[X-Newbies] G4/AGP and 160Gig Drives

[Randy B. Singer]

On Thursday  Oct 11, 2007, at 3:05 AM, Chris wrote:

> I have a G4 Sawtooth which I'm looking to use as a small backup  
> server.
> I've been offered a 160gig Maxtor ATA133 which seems to fit the bill,
> but I'm told there may be problems with any drive which is more  
> than 128Gig.
>
> It may be this limitation was removed with OSX 10.3 and up (I'm on
> 10.4.10) but has anybody any experience with this?

The limiting factor isn't the version of OS X that you have, it is  
your Mac's ROM's.

Older Mac's ROM's only support 32-bit LBA (Logical Block Addressing),  
and support of greater than 128 GB for internal hard drives requires  
48-bit LBA and OS X 10.2 or later.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=86178
http://www.lowendmac.com/macdan/05/1024.html
Mirrored drive doors G4's and later (and 2002 QuickSilvers too) can  
do 48-bit logical block addressing.  Earlier Macs cannot.

There are three ways you can access the full capacity of an internal  
drive over 128GB if your model of Mac doesn't natively support 48-bit  
LBA.

1)You can use a third-party (non-Apple) software driver
or
2)You can install a PCI card to give you a 48-bit internal IDE bus  
(on tower Mac models that can use PCI cards)
or
3)You could put your drive into a FireWire hard drive case kit  
(assuming that the kit uses a recent FireWire to IDE bridge chip.)

Note that partitioning your hard drive will _not_ allow you to access  
more than a total of 128GB.

Intech's ATA Hi-Cap Support Driver software ($25) allows the use of  
extended capacity ATA drives (drives greater than 128 Gigabytes in  
size) on older (Pre-Mirrored Door) G4 and some G3 Macintoshes running  
MacOS X versions 10.2 and later.
http://www.speedtools.com/ATA6.shtml

OWC includes the ATA Hi-Cap Support Driver for only $15 if you  
purchase a drive from them:
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Intech%20USA/SPEEDHCCD/

Some Mac-compatible UATA/100 PCI cards can support 48-bit LBA, and,  
to my knowledge, *all* Mac-compatible UATA/133 PCI cards support this  
feature as well.  Sonnet's Tempo UATA/100 supports 48-bit LBA.

SIIG has a Mac compatible ATA/133 PCI card available for $68 with  
free shipping from Buy.com if you want to upgrade to be able to  
access your drive's extra capacity.
<http://www.buy.com/prod/SIIG_Storage_controller_ATA_133_133_MBps_PCI/ 
q/loc/101/10325653.html>
(This is the best deal on a Mac-compatible UATA/133 card that I've  
seen.)
The SIIG card supports 48-bit LBA.

___________________________________________
Randy B. Singer
Co-author of The Macintosh Bible (4th, 5th, and 6th editions)

Macintosh OS X Routine Maintenance
http://www.macattorney.com/ts.html
___________________________________________