bit on the ATA controller card and with OS X 10.2, can support drives larger then 132 GB.



So my question is: What's the theoretical drive capacity limit on the newest PowerMacs.



Or more generally, how large of a hard disk can ATA/100 48 bit support?



Thanks



theFly

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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 5
    eugeneeugene Posts: 8,254member
    512 * 2^48 = 144115188075855872 bytes = petabytes = 128 pebibytes. Think that's enough to tide you over for the next coupla years? :P
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  • Reply 2 of 5
    overhopeoverhope Posts: 1,123member
    A good friend of mine runs an Avid editing suite which has two 120GB drives, and that's all he needs.



    Not much else eats drivespace like video.
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  • Reply 3 of 5
    theflythefly Posts: 72member
    Well, I do have a pretty large porn collection....but that's something entirely different....



    Thanks for the info. I wonder how much a large drive like that would cost me now. But I'm sure Microsoft would fine a way to fill it with their latest operating system.



    theFly
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  • Reply 4 of 5
    microtrashmicrotrash Posts: 57member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by TheFly

    After doing some serious searching, I found that the newest PowerMacs include 48bit on the ATA controller card and with OS X 10.2, can support drives larger then 132 GB.



    There's no MAC OS 10.2 requirement here. Only the proper driver on the motherboard (aka ATA controler) is needed. I have a Quicksilver dual 1GHz from jan-02 and a 160GB hard drive, recongnised in both OS X and the old 9.2.2



    Some prog like norton or diskwarrior seem to have some problem when I attend to repair the disk tough, but at least it work great in OS 9.
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  • Reply 5 of 5
    eugeneeugene Posts: 8,254member
    Well, OS X 10.2 is smart enough to recognize more than 137 GB, but Windows XP wasn't capable without help from add-ons like Intel Application Accelerator or Service Pack 1...



    I'm not sure when support for large drives was added to OS X.
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