TOPIC
What solution does Apple support for using a third-party IDE drive to replace the existing IDE drive Macintosh computers? Will Apple HD Formater that comes on the Disk Tools disk format any IDE drive?
DISCUSSION You can use third-party IDE drives in Apple Products as long as the IDE drive supports the identify command, works at least at PIO mode 2 performance level, and has write caching turned on so that auto-reallocation of new spares is invoked. Also, the highest PIO mode the Macintosh 630 family, the Macintosh and Performa 580, and the Macintosh Performa and Power Macintosh 5200, 5300, 6200, and 6300 series are capable of supporting is PIO Mode 3. The highest performance setting PIO mode the Macintosh Performa and Power Macintosh 5400 and 6400 series are capable of supporting is PIO Mode 4. Most importantly, any IDE hard drive that is going to be used on these systems must support Logical Block Addressing (LBA). LBA is the method that drive manufacturers have adopted in order to go beyond the 520 MB DOS-BIOS limit. Hard drives typically come pre-formatted so you do not need to worry about formatting the drive. The Macintosh system initializes the drive on startup (if it is not already done) so the system software can be installed. |
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| Document Information | |
| Product Area: | Peripherals |
| Category: | Magnetic Storage Devices |
| Sub Category: | Hard Disk; General |
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