Hey!
I was recently on the crucial.com website looking for a price on memory upgrades for my g5 1.8 DP and thye also suggested a new hard drive. However, they said that my Mac could use a 3TB HD. I thought I had read long ago that the pre-PCIe G5 Macs (like mine) would only support 500 gigs tops for hard drives.
Who is correct?
Dual 1.8 G5, Mac OS X (10.5.8)
Your G5 will support larger than 500 GB drives; 500 GB was the largest offered at the time of sale is all.
1TB, 1.5 TB and 2 TB drives are no problem in the G5, but larger than 2.2 TB breaks a capacity limit for APM (Apple Partition Map in formatting is required for boot in a PPC Mac). For use of a 3 TB or 4 TB drive, partition the drive so that no 1 partition is larger than 2 TB. The drive should then have all space available.
Otherwise, for storage only, using Tiger or Leopard, format GPT. These drives (formatted with GPT) are not bootable in a PPC Mac; G3, G4 or G5.
One other potential issue to consider is SATA 3 Gb/s (SATA rev. 2) and SATA 6 Gb/s (SATA rev. 3) related.
The SATA rev. 1 controller of the G5 works well with SATA rev. 2 drives, but is not so friendly with SATA rev. 3 drives. SATA rev. 3 drives from Hitachi (7K series) typically work as is. Drives from Western Digital (Black and Blue series) require a jumper on pins 5 and 6 to limit a SATA 6 Gb/s drive to SATA 3 Gb/s to work well in a G5. If not jumped, the drive is typically not seen.
I wouldn't advise use of any make or model of "green" or 5400 RPM drive.
Your G5 will support larger than 500 GB drives; 500 GB was the largest offered at the time of sale is all.
1TB, 1.5 TB and 2 TB drives are no problem in the G5, but larger than 2.2 TB breaks a capacity limit for APM (Apple Partition Map in formatting is required for boot in a PPC Mac). For use of a 3 TB or 4 TB drive, partition the drive so that no 1 partition is larger than 2 TB. The drive should then have all space available.
Otherwise, for storage only, using Tiger or Leopard, format GPT. These drives (formatted with GPT) are not bootable in a PPC Mac; G3, G4 or G5.
One other potential issue to consider is SATA 3 Gb/s (SATA rev. 2) and SATA 6 Gb/s (SATA rev. 3) related.
The SATA rev. 1 controller of the G5 works well with SATA rev. 2 drives, but is not so friendly with SATA rev. 3 drives. SATA rev. 3 drives from Hitachi (7K series) typically work as is. Drives from Western Digital (Black and Blue series) require a jumper on pins 5 and 6 to limit a SATA 6 Gb/s drive to SATA 3 Gb/s to work well in a G5. If not jumped, the drive is typically not seen.
I wouldn't advise use of any make or model of "green" or 5400 RPM drive.
Woww ... that was a great answer! Thanks, japmac. I honestly don't know what drive I will upgrade with at this time, except to say that I will go with a Segate, Maxtor or Hitachi as every Western Digital drive I have ever purchased/used has crapped out on me, quite literally, the day after the warranty expired. But I will need to do something as I have two internal drives and three external ones and thye are all reaching capacity! *LOL*
japmac,
I have a related question ... what if I was to buy a Seagate SATA III 3T 6Gb/s drive and partition it, with one patition being a boot drive for Leopard? What might I need look out for to make that work, or should I not bother?
Provided the Seagate is properly "seen" by the G5 (not all are), there shouldn't be any problem with what you suggest.
Hi! I have a question too 🙂 What about Advancet Format? Is it going to be a problem for my PM G5 2.3 DP? I've red somewhere that AFT drives can cause problems, when partitioned with Apploe Partition Map. I wan to buy 2 TB Seagate Barracuda 7200.14 and use it as a system disk.
Thanks for your help!
Janek
Japamac sadly no longer posts here, but on Advanced Format, OSX 10.4.11 & up will handle that fine, but that means no 10.4.x Install Disc will work to format it or install to it, since 10.4 Install Discs never came with 10.4.11, Make sure the drive is SATA 1.5 Gb/s compatible also.
Thanks for your reply! I am running on 10.5.8, so that should be ok. My favourite e-shop lists SATA I compatibility in product description, so I give it a try!
Sounds like you'll be fine then... good luck, but please post your results! 🙂
Everything works 🙂 No jumper configuration needed, just plug&play! I am going to transfer my OS now, but I expect no troubles there.
2TB Seagate Barracuda 7200.14 (http://uk.hardware.info/reviews/2997/seagate-barracuda-720014-2tb-hard-disk-revi ew-extremely-fast-7200-rpm-hard-drive) is PowerMac G5 (2.3 DP early 2005, MacOS X 10.5.8 Leopard) compatible! 🙂
Great to hear, thanks for the report! 🙂
Can I use a 3TB HD in my g5?
