Maximum hard drive capacity on old computer

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kb01

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This weekend, I started toying around with an old Dell server (PowerEdge 600SC) that I bought in '03 and put away and forgot about a few years later.

I was going through the documentation and it appears that the maximum drive capacity is 120GB. The computer supports 4 IDE drives.

Does anyone know if the maximum capacity typically only applies to the boot drive or to all the drives? My memory is really fuzzy when it comes to this -- I wasn't sure if BIOS limitation only applied to the boot drive, since HD control is then handed off to the OS when it starts up.

If the limitation is for all of the drives, would buying a SATA PCI card be a workaround or would that also be limited?
 
usually its a motherboard bios issue

buying an addin card will fix it.
since they dont use the mobo bios.
 
PATA/IDE had a 137GB limit, but there are ways around that. Almost any modern motherboard (even from 2003) should be able to use 48-bit LBA support to go above that 137 size.

Or just get a cheap add-in SATA card .
 
If you go with a card to support more / larger hard drives, try to get a professional grade one that is hardware driven, NOT software driven.

I've had a few of the cheap ones and they are nothing but problems.
 
Originally Posted By: Donald
Get a new computer. Its like having an old Rambler with a new engine.


Interesting analogy. I would have gone with old rambler with new speedometer that goes to 240 mph.
 
Originally Posted By: Donald
Get a new computer. Its like having an old Rambler with a new engine.


+1 If you are doing a re-build go to the Dell auction site and get a 3 year old used server and rebuild it. I have all used ones now and all you need to do is replace the HD and they last for at least 5 years.
 
I'm all for using new technology in place of old, but server hardware is usually pretty robust and is designed for 24/7 operation. Spending just a few bucks to upgrade something non-critical to get more use out of it until it is truly useless (or just breaks) is a good way to squeeze every dollar out of it and keeps it out of a landfill.

Now, power consumption is another story, but these low-end Dell tower servers were not loaded with high-draw fans or anything so the PSU shouldn't be much of a hog.
 
Can anyone recommend a specific SATA PCI card manufacturer?

I thought about buying a new computer but would like to do this as cheaply as possible. The goal is to use it solely as a redundant file server, so I'm not terribly concerned about overall specs (it's a P4 w/1GB memory), only storage capacity. It's also more of just a side project than a major necessity, as well as putting something to use that would otherwise be destined for a landfill.

If it's possible to picked up a newer, used server with SATA support for < $100, I might go that route.

There seems to be higher capacity PATA drives out there but even if they work on my system, they are very expensive compared to SATA drives with 4x the capacity.
 
Well there is processor speed, memory speed, max memory, bus speed when considering upgrades to an old system. Even if the SATA card will handle a SATA drive will it move data at 3 Gb/sec?
 
Originally Posted By: kb01
Can anyone recommend a specific SATA PCI card manufacturer?

I've used several PCI SATA cards and had good luck with most of them. I'd go to your local/favorite PC-goodie shop and see what they have. You should get one for less than $20.

Originally Posted By: kb01
I thought about buying a new computer but would like to do this as cheaply as possible. The goal is to use it solely as a redundant file server, so I'm not terribly concerned about overall specs ... If it's possible to picked up a newer, used server with SATA support for < $100, I might go that route.

You can get a Pogoplug (or similar) device for under $50 and plug in any USB hard-drive and you're done. There are also several networking hard-drives available as well. Lots of options and most of these will use a fraction of the power of a PC. Lowest cost requires looking at the big-picture. ie. ditch (ah-hem, recycle!) the old hardware.
 
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Like all said it is a BIOS issue. The reason an add on card has no problem is because they have a bios extension on it that "override" the motherboard bios.

Originally Posted By: kb01
I thought about buying a new computer but would like to do this as cheaply as possible. The goal is to use it solely as a redundant file server, so I'm not terribly concerned about overall specs ... If it's possible to picked up a newer, used server with SATA support for < $100, I might go that route.


Most of the time you will find a bios update that lets you use 48bit LBA, and if not, I think there's work around by keeping a boot drive at the first 128GB of the drive and let the OS driver take care of that.

However if you couldn't find bios update and don't want to buy a PCI to SATA/PATA card:

There's also jumpers in a lot of the older drives that "force" it to act like 128GB only, and you will lose all these capacity. My "recommendation" on the cheap is if you have another old drive that's less than 128GB around, use that for boot and your bigger drive for data.

SATA/PATA bridge won't solve the problem, they are in the command protocol between the drive and the adapter / motherboard, and you will still need a PCI adapter with bios to boot.

Originally Posted By: kb01
Can anyone recommend a specific SATA PCI card manufacturer?


I think Promise and Marvell has pretty good quality controllers and you should look for cards with these chipsets. I've tried HighPoint and it isn't as reliable in RAID, but if you are not using RAID they are fine.

Back then Maxtor uses Promise in the engineer's machine and Marvell bridges on the first SATA to PATA drives until they designed their own SATA chipset.
 
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