Hello guys, soon, i will be acquiring a new disk for my mac mini(at the moment have 80gig). What is the maximum that can be used on this machine?. Are there heat problems if the drive is too fast?.
Hope when i go to get it, they still be in stores.
Thanks in advance!!!

The biggest 2,5" PATA harddrive has 320GB (by Western Digital). I didn't experience heat problems with it in my Mac mini. (Haven't got this system anymore, but I don't think heat probs were coming up).

Got that 320GB WD spinning in my PowerBook -> no problem

My Mini had an 32GB SSD, speedwise the best that one could get (while being stuck on PATA).

> Hope when i go to get it, they still be in stores.

I think there'll be no problem as currently at least 163 stores in the EU list this product as available (starting at 81 EUR, or 68 EUR without VAT):

http://www.heise.de/preisvergleich/eu/400311

This weekend I moved my WD 320GB from my Powerbook to my 1.5mac mini, the orginal was 5400 (something like that, fast 2.5" anyway) and no changes in fan coming on, if anything the WD was quieter than the Hitachi orginal.

So like go for it.

I put in a 64gb SSD into my Powerbook, and I'm quite impressed with it, can't wait to try MorphOS with it.

Nice guide to fitting

http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Installing-Mac-mini-PowerPC-Hard-Drive/268/1

@Kronos,

Did you have any trouble installing MacOSX on your 320gb WD hard drive in the G4 PowerBook?

For some strange reason when I installed mine in both my 15" model 1138 1.67GHz and 17" model 1139 1.67GHz PowerBooks neither of them would allow booting from my Leopard install DVD. I could not even get to the install screen. Both G4 laptops would only boot to a blank blue screen and would not recognize the touchpad, or an external mouse. The mouse pointer was stuck in the upper left corner and I could do nothing.

Strangely, I could boot from the Ubuntu PPC 10.10 install DVD or the MorphOS3.0 beta CD, but not the Leopard MacOSX 10.5 DVD while the WD 320gb hard drive was installed.

I have not figure out why this is happening yet.

Thanks for the suggestions. I think i will go to the max capacity, and
I see this is 320gb. This is plenty for MorphOS and OSX.
Dave, the problem you may have is that the dvd you try on the powerbook
wasn't intended for that machine. I once tried to install from the leopard disk
of my brother's macbook, and it didn't work. Someone on a mac forum
told me about apple doing that to avoid the installs on other type of machines.

Two disc set
POWERBOOK G4
15-INCH and 17-INCH
Mac OS 10.4.2
Mac OS X Install Disc 1&2
691-5533-A
691-5534-A
AHT 2.5.2

models A1138,A1139
Ran the the extented hardware test last night and the 5,8 passed


[ Edited by osco 12.12.2011 - 20:19 ]

I wasn't aware that MorphOS could handle such a large drive (w/o partitioning).

> I wasn't aware that MorphOS could handle such a large drive (w/o partitioning).

As always it depends on the filesystem used. While the SFS handler that comes with MorphOS cannot reliably handle partitions larger than 128 GiB (some even say 100 GB) other filesystems provided with MorphOS can. That said, I don't see anybody in this thread who says he uses or attempts to use this 320 GB drive without partitioning.

By partitioning a 320GB drive? Mac OS say 60GB, Boot 1GB, System 20GB, Work 80GB,
Video 100GB, and Data 100GB. Would that be possible?

The Leopard install DVD I bought was not for any particular model of Mac. At least I don't remember filling out what Mac it was for when I ordered it online, but my memory might be failing me, as that was a few years ago when I had my Intel MacBook, before I gave it to my Son.

I wonder if I can boot from the Tiger install DVD/CD and when the install process gets to the point where it asks if I want to copy an install from another Mac in Target Disk mode, if I can then connect a Mac that has Leopard installed on it and get it to install on the other G4 PowerBook that way. I will have to give it a try tomorrow and find out.

Edit: @osco, that partition scheme won't work ...... unless you can find a 361gb drive that is 2.5" in form factor and has a PATA interface.

[ Edited by amigadave 12.12.2011 - 17:32 ]