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| Author | Hard drive size limit and options on 7.6.1 (Read 19986 times) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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cballero
1024 MB  Posts: 1176 System 7, today and forever 
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on: May 01, 2021, 13:54
I want to add a hard drive inside my 6360 and I was wondering how large it could be w/partitioning? Due to HFS+ and low-memory footprint, I could run Mac 8.1 as the preferred OS. If System 7.6.1 can use a few partitions, that would be nice, but as long as it can run on it's own, that's good enough. I forgot how many partitions Mac OS 7 can operate in, lol  (even if it can't mount them due to being too many partitions because of a a incompatibility with a higher OS like OS 9, or simply can't read them because of HFS+).I'm thinking of an IDE drive due to their low prices, but I'm open to less noisy (but I'm hoping affordable) options, maybe using an IDE-to-MicroSD/SD adapter or should I consider an external SCSI drive or enclosure? I'm using a 2GB SCSI Orb to boot it up now, but the disk size is limiting to run everything I want to run on it. A NIC for it would rock and everyone loves more RAM (it currently has 32mb installed and I've been running it without virtual memory on when I can due to the 2.2gb Orb size constraint, so at some point I may spring for a larger memory module), but the priority for now I think is adding a big internal or external drive to have more room for software. Let me know your thoughts  Oh, and the ultimate goal? To either use it to play animated videos formatted to run locally on the hard drive or maybe CD-ROMs, or ideally to be able to transcode my video collection to stream on QuickTime or Classila although 32mb to run even the lightest OS for Classila and this Mac, which is 8.6 and Classila for video might be pushing it because it will also require me to get an ethernet adapter and run the Macs networking software and push all that video data through it! 
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Last Edit: May 01, 2021, 20:51 by cballero
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wove
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1024 MB Posts: 1363
Reply #1 on: May 02, 2021, 01:59
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Partition size is limited to 4GB for 7.5.2 through 8. There is no limit to the hard drive size for SCSI drive, however 7.6.1 (all the old world ROM Macs are limited to a drive size of 2TB) Modern adaptors for for SD cards typically have faster read/write speeds than either IDE or SCSI controllers or buses of the time. So you should see no performance decrease in using such an adaptor. Also of course there is going to be substantial power savings. Video transcoding is a huge undertaking for a 6360, I would suspect the processor, memory and buss speed would be a bigger impediment than drive size or read write speeds.
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cballero
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1024 MB Posts: 1176 System 7, today and forever
Reply #2 on: May 02, 2021, 05:42
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I know! I'm hoping the video will stream coded for the Power Mac's easiest format to play and/or compressed well enough and with a low enough bitrate to make it all work, but that secondary goal will entail being able to playback a local library well enough. The primary goal is to have local files play well, most likely in VCD or maybe KVCD format. I will look for proper instructions for KVCD encoding since when I first tried a good while back, I failed to find something I could follow. For now, I'm only planning to do animations for maximum quality using VCD's low resolutions
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Bolkonskij
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Administrator 1024 MB  Posts: 2023
Reply #3 on: May 02, 2021, 17:15
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Wow, did you actually get a real Mac, cbone? wove is spot-on (as usual) regarding max partition size. I don't know how many partitions you can technically have or if there's even a limitation? Honestly I never bother with more than 3 or 4 (which is what I have on my 8600) because I'm getting old and confused with too many options. :-D But if we're talking a Performa 6360 you should be good to e.g. stream Quicktime videos. Just don't use Classilla with it, keep it at 7.6.1 and run iCab. It'll do :-) ... I also vaguely remember watching a VCD on a 7100/80, so your 6360 should be able to do it. I had uploaded Simple VCD Player to the Mac Garden some time ago for that. But where do folks actually get VideoCD movies these days?
Last Edit: May 02, 2021, 17:19 by Bolkonskij
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cballero
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1024 MB Posts: 1176 System 7, today and forever
Reply #4 on: May 02, 2021, 19:51
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Lol, down at Blockbuster video, of course! Just messin'  for VCD video, you would use any encoding software that creates VCDs and then use that to convert your own videos. Also, did I get an education on LEM on disk drives:https://lowendmac.com/2005/how-big-hard-drive-imac-emac-power-mac-powerbook-ibook So while the Mac OS 7.6.1 can handle up to a theoretical 2TB as wove mentioned, the ROM in Old World Macs (the pre G3 'beige series' and pre-G3 Powerbooks) cannot handle more than a 128GB disk natively via IDE without a third-party PCI card (preferably) or software that from old posts sometimes worked depending on which Mac and the OS it was tried on. OS X seemed to do better because it patches the limitations on Old World ROMs. And you forget I do have a Pb 2400, but in my closet I also had a 3630 stashed away! I was hoping to try out .divx .avi and .mov files, but it looks like those are out of the picture due to OS requirements, so that would also need a lot more than the 32mb of RAM it has now and it'd likely need a faster processor, too. Now if you could test that for me, that's be wonderful! Sadly, the 3630 does not have any networking installed 
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Knezzen
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Administrator 512 MB Posts: 608 Village idiot
Reply #5 on: May 02, 2021, 20:59
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I'm happily booting 7.6.1 from a 32GB partition on my PowerMac 5500. Works great! A little list Maximum HFS partition sizes by OS version: Macintosh System 1.x - 7.1.x : 2GB Macintosh System 7.5.x : 4GB Macintosh Mac OS 7.6.x - 8.1 : 4GB (68K without SCSI Manager 4.3) Macintosh Mac OS 7.6.x - OSX X 10.5 : 2TB (SCSI Manager 4.3 on 68040 or later, all supported PowerPC machines) Maximum HFS+ partition sizes by OS version: Macintosh Mac OS 8.x - X 10.1.x : 2TB Macintosh Mac OS X 10.2.x : 8TB Macintosh Mac OS X 10.3.x - 10.5.2 : 16TB Macintosh Mac OS X 10.5.3 - CURRENT : 8EB Maximum Bootable partition size by OS version: Macintosh Mac OS 1.x - 9.x : 200GB Macintosh Mac OS X : Same as max partition size Stolen from 68kMLA. I have personally verified the 7.6.x on PowerPC and the max bootable System 1 - 9.2.2 partition size. So they are accurate
Last Edit: May 02, 2021, 21:01 by Knezzen
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cballero
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1024 MB Posts: 1176 System 7, today and forever
Reply #6 on: May 02, 2021, 22:27
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Yes, OS 9 bumped the 128gb volume partition size to near 200gb, which is very nice for a Classic volume Here's the skinny on the IDE debacle: Apple switched to IDE drives to save on production costs, something Steve Jobs would not have sanctioned if he had stayed as Apple's CEO during the time he was pushed out of Apple. And SCSI was plagued with the dreaded SCSI number and other issues. All they would have needed to have done is built Macs with big drive support, but they saw that as a user-decision due to the high price of larger hard drives back then. So to surpass the 128gb ceiling, you need to add an Ultra ATA 66 PCI card that runs faster the cheaper IDE bus built-into the period of cheaply made Macs because it was simply too slow for adequate disk performance. These PCI cards can manage 'big' hard drives, because they offer 48-bit addressing to allow the use of larger IDE/ATA drives. When Jobs returned, Firewire quickly came to the rescue When I dissect a problem, I basically write a thesis on it, lol!
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Knezzen
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Administrator 512 MB Posts: 608 Village idiot
Reply #7 on: May 03, 2021, 09:35
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There never was a 128GB limit in the OS, it was a IDE controller problem on some devices (like you're mentioning). The 200GB limit was (is) an OS limit on the bootable partition. Other partitions (volumes) can be up to 2TB in size. In my MDD I have a 200GB SSD which I use to boot 9.2.2 and OSX. I also have a 1TB rotating harddrive that is accessible from both OSX and 9.2.2
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cballero
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1024 MB Posts: 1176 System 7, today and forever
Reply #8 on: May 03, 2021, 13:51
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You're right, Knezzen Thankfully most of the IDE Macs were made expandable, but without a third-party software or PCI-based IDE solution, my internal hard drive capacity, being IDE, will be limited to seeing 128gb, even though the drive can be of any size. I know my aversion to dealing with vintage parts like that (unless it already came in the Mac I got) is my biggest reservation and impediment ( for the time being at least, lol ). Otherwise, I would be working toward exploring larger internal hard drive sizes.
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