pmiles
Level 6 (15,955 points)
Mac OS X

Q: Maximum capacity HDD in Mid 2010 Mac Pro?

Hi, I have a Mid 2010 Mac Pro, 3.33 GHz 6-Core Intel Xeon (Mac Pro5,1).  I have 4 available HDD drive bays.  Three of which are currently occupied with a 1TB Sata HDD.  I have one available empty slot.  I'm looking to put in a larger HDD for storing/streaming content from to my Roku.

 

Current HDDs are all Western Digital:  WD1003FZEX, WD1001FALS and WD1001FALS.  All from the black/caviar family.

 

I'm looking to stick to the same family, but get a larger sized drive such as the WD4003FZEX.

 

My question is, what is the physical size limitation of internal hard disk drives for my system, if there is one.  I've read 16TBs total but don't know for sure.  I know the architecture is the biggest limiting factor but is it possible to put a 6TB drive in this computer?

 

Thanks in advance

Mac Pro, OS X Yosemite (10.10.1), / 5870 / LED Cinema Display

Posted on Jan 12, 2015 4:42 PM

by Grant Bennet-Alder,Solvedanswer
Grant Bennet-Alder Grant Bennet-Alder
Level 9 (61,390 points)
Desktops
A:

what is the physical size limitation of internal hard disk drives for my system

up to 10.5.2, it was 16 TeraBytes.

 

After that, just short of 8 Million TeraBytes.

 

Specific references document is here:

 

Mac OS X: Mac OS Extended format (HFS Plus) volume and file limits - Apple Support


Any drive you can buy today will work just fine. Drives over 3TB may have reduced screw depth on the screws adjacent to the platters. You may need to shorten the screws or put a washer under the screw heads to control this. If the drive is cocked on the sled, it will not mate with the "backplane" connectors, and will not appear in Disk Utility.

Posted on Jan 12, 2015 7:09 PM

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pmiles

Q: Maximum capacity HDD in Mid 2010 Mac Pro?

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  • by BDAqua,

    BDAqua BDAqua Jan 12, 2015 5:29 PM in response to pmiles
    Level 10 (123,905 points)
    Jan 12, 2015 5:29 PM in response to pmiles

    Yes, all the 6 TB drives should work, even higher if they made them, at this link click on the Compatibility tab to see...

     

    http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Western%20Digital/WD60EFRX/

  • by kahjot,

    kahjot kahjot Jan 12, 2015 6:33 PM in response to pmiles
    Level 4 (1,416 points)
    Desktops
    Jan 12, 2015 6:33 PM in response to pmiles

    You may get more answers in the Mac Pro section, rather than here, which is for PowerPC Macs from 10 years ago or more.

     

    You may need to format the drive in an external enclosure, or using the version of DIsk Utility that came with Snow Leopard, due to a bug introduced in 10.8.4, which I do not believe has been fixed. It's described in this discussion:

     

    http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/112266/why-doesnt-my-mac-pro-see-my-new -4tb-sata-drive

     

    I recently installed a 3 TB drive in a drive bay of my 2008 Mac Pro. When I rebooted it was not recognised and required formatting. However Disk Utility formatted it as a “Logical Volume Group”. I could not set the partition and GUID option and it was not showing the full capacity of the drive.

    I Googled the issue and found that 10.8.4 and 10.8.5 have a bug which was causing this problem to occur with drives of 3 TB and greater capacity. The solution was to boot from an earlier version of OS X. I booted from a Snow Leopard boot drive which I keep on a USB Flash Drive and used Disk Utility to successfully re-format and partition the 3 TB drive. I am not sure whether the bug is still present in Mavericks.

    I was running 10.8.5 when I encountered the problem I described above - drive not recognised but Disk Utility did offer to format it. However the normal format options were not available with "Logical Volume Group" being the only option.

    I did not have a boot volume pre 10.8.4 but did have a Snow Leopard boot volume. When I restarted my Mac Pro with this Snow Leopard volume I was able to use Disk Utility to set the drive to one partition and GUID format. When I rebooted into 10.8.5 the drive was recognised as a normal volume and I have been using it for my Time Machine backup ever since.


    Also, I believe that on at least some 6TB drives, the screw holes are in different locations on the drive and this makes it difficult to mount them in the drive sleds. This might only be a problem with Seagate 6TB drives, though. If you want the drive in BD Aqua's link, check with OWC about whether the screw holes are in the expected positions.

  • by Grant Bennet-Alder,Solvedanswer

    Grant Bennet-Alder Grant Bennet-Alder Jan 12, 2015 7:09 PM in response to pmiles
    Level 9 (61,390 points)
    Desktops
    Jan 12, 2015 7:09 PM in response to pmiles

    what is the physical size limitation of internal hard disk drives for my system

    up to 10.5.2, it was 16 TeraBytes.

     

    After that, just short of 8 Million TeraBytes.

     

    Specific references document is here:

     

    Mac OS X: Mac OS Extended format (HFS Plus) volume and file limits - Apple Support


    Any drive you can buy today will work just fine. Drives over 3TB may have reduced screw depth on the screws adjacent to the platters. You may need to shorten the screws or put a washer under the screw heads to control this. If the drive is cocked on the sled, it will not mate with the "backplane" connectors, and will not appear in Disk Utility.

  • by Grant Bennet-Alder,

    Grant Bennet-Alder Grant Bennet-Alder Jan 12, 2015 7:13 PM in response to kahjot
    Level 9 (61,390 points)
    Desktops
    Jan 12, 2015 7:13 PM in response to kahjot

    That bug is in the ERASE function in Disk Utility, 10.8.4 through current at this writing.

     

    If you can skip the ERASE and just use Partition, you will be fine. Otherwise an older (pre 10.8.4) Disk Utility is your best bet, or an external enclosure.

  • by pmiles,

    pmiles pmiles Jan 13, 2015 8:42 AM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder
    Level 6 (15,955 points)
    Mac OS X
    Jan 13, 2015 8:42 AM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

    What specifically is this erase bug?  Does it affect all SATA drives of all capacities?  I've only used Format under Yosemite since it is quicker.  Largest drive I have is a 2TB external, all internal drives are 1TB.  But if I go to a larger drive 4TB or more, does this mean I will have issues with trying to format it?  I don't partition the drives up, just the one partition.

  • by kahjot,

    kahjot kahjot Jan 13, 2015 12:24 PM in response to pmiles
    Level 4 (1,416 points)
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    Jan 13, 2015 12:24 PM in response to pmiles

    Drivers larger than 2TB are affected by this bug. It's hard to believe that it has been allowed to persist through two more "upgrades". I suppose Apple isn't concerned because these days they are only making systems with a single small internal drive.

  • by Grant Bennet-Alder,

    Grant Bennet-Alder Grant Bennet-Alder Jan 13, 2015 12:31 PM in response to kahjot
    Level 9 (61,390 points)
    Desktops
    Jan 13, 2015 12:31 PM in response to kahjot

    kahjot has it right.

     

    The bug impacts Internal drives over 2.2TB when using the ERASE function in 10.8.4 to current versions. It turns them into a Logical Volume group that can then not be manipulated further with the other methods mentioned.

  • by pmiles,

    pmiles pmiles Jan 13, 2015 2:49 PM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder
    Level 6 (15,955 points)
    Mac OS X
    Jan 13, 2015 2:49 PM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

    So basically, as long as I just use the Partition feature, I can still format a drive larger than 2TBs to whatever I choose, correct?

     

    Has anyone tried erasing a disk from the terminal instead? LOL, I suppose no one wants to brick a disk to find out.

     

    How about erasing the disk under bootcamp in Windows and then using Partition in Disk Utility (if one is looking to zero out their disk)?

  • by The hatter,

    The hatter The hatter Jan 13, 2015 2:57 PM in response to pmiles
    Level 9 (60,935 points)
    Jan 13, 2015 2:57 PM in response to pmiles

    Yes the terminal is one way to get around it. Using a "supported" external drive case is another way and then move the drive back to internal drive bay.

     

    https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/Darwin/Reference/ManPages/ man8/diskutil.8.html

     

    There is bound to be a thread here - may even have bookmarked but can't off the top of my head!

  • by Grant Bennet-Alder,

    Grant Bennet-Alder Grant Bennet-Alder Jan 13, 2015 3:02 PM in response to pmiles
    Level 9 (61,390 points)
    Desktops
    Jan 13, 2015 3:02 PM in response to pmiles

    This solution by snipperjs was proposed about a year ago.

    There turns out to be a solution to this which doesn't require rebooting or removing the drive.  So long as you haven't put any data on it -- you actually can use the command line version of Disk Utility to fix it.

     

    First run diskutil cs list to get the UDID of the volume group and the logical volume.  Then you just delete the volume and the group that was created when Diskutil did the bad 'erase' -- when you do that, your drive will be left with a single large partition and you just don't use Erase after that - use Partition in Diskutil and you'll be all set.

     

    The commands are:

    diskutil cs list

    diskutil cs deleteVolume <Logical Volume UDID>

    diskutil cs delete <logical volume group UDID>

     

    BE WARNED - if you have a fusion drive, this will also show up as a Logical Volume Group and you need to make sure you're picking the right ones or you'll have serious data loss. The command line is unforgiving.

     

    I was very happy to not have to dig up a CD or take the drive out. Hopefully this helps someone else.


    Re: Disk Utility defaulted to Logical Volume Group format for new 4TB HDD and won't let me change to GUID. Is that a problem?

  • by ateliercunha,

    ateliercunha ateliercunha Jan 15, 2015 3:29 PM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Desktops
    Jan 15, 2015 3:29 PM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

    I´m sorry if I insist, but can I use one of these HD disks

    Western Digital

    4TB

    5TB

    6TB

    SATA III 64MB Red

    in my Mac Pro 5,1 (mid 2010)?


    Thank you so much.

    Best regards.

  • by kahjot,

    kahjot kahjot Jan 15, 2015 3:45 PM in response to ateliercunha
    Level 4 (1,416 points)
    Desktops
    Jan 15, 2015 3:45 PM in response to ateliercunha

    ateliercunha wrote:

     

    I´m sorry if I insist, but can I use one of these HD disks

    Western Digital

    4TB

    5TB

    6TB

    SATA III 64MB Red

    in my Mac Pro 5,1 (mid 2010)?


    Thank you so much.

    Best regards.

     

    Yes, if you can verify that the mounting holes are in the correct locations to work with the Mac Pro's drive sleds. You should also have an external enclosure available so that you can format the drives in the enclosure BEFORE you install them in the Mac Pro, as The Hatter indicated above. If you have Snow Leopard installed, you should use Snow Leopard's Disk Utility to format the drive.

  • by ateliercunha,

    ateliercunha ateliercunha Jan 15, 2015 3:55 PM in response to kahjot
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Desktops
    Jan 15, 2015 3:55 PM in response to kahjot

    My OSX is the latest Yosemite.

    I´ve an external Firewire Voyager Q dock for my backup hraddrives, so I´m able to format my new drive before the instalation inside the Mac pro.

    Also I will bring with me the Mac Pro drive sled to the shop in order to verify if the holes are in the correct position to the new drive.

     

    Did I miss something?

    Or am I correct?

     

    So; no problem with bigger capacity hard drives (over the last years I only installed inside the Mac 3TB drives)?

     

    Thanks.

  • by kahjot,

    kahjot kahjot Jan 15, 2015 4:02 PM in response to ateliercunha
    Level 4 (1,416 points)
    Desktops
    Jan 15, 2015 4:02 PM in response to ateliercunha

    It sounds like your plan should work.

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