OT: large HDs may not need upgraded controller cards

[e.mkeene]

I know at least some of you also have desktop computers so I will 
briefly post this news item and anyone who wants more info can contact 
me off list.

There has been a ceiling on how large a hard drive can be installed in 
all the G4 towers older than the MDDs. The ceiling was 137GB. A 
controller upgrade was required to access more than that on larger 
drives. However, it has recently been discovered that starting with the 
Quicksilver 2002 towers, they have been able to access 48 bit 
addressing even though this has not been announced. There is no way 
other than to install the drive and check it to see if it will work in 
your tower. So far all the reports have confirmed it for the late 2002 
towers.

I got my tower in late May 2002 and having found a great buy on a 200MB 
took the chance. It installed just fine and immediately was visible to 
the profiler and disk utility as a 190 gb HD. I formatted it with the 
disk utility and it is happy as a bedbug. Here is a site with more info

http://xlr8yourmac.com/IDE/big_ide_drive_support.html#storytop