Mac Pro and 3TB drives

I also have a couple of 3TB Seagate GoFlex external USB hard drives that I want to put inside my Mac Pro. If I remove them from the enclosure, will they immediately work in my Mac Pro without re-formatting, or do I need to initialize and format the drives in OS X?

Also, how did you open the GoFlex enclosure? Did you manage to open it without damaging it?

I forgot to mention that when I spoke with Seagate support yesterday, they said the drive would not work out of the enclosure in a Mac Pro because the Mac controller does not support these 3 TB drives an their 4K sector size. It seems like they were wrong then?

I have tried to search for information about 4K sector size support in Mac OS X. I have found no mention on Apple sites of support or lack of support.

I have not seen anything, not even an anecdote, to indicate it is NOT supported.

Generally, when this occurs, it is because support is already built-in, and it is not mentioned because it is simply not an issue.

I posted half a dozen links in 3TB thread on PowerMac G5 taken from WD support and elsewhere, including Apple docs on support and the reasons behind GPT to support larger drives (as well as how it is needed for EFI based systems).

Intel may bring out more support for EFI with next generation of chips and the motherboards to support new socket, as well as the need to some extent to have support for booting Windows 64-bit and future on 2.5TB drives.

Hitachi 7K3000 3TB
http://macperformanceguide.com/Storage-Drive-Hitachi-7K3000-3TB.html

Apple Secrets of GPT TN2166
http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#technotes/tn2006/tn2166.html

http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.aspx?id=120

There are some mentions of Mac OS X 10.4.6 or later for support of very large volumes.

Mac OS version 10.4 onwards (Tiger, Leopard and Snow Leopard) can use the GUID Partitioning Table scheme (GPT) which will align an Advanced Format drive correctly.
Mac OS versions using Apple Partition Manager (APM) will not align partitions correctly and will not provide optimum performance.

Advanced Format

Hello

Thank you verry much for your extrem helpfull informations. Ok i though my HDD where not that old but anyway i have to invest money into HDD'S.
Here in Germany the Prices for MacPro's are anyway expensive. Apple sale theyr rears here in Euro for the same Price then in the US $. So our prices here is about 15 % over them in the US.

The used MacPro 2,66 XEON i get the offer for, is about 850 € including 4GB of RAM.

My Old G5 is anyway not anymore good usable for my need's, corse i need the new features from photoshop CS5.

Also thank you a lot for that verry heplfull links that you send me and the helpfull informations in the new file system.

Have a good time kind gerards and a happy new year! 🙂

Julius

People find that SandForce based SSDs can do a lot to breath life into new and older systems - now that I have one, I want to add 3 more eventually.

The French site lists Apple Specials, not sure what they have.

http://www.macbidouille.com/
http://www.hardmac.com/ - English version

Has anyone tried one of the WD Caviar Green 3TB in a Mac Pro? I am thinking about getting one, to store my iTunes store-bought TV shows on. I currently have one of the 2TB Caviar green dives in one of the bays, and it works perfectly.

I put one in my Mac Pro last week. Works as expected!

I have exactly the same problem with a new Hitachi 3TB drive. RAID card recognizes as 2.2 TB.

Is it possible to plug drive bay 1 into a different controller other than the RAID card, and bays 2, 3 and 4 into the RAID card?

Cheers!

I will ask it here to not create a new thread.
Is the 3TB HDDs problem related to RAID card or to Soft RAID in Mac Pro as well.
If I buy 3x3TB Hitachi and put ones in RAID0 inside Mac Pro with no RAID card installed should I expect the system see just a part of each disk (in stead of showing it as almost 9TB would bring me some 6.xTB?)

Rather than confuse and inject discussion of non-hardware RAID, and be clear there is Apple software RAID; and there is a commercial application/driver "SoftRAID" that is totally distinct (a program I recommend and have seen to be better - just read the "features" on their web site).

I'd have to say, do everyone a favor: Start your own thread:

http://discussions.apple.com/post!default.jspa?forumID=1321

Thank you The hatter.
You would save your time simply by answering "yes" or "no" to my question instead of suggesting me to open a new thread with the same subject.
I think my question perfectly fits this thread titled "Mac Pro and 3TB drives".

RAID is a complex issue, and yours is not a Yes or No question. A new thread would get you the attention this issue deserves.