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 ateliercunha,

    ateliercunha ateliercunha Jan 15, 2015 4:44 PM in response to kahjot
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Desktops
    Jan 15, 2015 4:44 PM in response to kahjot

    Great ,-)

    Thanks a lot for your help.

  • by P.O.fromberlin,

    P.O.fromberlin P.O.fromberlin Nov 11, 2015 6:48 AM in response to pmiles
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 11, 2015 6:48 AM in response to pmiles

    Sorry if I post in the wrong place but I have a related problem. I have a Mac Pro 5,1, Mid-2010 and I have purchased a number of 6 TB drives. They work just fine on their own but I cannot RAID them using the Disk Utility, that option dissapears when I go over the 6 TB disks. Is there a limitation to the software RAID utility in MAC OS X? I run 10.9.5 (Mavericks).

    Can it be done from the command line?

    P.O.

  • by Grant Bennet-Alder,

    Grant Bennet-Alder Grant Bennet-Alder Nov 11, 2015 8:11 AM in response to P.O.fromberlin
    Level 9 (61,390 points)
    Desktops
    Nov 11, 2015 8:11 AM in response to P.O.fromberlin

    P.O.fromberlin

     

    As mentioned earlier in this thread, the default from ERASE-ing a drive over 2.2TB with 10.8.4 or later in an Internal slot is to give it a Logical Volume group and a Logical Volume.

     

    Once set up this way, disks can be encrypted easily or turned into a Fusion drive, and nothing else. Solutions are in the older entries above.

  • by P.O.fromberlin,

    P.O.fromberlin P.O.fromberlin Nov 11, 2015 8:48 AM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 11, 2015 8:48 AM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

    Hello Grant and thanks for your reply. All in all I have 4 6 TB disks. The two first I initialised as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and they worked fine in OSX on their own. The other two I left uninitialised. These last drives I could easily convert to a Striped RAID (12 TB) but adding the already initialised disk fail, they are not possible to add to the RAID. I have no idea how to "unititialise" the drives, I will try in another machine. Any hints are welcome. I did not find a solution to the problem I now have in the thread above.

    P.O.

  • by Grant Bennet-Alder,

    Grant Bennet-Alder Grant Bennet-Alder Nov 11, 2015 9:00 AM in response to P.O.fromberlin
    Level 9 (61,390 points)
    Desktops
    Nov 11, 2015 9:00 AM in response to P.O.fromberlin

    My exact post above:

     

    Re: Re: Maximum capacity HDD in Mid 2010 Mac Pro?


    in Terminal use:

    diskutil cs list

     

    If you see Logical Volume Group partitions, the drives are ready to be used for a Fusion Drive, but are NOT ready for anything else.

     

    I have no idea how to "unititialise" the drives


    The drives should be Erased, [but NOT as Internal drives under 10.8.4 or later] -OR- their Logical Volume Group information should be deleted as described in that exact post referenced.

  • by P.O.fromberlin,

    P.O.fromberlin P.O.fromberlin Nov 11, 2015 12:27 PM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 11, 2015 12:27 PM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

    Thanks again, this solved my problem, I could erase all logical volume group information, this is what I meant with "uninitialise"

    I now have a RAID with 64 TB with r/w at over 550 MB/S

  • by Grant Bennet-Alder,

    Grant Bennet-Alder Grant Bennet-Alder Nov 11, 2015 12:32 PM in response to P.O.fromberlin
    Level 9 (61,390 points)
    Desktops
    Nov 11, 2015 12:32 PM in response to P.O.fromberlin

    Excellent news!

     

    The bad news is that in El Capitan 10.11, support for Disk Utility RAID has been taken out of Disk Utility. Now you are forced to use Terminal:

     

    $ diskutil RAID

     

    but otherwise, it continues to work.

     

    Striped RAID is great for fast temporary storage, but if the RAID breaks, you are likely to lose everything. Backups are very important !!

  • by P.O.fromberlin,

    P.O.fromberlin P.O.fromberlin Nov 12, 2015 12:24 PM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 12, 2015 12:24 PM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

    Hi again and thanks for the warning but I am not going to put anything on this volume that I cannot loose or recreate. For serious business you need backup for sure. In fact this was only a test to see if the hardware could handle it, I will use it under Linux, the older (2010) Mac Pro is a great solid piece of hardware.

    Many thanks again for your candid support.

    P.O.

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