Largest hard drive in a 630?

[coius]

I believe it's the file system (HFS/HFS+?) that has the 4TB Limit. It would be interesting to see what the next version of File system apple is gonna come out with if HFS+ limit ever gets released. I am thinking they would go with eFS if anything. (I think I did that right. It might be ExtFS+ or something)

But yeah, t'would be intersting to see what comes out. Maybe ZFS?

 

[LCGuy]

HFS+ has a limit of 8EB (exabytes)....I don't think we're going to be running into that limit any time soon. HFS is limited to 2TB, so I don't know where 4TB comes from.

 

[johnklos]

I believe it's the file system (HFS/HFS+?) that has the 4TB Limit. It would be interesting to see what the next version of File system apple is gonna come out with if HFS+ limit ever gets released. I am thinking they would go with eFS if anything. (I think I did that right. It might be ExtFS+ or something)

HFS is limited to 2 gigabytes. HFS+ used to be limited to 2 terabytes because it allowed for up to 2^32 blocks, the same as original SCSI-2, but that's been updated. I have a couple of arrays with single HFS+ volumes in excess of 25 terabytes.

 

[Outlander]

I'm curious where you come up with this stuff. Look in the other thread about this same issue. I posted a screenshot of a 40gb IDE drive formatted in HFS(not HFS+) and it uses all 40gb's(well 38. something) HFS has no known limit as well as HFS plus. IDE and bus protocols are SEPARATE from file systems and have no impact on them. Let me find that earlier thread.

Soon as I can get a replacement HD of larger than 130gb's, I'll stick it in my Frankenstein machine and format it, you just have to know how to do it, and what apple tools to use. Don't mean to sound insulting if I am sounding that way, but I have been doing this since the mid 90's and am old and grumpy.

P.S. And when formatting a 40gb HD with plain old HFS, the smallest file size is 1.1mb's Not very usefull is it?

 

[johnklos]

HFS is limited to 2 gigabytes. HFS+ used to be limited to 2 terabytes because it allowed for up to 2^32 blocks, the same as original SCSI-2, but that's been updated. I have a couple of arrays with single HFS+ volumes in excess of 25 terabytes.

Sorry - you're right - I was speaking about things too specifically.

I'm curious where you come up with this stuff. Look in the other thread about this same issue. I posted a screenshot of a 40gb IDE drive formatted in HFS(not HFS+) and it uses all 40gb's(well 38. something) HFS has no known limit as well as HFS plus. IDE and bus protocols are SEPARATE from file systems and have no impact on them.

Yes, you're right - the maximum volume size under System 6 and 7 is 2 gigabytes. With System 7.5, the limit was raised to 4 gigabytes and System 7.5.2 and later increased that limit to 2 terabytes. However, HFS (non-plus) only allows for 2^16 allocation blocks, so a 2 terabyte volume formatted as HFS would use 32 megabytes per file at minimum, no matter how much data was in the file.

Soon as I can get a replacement HD of larger than 130gb's, I'll stick it in my Frankenstein machine and format it, you just have to know how to do it, and what apple tools to use. Don't mean to sound insulting if I am sounding that way, but I have been doing this since the mid 90's and am old and grumpy.
P.S. And when formatting a 40gb HD with plain old HFS, the smallest file size is 1.1mb's Not very usefull is it?

Not particularly efficient, but that's why it's good to have a small HFS partition for booting and HFS+ for the rest of the drive.

I'd enjoy being happily wrong about the IDE controller on the Quadra 630, just as I learned recently that the Quadra 840AV will support four 128 meg SIMMs, but a lot of older controllers don't support 48 bit allocation blocks. I look forward to seeing this!

 

[bbraun]

Here is the Apple Tech Note on volume sizes: http://support.apple.com/kb/TA27115

However, it's worth noting that even System 7.5.3's installer appears to use signed 32bit quantities when doing volume size checks. As a result, it won't actually let you install on volumes >2GB despite being able to create and otherwise use >2GB. System 7.6's installer will allow you to install, although it seems to only recognize any volume >2GB as 2GB exactly.

Other installers and software may do something similar, so I've simply created a 2GB boot volume, installed on that, and left the rest for data.

 

[bbraun]

As a followup to my previous post, since this is specifically regarding a 630, the following section of the KB is relevant:

The maximum volume size under System 6 and System 7 is 2 GB. System 7.5 increased that limit to 4 GB and System 7.5.2 (and later) increases that limit to 2 TB on some computers, including:-any computer that came with System 7.5.2 or newer.

-any Macintosh computer with PCI slots.

The 630 meets neither of these criteria. I tried it out just to see. Under System 7.6.1 I formatted a 20GB drive with a single volume using Drive Setup 1.7.3. The machine refused to boot off it (Happy Mac came up, machine hung for a while, then went to a Sad Mac). I repartitioned to 2GB and 18GB and installed 7.5.5. The machine booted fine, but when it came time to mount the 18GB volume, it displays the following:

However, 7.6.1 mounts the 18GB volume just fine despite the KB not specifically calling out a difference between 7.6.1 and earlier.

 

[johnklos]

Hi, all,

I've had the chance to get a few different drives into a Quadra 630. Outlander was right about the Quadra 630 supporting drives larger than 128 gigs, which I'm certainly happy about. I suppose it makes sense since the Quadra 630 came out several years after the Amiga 4000 and 1200, which do have the 128 gig limit on their IDE.

However, Drive Setup and other utilities only see 128 gigs no matter the real size of the drive, and I couldn't find any way around this in Mac OS on the IDE bus at all. Outlander - I'd love to hear if you have had any luck with this part. In order to partition my drive using the full size, I had to use a SCSI Quadra with a SCSI-IDE bridge, then install the drive back in the Quadra 630.

In NetBSD, though, the full amount of the drive is seen and can be used:

wd0 at atabus0 drive 0:

wd0: quirks 0x2

wd0: drive supports 16-sector PIO transfers, LBA48 addressing

wd0: 698 GB, 1453521 cyl, 16 head, 63 sec, 512 bytes/sect x 1465149168 sectors

wd0: drive supports PIO mode 4, DMA mode 2, Ultra-DMA mode 5 (Ultra/100)

This system is happily cvs'ing and compiling away, soon to be set up to compile NetBSD's pkgsrc software for softfloat m68k ports (which is particularly useful for LC040s which can't emulate an FPU properly). I even managed to fit a QuadDoubler onto the motherboard:

http://www.ziaspace.com/~john/q630_1.jpg

http://www.ziaspace.com/~john/q630_2.jpg

http://www.ziaspace.com/~john/q630_3.jpg

It's turning out pretty well... Next, I'd like to find a Quadra or Performa 631 motherboard with two SIMM slots so I can have a machine with 196 megs of memory...

John

 

[johnklos]

Just a followup - I found a source of cheap 631-type motherboards. They're listed as Performa 580 motherboards, but they have two sockets and should take one 128 meg and one 64 meg SIMM.

http://www.adoptamac.com/product_info.php?cPath=31&products_id=53

Note that the site is listed as one which contains malicious content, but they have Google Checkout, so even if the server isn't secure, you can still get one for $7.49.

I'm putting this motherboard in my Quadra 630, so anyone who has a shell on this machine will notice a little more memory soon.

 

[Mars478]

Site linked above is not malicious. There is a thread about it in the lounge. Very repectable seller, I have bought from him.

 

[unixgeek]

Could you use a Compact Flash as a (IDE-) HDD on a 630? Did anybody try?

It would be nice to "load it up" with my favorite applications from BasiliskII and just plug it into the 630 to boot a real Mac...

 

[johnklos]

Could you use a Compact Flash as a (IDE-) HDD on a 630? Did anybody try?
It would be nice to "load it up" with my favorite applications from BasiliskII and just plug it into the 630 to boot a real Mac...

Yes, a CompactFlash to IDE adapter will work fine in a Quadra 630.

Does Basilisk let you use an entire volume under emulation?

 

[bbraun]

Could you use a Compact Flash as a (IDE-) HDD on a 630? Did anybody try?

FWIW, I have tried a CF-IDE adapter in my Performa 630CD and none of my CF cards worked (although the adapter and cards worked in other machines and with SCSI-IDE converter + CF-IDE adapter). That doesn't mean it *won't* work, just the cards and/or configuration I used did not work with it.

I tried Kingston 133x 8GB and a SanDisk UltraII 4GB card.

 

[johnklos]

FWIW, I have tried a CF-IDE adapter in my Performa 630CD and none of my CF cards worked (although the adapter and cards worked in other machines and with SCSI-IDE converter + CF-IDE adapter). That doesn't mean it *won't* work, just the cards and/or configuration I used did not work with it.I tried Kingston 133x 8GB and a SanDisk UltraII 4GB card.

I think it has to do with the transfer modes which the card supports. On some machines, a card in an adapter will give errors (NetBSD kernel messages) because higher speed modes won't work, and the speed is then lowered in steps until it starts working with one of the PIO modes.

I have three different kinds of adapters, and only one CF card larger than two gigs which works in any of them, so I can't say for certain what will and what won't work, but all of the cards I've tried which are two gigs or smaller (all the way down to an 8 meg card!) work fine for some reason. I have them in two different Amigas (on the motherboard IDE), on a Motorola Starmax, a SCSI-IDE adapter, and a typical x86 motherboard. They're not fast, but they work.

Have you tried any smallish cards?

 

[bbraun]

Have you tried any smallish cards?

The only smaller cards I have are old.

256MB Ridata card ~6-7yrs old

10MB and 4MB Kodak cards from ~1999

Some of my experiments with CF cards in machines are documented here: http://synack.net/~bbraun/idecf.html

The Kingston and SanDisk cards work in the same adapter in many other machines (currently have Kingston cards in an SE, IIx, Beige G3, and Pismo). From what I've read, the 630 has a bit of a quirky ATA controller which would explain some pickiness on the cards.

Rob

 

[yuhong]

Anyway, the key change in 7.6 is that it backports large volume support to older 68040 and PowerPC Macs that do not have it in ROM.

 

[register]

Probably the Q/P630 IDE interface lacks support for removable media due to a restricted driver living in the machine's ROM (like in the PB150 and PB1400). To check if the media connected to the IDE host adapter is operational for the Mac, boot the machine from a CD or external drive into Mac OS 8.1. The System will overwrite the IDE driver with a more capable version, and the System is equipped to mount different formatted drives. In case the IDE flash drive shows up on the Finder desktop, you can reformat it to Apple HFS and configure it as a startup volume. If this works, you will be able to _restart_ the machine to boot from the new drive.

Annotations

1. Most likely the Apple drive setup programme will not want to format the unknown drive, so use guidance for a little ResEdit hack to fix this (to be found in this forum) or use some third party formatter.

2. In case it is possible to _reboot_ the Mac from System 8.1 using the internal IDE drive as a startup volume, but the Mac will not cold boot using this drive after a shutdown, you will need a different kind of media (industrial grade CF / UDMA support will identify as "fixed media" type to mount). PB150 and PB1400 do not accept removable media as a startup volume connected to the internal IDE interface, Q/P630 might not do, as well.

3. Do not try to use other formats than HFS for the purpose as a startup volume. You might have several HFS partitions on that drive, but with any HFS+ partitions on it, it will not be usable as a boot volume for this Mac anymore.

4. In case there is no need to boot the machine often (server), you could configure a CD ROM to boot from with a little AppleScript programme in the startup items folder to perform an automatic restart from an internal CF drive. The startup items folder on the internal drive in return will switch back to boot from CD ROM. Even a forced restart will safely trigger this boot sequence, as long as the system is not corrupted.

 

[johnklos]

Annotations...

3. Do not try to use other formats than HFS for the purpose as a startup volume. You might have several HFS partitions on that drive, but with any HFS+ partitions on it, it will not be usable as a boot volume for this Mac anymore.

I've had large drives with the first (boot) volume formatted as HFS and large additional volumes as HFS+. Where did you hear that having an HFS+ volume anywhere on the disk would make it not usable as a boot volume?

 

[LCGuy]

Exactly - I've had drives in my 630 with HFS+ partitions before...so long as you're running OS 8.1 its quite alright to have one or more HFS+ partitions on your drive for storage, you simply can't boot from them or use them for Virtual Memory, you have to have a partition formatted as HFS and it can even be on the same drive if you want.

 

[register]

I apologize if I spread misinformation about the usage of HFS+ partitions. My experience was that a Performa 630 with a 20 GB Maxtor IDE drive would not boot with any HFS+ partition on that drive, no matter if the boot partition was HFS. It might depend strongly to the make of disk drive and the formatting tool you chose, probably to the order of partitions. I attempted several times to fix the issue, but anytime I made any of the partitions HFS+ the P630 refused to boot from that same disk at all.

Could you please tell the details about software/hardware configurations which would run properly with mixed HFS/HFS+ partitions on the boot disk of a P630 ?

Moderator, please feel free to wipe out the misleading portion of my contribution to the thread.