Topic: Largest Hard Drive Still 137gb? (Read 2640 times)

Heet · « **Reply #195 on:** August 31, 2003, 04:39:00 AM »

Im lookin at 250 gig drives and i guess i'll buy one next week now since this is becoming reality it looks like. I see where a guy is mentioning a 300 gig but i dont see any anywhere. Anyone know what the largest hd is out there?

juan23 · « **Reply #196 on:** August 31, 2003, 04:19:00 AM »

great job once again, nice pic showing the 195 gig in evox.

HEET::: if you go on ebay maxtor makes 300 gig hdd's

Sc0rpion · « **Reply #197 on:** August 31, 2003, 05:03:00 AM »

@ Heet

Did you actually do a search on outpost mate? i did and look what i found first attempt:-

http://shop1.outpost.com/product/3699695

300gb for $289 just like nino said

oz_paulb · « **Reply #198 on:** August 31, 2003, 06:55:00 AM »

QUOTE (oblox @ Aug 31 2003, 10:09 AM)

Hell there's a though how about remapping all the Partitions in the bios!!!! A dual boot system ahoy?

That's really a great idea - you could have multiple sets of Xbox system partitions (drive C:), and use a partition editor to choose which one should be 'active' for the next boot.

I haven't tried it, but there's no reason why the standard Xbox partitions can't be moved around/put > 137GB. The offsets/sizes were all hard-coded into the BIOS before - now they are just entries in the partition table. The only thing that is 'hard-coded' is the partition numbers - (example: the 2nd entry in the partition table ("partition2") is always the Xbox system drive (C:)). That 2nd entry can be changed to point to any place on the drive. As I said, I haven't tried this, but it should work.

- Paulb

gggie · « **Reply #199 on:** August 31, 2003, 06:35:00 AM »

this is a frickin' awesome discovery! but now need to figure out which hard drive to get

-- which of these two is better for xbox purposes:

western digital 250gb, 8mb cache, 7200rpm

maxtor 300gb, 2mb cache, 5400rpm

will the greater amount of cache and faster rpm result in a noticable improvement in performance? or would there be no real difference because of the way the xbox works?

JohnA · « **Reply #200 on:** August 31, 2003, 07:29:00 AM »

XBOX with 250GB HD + 233GB of DivX files ready to transfer here. I'm ready to risk it.

Schweino · « **Reply #201 on:** August 31, 2003, 07:32:00 AM »

QUOTE (gggie @ Aug 31 2003, 03:35 PM)

this is a frickin' awesome discovery! but now need to figure out which hard drive to get

-- which of these two is better for xbox purposes:

western digital 250gb, 8mb cache, 7200rpm

maxtor 300gb, 2mb cache, 5400rpm

will the greater amount of cache and faster rpm result in a noticable improvement in performance? or would there be no real difference because of the way the xbox works?

Get the 5400 rpm since it stays cooler. The xbox doesnt make any use of the 8 mb cache and the 7200 rpm at all, so it makes no sense getting the WD

Heet · « **Reply #202 on:** August 31, 2003, 07:42:00 AM »

sorry for the dumb inquiry. Just woke up and posted without lookin. Does this mean the theoretical capacity is 2.2 terabytes? Thats what ive read but i dont know if thats fact. Thanks for the heads up on 300 gigs. Im gonna get one as soon as a bios is released with this goodie.

oz_paulb · « **Reply #203 on:** August 31, 2003, 07:58:00 AM »

QUOTE (Heet @ Aug 31 2003, 04:06 PM)

sorry for the dumb inquiry. Just woke up and posted without lookin. Does this mean the theoretical capacity is 2.2 terabytes? Thats what ive read but i dont know if thats fact. Thanks for the heads up on 300 gigs. Im gonna get one as soon as a bios is released with this goodie.

Yes, 2.2TB is the theoretical max drive capacity (since we're only using 32bits of the possible 48bits of LBA48 addressing).

There will likely be issues with max partitions sizes for FATX, though, so you'll probably never see a 2.2TB F: drive (but it should be possible to make multiple partitions of whatever the max FATX partition size is).

Of course, by the time drives in the TB capacity come out, Xbox 2 (or 3) will probably be shipping.

- Paulb

crumb · « **Reply #204 on:** August 31, 2003, 09:33:00 AM »

QUOTE (oz_paulb @ Aug 31 2003, 04:22 PM)

Yes, 2.2TB is the theoretical max drive capacity (since we're only using 32bits of the possible 48bits of LBA48 addressing).

Q: Is that a result of the BIOS accepting a long as a parameter in it's disk functions?

Could it possibly accept a structure that is 48-bits in total? That would allow drives up to 144,115 TB or 144 PB.

AsTnBoMb · « **Reply #205 on:** August 31, 2003, 09:37:00 AM »

I dunno oz_paulb, I wouldnt underestimate the hard drive companies, they sure have come a long way very very fast.

MetaliFreak · « **Reply #206 on:** August 31, 2003, 09:46:00 AM »

The next step, soft-RAID!

I kid I kid...

MaXa · « **Reply #207 on:** August 31, 2003, 09:49:00 AM »

QUOTE (AsTnBoMb @ Aug 31 2003, 06:01 PM)

I dunno oz_paulb, I wouldnt underestimate the hard drive companies, they sure have come a long way very very fast.

But my money always takes longer

Flagg3 · « **Reply #208 on:** August 31, 2003, 10:04:00 AM »

QUOTE (Schweino @ Aug 31 2003, 02:56 PM)

Get the 5400 rpm since it stays cooler. The xbox doesnt make any use of the 8 mb cache and the 7200 rpm at all, so it makes no sense getting the WD

Why do people still believe this? The xbox will ABSOLUTELY benefit from a faster hard drive with more cache!

Both of these features help increase access times. While it's true that you will still be limited by the ATA-33 transfer rate, that only affects maximum sustained throughput.

I believe this myth has perpetuated because of the fact that faster hard drives don't really offer much benefit for people who are upgrading PVRs.

So you will definitely see a very noticeable improvement in performance with a faster hard drive. As for the heat issue that really depends. In general, the xbox doesn't have any problems with overheating so this isn't that big of a concern. However I have seen some boxes which tend to run hotter than others. My boxes always average around 120 degrees farenheight cpu temp even with a 7200rpm drive. If your box runs around 140 degrees before upgrading the drive then you might want to opt for a cooler drive. Although I have seen boxes that run perfectly stable with a cpu temp of 160 degrees, the hotter your box runs the shorter it's lifespan will most likely be.

Flagg

NightL1fe · « **Reply #209 on:** August 31, 2003, 10:09:00 AM »

QUOTE (Flagg3 @ Aug 31 2003, 01:28 PM)

QUOTE (Schweino @ Aug 31 2003, 02:56 PM)

Get the 5400 rpm since it stays cooler. The xbox doesnt make any use of the 8 mb cache and the 7200 rpm at all, so it makes no sense getting the WD

Why do people still believe this? The xbox will ABSOLUTELY benefit from a faster hard drive with more cache!

Both of these features help increase access times. While it's true that you will still be limited by the ATA-33 transfer rate, that only affects maximum sustained throughput.

I believe this myth has perpetuated because of the fact that faster hard drives don't really offer much benefit for people who are upgrading PVRs.

So you will definitely see a very noticeable improvement in performance with a faster hard drive. As for the heat issue that really depends. In general, the xbox doesn't have any problems with overheating so this isn't that big of a concern. However I have seen some boxes which tend to run hotter than others. My boxes always average around 120 degrees farenheight cpu temp even with a 7200rpm drive. If your box runs around 140 degrees before upgrading the drive then you might want to opt for a cooler drive. Although I have seen boxes that run perfectly stable with a cpu temp of 160 degrees, the hotter your box runs the shorter it's lifespan will most likely be.

Flagg

very true indeed.. i have noticed the 8mb caches access files and games a tad bit fast..correct me if i'm wrong but i thought the xbox will shut itself down after 140f-145f?
how could you see a 160f xbox running stable ?

Author Topic: Largest Hard Drive Still 137gb? (Read 2640 times)