LinuxQuestions.org - power mac g4 hd limit?

- Linux - Hardware (https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-hardware-18/)

- - power mac g4 hd limit? (https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-hardware-18/power-mac-g4-hd-limit-907681/)

power mac g4 hd limit?

i have a "digital audio"
i've seen some people saying the most the harddrive reads is 128gb
but also that there are workarounds will that be a problem with debian?
i plan to use it as a server
thanks

That seems pretty likely given the age of the G4. The best way to get around this limitation would be to drop in a more modern PCI IDE controller and use that.

A newer controller would get around the LBA limitation which is reason enough for the upgrade, but in addition, having some personal experience with early Apple IDE controllers, I can tell you that the built in ones are not very good. I have gotten a number of odd failures and glitches when using new IDE drives with the internal controllers on G3/G4 machines.

Quote:

Q: Can I put a 160 GB or larger hard drive in my iMac, eMac, Power Mac, iBook, or PowerBook?

A: The short answer: Yes, you can.

The long answer: Yes, you can, but you may not be able to use more than 128 GB without some third-party assistance.

The older IDE specification made no provision for what have since come to be called "big drives" - those with over 128 GB of storage space. Big drives need 48-bit addressing, and almost all Macs built before 2002 don't have built-in support for it. You must also be using Mac OS X 10.2 or later, as earlier versions of the Mac OS do not support big drives on the built-in IDE bus. If you simply install a big drive in your older Mac, it's only going to see it as a 128 GB drive.

This is also an issue with external FireWire and USB enclosures: Although the FireWire and USB specifications don't limit drive size, not all of the bridge chips used in external enclosures support big drives. Be sure to double-check before buying!

Macs that don't include big drive support include *snip* Digital Audio G4s

http://lowendmac.com/macdan/05/1024.html

Yep, no 128GB + support from the Digital Audio G4.