From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Jun 15 13:26:29 2004 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0005E16A4CE for ; Tue, 15 Jun 2004 13:26:28 +0000 (GMT) Received: from auk2.snu.ac.kr (auk2.snu.ac.kr [147.46.100.32]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 8C55543D31 for ; Tue, 15 Jun 2004 13:26:28 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from stopspam@users.sourceforge.net) Received: from [147.46.44.181] (stopspam@users.sourceforge.net) by auk2.snu.ac.kr (Terrace Internet Messaging Server) with ESMTP id 2004061522:25:48:334512.13435.2973293488 for ; Tue, 15 Jun 2004 22:25:48 +0900 (KST) Message-ID: <40CEF8ED.6070207@users.sourceforge.net> Date: Tue, 15 Jun 2004 22:26:05 +0900 From: Rob User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; FreeBSD i386; en-US; rv:1.6) Gecko/20040507 X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-TERRACE-SPAMMARK: NO (SR:7.06) (by Terrace) Subject: 160 Gb Harddisk: needs extra tweeking? X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 15 Jun 2004 13:26:29 -0000 Hi, I never had such a monster of a big harddisk; hence my question. I've got a 160 Gb Western Digital Harddisk (WD 1600 JB). It comes with a tiny CD-rom, about 8cm in diameter, entitled "Data Lifeguard Tools". I don't know what to do with this CDrom. I am planning to use this harddisk as the only harddisk in my PC and install FreeBSD (preferably version 5-Current) on it. Will I encounter problems? Does it need extra tweeking? The Western Digital homepage says somewhere: "Hard drives larger than 137 GB require a controller card to utilize full drive capacity." What does that mean? Another question. The Western Digital homepage lists this about the harddisk: Data Transfer Rate (Buffer to Host) 100 MB/s (Mode 5 Ultra ATA) 66.6 MB/s (Mode 4 Ultra ATA) 33.3 MB/s (Mode 2 Ultra ATA) 16.6 MB/s (Mode 4 PIO) 16.6 MB/s (Mode 2 multi-word DMA) Do I have to tell this to the kernel somehow, or is this a BIOS thing? Are there good reasons not to choose the fastest option "Mode 5" here? Thanks for help and advice. Rob.