Can Older G4 Power Mac "Read" Large Hard Drives?

[seattlepainter]

I have an older G4 Power Mac (400 MHz) and have outgrown the original hard drive. I'm interested in purchasing and installing a second, larger hard drive. I've heard from a computer tech at a local Mac store that my older Mac G4 cannot "read" or accommodate a hard drive larger than 80 GB. I've looked for any information for this subject on Google, but so far nothing. I would appreciate any kind of information on this subject from someone who knows about this.

 

[harryb2448]

The standard 400MHz Mac can handle uop to 128GB HDD. For over that size you would have to install a PCI Controller Card such as this:-

(*) ACard PCI ATA/133 Hard Drive Controller... (AEC-6280M) at OWC

Personally I would look for a MDD 1.25GHz Dual Processor model for not much more than the price of a PCI card and they can take larger drive sizes.

 

[Mama Luigi]

SATA is also an option, but unfortunately, few companies make Mac-compatible PCI cards. Those that do gouge you like crazy. You can get a generic SATA or IDE card for $15-$20, but there's no way of knowing if it'll work on a Mac (especially an older Power Mac G4).

It's better to either get a newer machine capable of using large drives or to buy an external hard drive case.

 

[louishen]

My G4 has that limit as well, I investigated the ATA and SATA cards, but frankly they were too expensive (I thought I would be better off saving the money for a new Mac)

One low cost option is to buy a USB 2 PCI card (10 -15 bucks) and attach a USB 2 external drive.

The USB 2 card will not have the 128 gig limit of the G4s ATA bus, and you can free uploads of space on your internal start-up drive by moving movies and music onto the external drive

 

[harryb2448]

For louishen suggestion you will need to buy and install a USB2 PCI card. The generic ones usually work and if you PM me will pass on a Hong Kong dealer who sells USB2 cards that work well in G4 towers. Also machines with PCI cards can have sleep problems.

PPC machines will not boot from a USB2 external drive. If you want the external drive bootable use Firewire.