Maximum HD capacity on a 6100

[johnklos]

maybe because I have not thought about it before? Is there a problem here? anyway my initial question was about the maximum capacity HD of the 6100, not about formating.
In anycase the 6100 may not have regonize the drive anyway since it could not boot from a partition larger than 2 gb anyway.

To answer your question, the SCSI bus in a PowerMac 6100 will work with drives up to 2 terabytes. You can get a 2 terabyte SATA drive, connect it to a SATA-IDE adapter, then to your IDE-SCSI adapter and see the entire drive. I have a similar setup in my Amiga 4000.

With regards to how you'd format it, you could use FWB or other programs, but later versions of Drive Setup should be able to be used regardless of the make of the drive. However, I'd recommend 8.1 or higher (you can run up to 9.1, at least) so you can use HFS+ partitions.

 

[Gorgonops]

Just to clarify one point of confusion in this thread: (quotes to follow)

I found this article on Apple web site:

http://support.apple.com/kb/TA28860

Am I OK to assume that my problem is there and that this computer won't see more than 2GB anytime soon, not even multiple 2 GB partitions?

Isn't 2GB the max file size on HFS, not the max volume size? Power Macs certainly came with >2 GB hard disks before Mac OS 8.1 was released.

In my experience, when you use the HD Setup tool on a 3gig drive, it makes an HFS partition 2Gig in size.

I'm sorry porter, not trying to make enemies already, but you are incorrect. ...

The 2GB figure the Apple KB article is referring to is in reference to the largest volumes that can be reliably used by elderly versions of the Appleshare file sharing protocol. Mounting network volumes larger then that will cause unpredictable behavior. This is unrelated to local hard disk size limits.

Here's the Apple KB about it.

The same article does seem to imply that System versions prior to 7.5 placed a 2GB volume limit on local hard disk partitions. If someone has a whopping big drive in a machine that can run 7.1 or earlier it might be an exercise for the reader to see if it will allow a partition larger then 2 GB.

The Wikipedia article on HFS concurs with the 2 Terabyte absolute limit. The real problem of course is since it's limited to 16 bit's worth of allocation blocks the minimum file size is 1/65,536th of the whole disk. This is similar the limitations on FAT16 DOS partitions, which is why Microsoft *did* set a maximum partition size of 2GB for them. (Just to be pedantic, Windows NT upped that to 4GB but consumer versions of Windows never supported the larger size properly.)

So, in short, a 6100 *should* support a giant hard drive with an IDE converter formatted to full capacity under System 7.5, but you'll be wasting tonnes of space. You'd be much better off running OS 8 or even 9 on it. (assuming you have the RAM for the latter)

 

[porter]

You'd be much better off running OS 8 or even 9 on it. (assuming you have the RAM for the latter)

The 6100 tops out at 8.6.

 

[Charlieman]

Mac OS 9.x will run on a 6100, but is tricky to install. You need a retail install CD (ie a full generic install disk, not a model specific disk) and to boot from the CD. You can't boot from Mac OS 8.6 or earlier, and then run the installer.

Is it worth running Mac OS 9.x on a 6100? Possibly if an app requires it, but most will work with 8.6. The main advantage of 9.x is the extra compatibility with OS X (eg file sharing).

 

[tmtomh]

The 6100 supports up to 9.1, but you must install it from a 9.1 disc. You cannot boot a 6100 from a 9.0 install disc (even a retail one), so you can't install 9.0 or update to 9.1 from 9.0.

 

[Gorgonops]

Mac OS 9.x will run on a 6100, but is tricky to install. You need a retail install CD (ie a full generic install disk, not a model specific disk) and to boot from the CD. You can't boot from Mac OS 8.6 or earlier, and then run the installer.
Is it worth running Mac OS 9.x on a 6100? Possibly if an app requires it, but most will work with 8.6. The main advantage of 9.x is the extra compatibility with OS X (eg file sharing).

'Bout to say, yes, I knew someone who *definitely* had 9 on a 6100/60. And what a fantastic machine it was. Or... not.

I personally have a grudge against 8.6 from having to deal with a Photoshop machine that was running it and would fall over at the drop of a hat. But given that general consensus seems to be that 8.6 was one of the more stable Classic OSes it could just be that the machine-specific 8.6 that shipped on early AGP G4 towers was garbage.

 

[alk]

The 6100 supports up to 9.1, but you must install it from a 9.1 disc. You cannot boot a 6100 from a 9.0 install disc (even a retail one), so you can't install 9.0 or update to 9.1 from 9.0.

Where did you get that idea?! My 6100 boots 9.0 from CD just fine. And 9.0.4 installs over the top fine, too. You are right about 9.1, though - gotta boot the installer disc on all NuBus PowerMacs.

Peace,

Drew

 

[LCGuy]

One little loophole for those who want to upgrade an x100 to 9.1 and don't have a 9.1 CD - remove the HDD from the Mac and connect it to a newer machine, and run the OS 9.1 updater on the newer machine. Back when I had my 8100, I did this in order to get Mac OS 9.1 running on it - I don't have a retail OS 9.1 CD, just a 9.0 CD, so I installed Mac OS 9 on the 8100, then removed the HDD, put it in an external enclosure which I connected to my PowerBook 1400 (which supports the Mac OS 9.1 updater), ran the updater, and put the drive back in the 8100, and that install worked great for another 3 years until the logic board died.