You Think You Know Macs? Answer This

[TyleRomeo]

OK so just becuase we have serial hard drives we can go above the 137GB barrier. But those of us with 32 bit systems are limited to 2.2TB drives. Now this may be fine for some time. I'm not sure if the fact if Leopard is a 64 bit system but my Dual G4 is still a 32 bit CPU am I stuck at 2.2TB drives. This may not be a big deal right now since Seagates 750GB is the largest on the market and it will probably take two more years before hard drives come close to that size.

Does anyone know what the max hard drive capacity is for a 64 bit system?

 

[AvSRoCkCO1067]

16 exabytes (something like 16 billion gigabytes)...

Wait - why is this mac-specific?

 

[TyleRomeo]

16 exabytes (something like 16 billion gigabytes)...

Wait - why is this mac-specific?

cuase this is a mac forum and i wanted a mac guy to answer it but the same figure works with PCs. Thanks, so I won't be running out of space anytime soon. I guess the 48 bit serial 144 petabytes will hit the wall first. Oh well.

 

[LoveMacMini]

the size of storage allowed isn't determined by the processor, it's by the file system that's in use

this isn't a mac question, a windows question, or a linux question: this is a plain computer science question

 

[jsw]

I have a strong feeling 2.2TB will be fine for your dual G4, esp. since you can use external drives as well. And, of course, also because we don't have any idea when 2.2TB drives will arrive on the scene.

I'd be much more worried about the RAM limitations. I mean, good grief, even the new Mac Pros can only handle 16GB.

 

[cjc343]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HFS+

 

[26139]

Nope

I have a strong feeling 2.2TB will be fine for your dual G4, esp. since you can use external drives as well. And, of course, also because we don't have any idea when 2.2TB drives will arrive on the scene.

I'd be much more worried about the RAM limitations. I mean, good grief, even the new Mac Pros can only handle 16GB.

No, they can only "handle" eight 2gig chips. I would assume that because those are the largest on the market, that's what the ceiling is. A 64 bit operating system can handle WELL beyond that.

 

[jsw]

No, they can only "handle" eight 2gig chips. I would assume that because those are the largest on the market, that's what the ceiling is. A 64 bit operating system can handle WELL beyond that.

Well, first of all, I know where the 16GB limit comes from - and more importantly, I was just kidding about it being bad. See sig below.

My point was mainly that being overly worried about a 2.2TB/drive limit on a dual-G4 might perhaps indicate excessive concern, given that the cost of such a drive will likely exceed the value of the rest of the OP's PowerMac by a fair amount once it arrives on the market.

 

[26139]

Well, first of all, I know where the 16GB limit comes from - and more importantly, I was just kidding about it being bad. See sig below.

My point was mainly that being overly worried about a 2.2TB/drive limit on a dual-G4 might perhaps indicate excessive concern, given that the cost of such a drive will likely exceed the value of the rest of the OP's PowerMac by a fair amount once it arrives on the market.

Agreed!

 

[TyleRomeo]

Well, first of all, I know where the 16GB limit comes from - and more importantly, I was just kidding about it being bad. See sig below.

My point was mainly that being overly worried about a 2.2TB/drive limit on a dual-G4 might perhaps indicate excessive concern, given that the cost of such a drive will likely exceed the value of the rest of the OP's PowerMac by a fair amount once it arrives on the market.

well in 10 years when my dual g4 is still kicking, i'd like to know that it can still be used as a multimedia server and 2.2TB drives in 10 years will be quite cheap. Hell I just bought a 750GB drive for it for $365. How many GB did $365 get you in 1996? 7-8GB? That's a 100 times more storage in 10 years.

 

[jsw]

well in 10 years when my dual g4 is still kicking, i'd like to know that it can still be used as a multimedia server and 2.2TB drives in 10 years will be quite cheap.

I would guess that network-accessible hard drives will be quite prevalent at that time, obviating the need for a multimedia server.

 

[Anonymous Freak]

How many GB did $365 get you in 1996?

Less than two. (I remember buying a 528 MB (megs, not gigs,) hard drive in 1994 for $500, and thinking it incredible that it was less than $1.00 per megabyte.)

 

[LoveMacMini]

call me when laptops have solid state 100gb hard drives that saturate the SATA bus or whatever bus they're going to have in the future