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Disk Utility Won't Initialize 3TB Drives?

PinkyMacGodess said:
How could the USB adapter limit the size of recognized drives? It is just a pass-thru, isn't it?:confused:
Click to expand...
You would think so... But available devices don't always keep up with current tech. And, a USB drive adapter is not just a pass-through, but would have an interface chip on board (it still has to communicate to the USB bus :D )
Perhaps the poster has an older USB adapter which had no need at the time to support more than 2TB (for example), or simply was never tested with such.
 
PinkyMacGodess said:
How could the USB adapter limit the size of recognized drives? It is just a pass-thru, isn't it?:confused:
Click to expand...
Nope, it's not just a pass through. The cutoff is actually with drives larger than 2.2TB. USB enclosures currently sold will pretty universally support these larger disks, but it's worth verifying that capability if you're buying a new enclosure.
 
So back to the idea of installing in my MacPro formatting, and then sticking in iMac seems like it would work (I hope)...

DAMN. Never thought it would be such a hassle...

Thanks for the info. I wonder if the USB cradle is upgradable...
 
I found an article on 'the net' somewhere that said that the chips in the Blacx drive cradles really CAN hammer a drive's capacity, and the company that made those 'things' can actually use several different chips in them, in the same model number, and even in the same model number, there are some earlier models that might have the capacity limit. Oh, and there are NO firmware upgrades for their 'quality products'. At. All.

Nice...

But anyway...

I've learned a lot. I guess it's not a total loss. It will be a few more weeks to get the MacPro free for this excursion in WTF land... I LOVE WORKING AROUND ESOTERIC ISSUES THAT USUALLY HAPPENED DECADES AGO!
I LOVE WORKING AROUND ESOTERIC ISSUES THAT USUALLY HAPPENED DECADES AGO!
I LOVE WORKING AROUND ESOTERIC ISSUES THAT USUALLY HAPPENED DECADES AGO!
I LOVE WORKING AROUND ESOTERIC ISSUES THAT USUALLY HAPPENED DECADES AGO!
I LOVE WORKING AROUND ESOTERIC ISSUES THAT USUALLY HAPPENED DECADES AGO!

Okay, I'm done... o_O
 
GOD DMAN IT!!!! It's 2017 Why the **** is this so HARD!!!??? I bought a 3000GB HD and I only can access 800GB WHY!!!! Why can NO figure this out for a ****ing Macintosh yet!?!?!?!?!
 
LifeInPictures said:
GOD DMAN IT!!!! It's 2017 Why the **** is this so HARD!!!??? I bought a 3000GB HD and I only can access 800GB WHY!!!! Why can NO figure this out for a ****ing Macintosh yet!?!?!?!?!
Click to expand...
Try to stop YELLING... Try a few slow, deep breaths... easy, easy...
Now, take a couple of minutes, and read through the rest of this thread. You will find several posts reporting your exact problem. That is, setting up a large drive, but only shows 800GB), and in each case, the same fix:
Get an external enclosure that supports that large drive (not all enclosures will do that!)
Your Mac (and OS X/macOS) has supported drives much larger than 3TB for years. The problem is the chipset in your external enclosure does not properly support drives larger than 2TB.
Check for support information on the website for the company that makes the enclosure.
There might be a firmware update for your enclosure, but usually you just need to try a different brand.
 
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DeltaMac said:
Try to stop YELLING... Try a few slow, deep breaths... easy, easy...
Now, take a couple of minutes, and read through the rest of this thread. You will find several posts reporting your exact problem. That is, setting up a large drive, but only shows 800GB), and in each case, the same fix:
Get an external enclosure that supports that large drive (not all enclosures will do that!)
Your Mac (and OS X/macOS) has supported drives much larger than 3TB for years. The problem is the chipset in your external enclosure does not properly support drives larger than 2TB.
Check for support information on the website for the company that makes the enclosure.
There might be a firmware update for your enclosure, but usually you just need to try a different brand.
Click to expand...

I feel calmer already... ;-)
 
Ok, have a "similar" problem. Just had my hard drive in my mid-2011 iMac replaced because it crashed. Upgraded from 2TB to a 3TB drive by a computer tech/store in the city. Got it home and eventually found it showed a capacity of 800 GB. It's internal - no USB enclosure.
 
gto49 said:
Ok, have a "similar" problem. Just had my hard drive in my mid-2011 iMac replaced because it crashed. Upgraded from 2TB to a 3TB drive by a computer tech/store in the city. Got it home and eventually found it showed a capacity of 800 GB. It's internal - no USB enclosure.
Click to expand...

you may have better luck in the iMac forum, this may be a known issue specifically with iMac?

what OS version are you using?

Open Disk Utility. Make sure View > Show All Devices is set. This is NOT the default view.

Screen Shot 2018-03-26 at 4.59.38 PM.png

What does the Physical Disk read as? What format? What size? What partition map?
 
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gto49 said:
Ok, have a "similar" problem. Just had my hard drive in my mid-2011 iMac replaced because it crashed. Upgraded from 2TB to a 3TB drive by a computer tech/store in the city. Got it home and eventually found it showed a capacity of 800 GB. It's internal - no USB enclosure.
Click to expand...

That's the store's problem, not yours. If you can't find a very easy and quick fix, I'd take it back.
 
I suspect that the store tech restored the old hard to the new drive, while that new drive was in an external case, (which was too old to see that 3TB, so incorrectly formatted to 800GB), then moved the loaded drive to your iMac. Just formatted improperly.
Fixable by backing up what needs backing up to an external now. Then reformatting the new internal drive (not the improper partition, but formatting the device, which resets the partition setup to defaults (meaning one partition, correctly).
When you have the format correctly made, then restore the external to your new drive.
Easy to do, but can take a couple of hours, depending on how much data you have to restore.
 
Hi - I have read this forum from the start just to make sure I understand all the problems, and options.

My solution to the 3tb, 4tb, 5tb and 6tb HDD is to order the drives as external usb3 drives and plug them in either as a NTFS formatted or even Mac Journalled forrmats. I am currently using a 6tb seagate usb hdd with my macbook pro (late 2011 17" screen) under High Sierra and it works fine.

- I have a mac pro 1,1 upgraded to the 2,1 - ( 8 core 3.2ghz with 5 x 2 tb formatted so i get "raid 1 x 8 tb storage" leaving my boot drive as just 2tb,)which after much messing about is running El Capitan,

- a Mac Pro 3,1 (8 core 3.2ghz with 4x2tb internal also running El capitan) and

- a Mac Pro 4,1 , (6 core , 4x2tb internal, upgraded to a 5,1 running High Sierra)

and all three mac Pro's see each of my external 3, 4, 5 or 6 tb usb hdd drives, regardless of forrmat type, using a 3rd party program to read NTFS drives. I store all my music, movies, etc on external and internal drives as I have a mistrust of any type of Cloud based storage type. My only problem is that I am only able to use 2 external HDD's at any one time as three will just not display ( probably due to power restrictions ?). Anyway, this is to show that there is no apparent restriction on a Mac Pro using external large size hdds.
 
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