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Using large modern hard drives in a Beige G3...

T

The Macster

68000
So I was considering using the 120 GB hard drive from my Acer in the G3 once I've got my new PC sorted and the files off it, but judging by the prices of similar new drives and what used ones sell for, it would hardly cost anything to change it for a brand new one, as opposed to one that's spent the last 3 years at 50-60 C inside that laptop. However, 120 GB and 160 GB ones seem about the same price, but I'm aware that the Beige G3 has problems with drives above about 128 GB, so what would happen if I got the 160 GB one? Would it work but only the first 128 GB would be visible in the formatter, or would it throw a hissy fit and refuse to work with it at all? If the former is the case, are there any tricks for getting the extra space useable, apart from getting a separate IDE card?

And will any brand new IDE drive work, or are there issues with using a drive that's 9 years newer than the machine?

Thanks! :)

 
any newer drive will work but like you already said u wan't see anything over 128gb. so if the drive is a 160gb you will only be able to use 128gb of that 160gb. the only way to get around that in these machines is to use a pci ata or pci sata card.

 
I use a 160GB drive in my Sawtooth G4 which has the same large drive issues. The drive works fine but appears to have a capacity of 128GB. Partitioning won't help, 128GB will still be the summed limit. Hopefully I'll get at that extra 32GB one day...

 
Thanks for the response guys :) I just thought that it might not last that much longer as they're not really supposed to be run at temperatures as high as that, and it's hardly going to cost anything to get a new one if I sell that one, but I don't know :-/

 
As already said, the 128 Gb is the limit. I have one, and never used drive larger than 120Gb, actually, largest was 80. Now I have a 13G in it.

Don't forget the 8Gb limit for the OS X partition. The Beige IDE have a problem with this. If a required system file is located over the 8GB barrier, the system won't boot. I had this issue once, and I remember it still today! Took me a long time to figure out a way to reinstall OS X on it.

The problem still exist with OS8 and 9, but since the system is smaller, is less likely to happen. But still, you're taking chances if you do not partition.

My 13 GIG has its first 8Gig parition in 3, for OS 8, 8.5 and 9. The remaning is Data.

 
wasnt there software to make a Mac to see large drives.

its name is

Intech Hard Disk SpeedTools

but from what i have herd in the IRC channel that it can cause problems like data corruption and other bad stuff.

if you want to chance it then go ahead but be warned about what it can lead up to. and if you try it you use it from your own free will.

the best method is to use a PCI IDE controller ( like a sonnet tempo trio which has firewire/ USB 2.0 and a IDE controller that will allow you to see larg HDDs) but this method is a bit high in price.

i dont know if there is both a OS 9 version and a OS X version or just a OS X version of the software way

 
Thanks for the advice :) I installed a 160 GB drive in the G3 this afternoon, replacing the 3 old small horrible ones that were in there, and it works really well :D The Mac seems even faster now, and it's good to have a drive that things don't randomly go corrupt on! As suspected, only 128 GB of it is available, and I don't want to risk trying the software that was mentioned as a way of avoiding that limit. Used drives seem to go for a good price on eBay, so the old 120 GB drive from the Acer that I was considering using in the G3 should almost pay for the new 160 GB one! I would certainly recommend to anyone else who's using an older Mac with a similar vintage hard drive to upgrade it, as it really does improve your Mac experience!

I used Carbon Copy Cloner to copy across the OS X installation, which seems to work pretty well - it wouldn't boot at first, and booting into 9 and running XPF showed that BootX had disappeared (possibly it's one of the things that CCC removes), and replacing that made it work again :)

PS I don't suppose anyone knows any good ways of reducing the amount of stuff on OS X's startup disk? (like useless files or caches that can be deleted, such as the remains of downloaded updates or things like that) Just that with 8 GB it seems a real squeeze, and my startup disk seems to get fuller and fuller even though I'm not installing things to it!

 
i know i seen a nice bump in OS performance when i installed a 120gb HDD in my AIO (replacing the stock 4gb HDD)

i even seen a bit faster increase when i replaced the old IDE ribbon cables with new 80 wire 40 pin IDE cables.

now it get to the full 16MB/s the IDE controller will max out at

 
I use Intech's ATA Hi-Cap driver on my Sawtooth when using OS X and IIRC the last time I booted into OS 9 I was able to see and use the rest of my 250GB HD that is connected to it's Ultra ATA-66 bus. I can't remember the reason but I think defor mentioned it on #68kMLA once.

idk, I am going to boot into OS 9 after finishing this post to check again. I really don't seem to use OS 9 much anymore so I can't remember.

On a side note, I have been using this since I got my 250GB HD last Jan and have had no data corruption issues.

 
I only have the old-style cables in there, did it make that much of a difference when you changed to the new ones? I think I only have one new-style one, and I wasn't sure whether it's OK to have one new and one old in the machine at the same time, or even whether the hard drive should be the single device on a two-connector cable (which is what my new-style one is).

 
I only have the old-style cables in there, did it make that much of a difference when you changed to the new ones? I think I only have one new-style one, and I wasn't sure whether it's OK to have one new and one old in the machine at the same time, or even whether the hard drive should be the single device on a two-connector cable (which is what my new-style one is).
Click to expand...
There is only one cable per IDE controller. So, the two cables are for different IDE controllers. Usually the older 40wire type is for the CD Drive, and the 80wire is for the HD which is more sensitive to cable quality.

Using both a Master and Slave halves the bandwidth to each drive, so unless you REALLY REALLY need another drive in there (and don't have a PCI IDE/SATA controller), it's better to have only one drive on the HDs bus.

A note about the cable:

If cable select is chosen on the drive, the layout of the connectors on 40wire cable is:

motherboard ==== Master ==== Slave

-If you're not using the Slave connector, it's possible to snip off that cable segment.

On the newer 80wire cable, it is:

motherboard ==== Slave ==== Master

-You shouldn't snip off a segment of this cable.

For Maxtor drives, it's better to use the "Single Drive setting," for any drive it's better to choose the "Master" or "Single Drive" setting, not cable select if there is only one drive on the bus.

the extra 40wires in 80pin cable are ground cable to reduce crosstalk among the 40pin cables.

 
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