Maximum HFS Partition Size

#1 Mon, 3 Nov 2008 - 21:49

Hey gang,

How big can an HFS (aka Mac OS Standard) partition be? I always thought they could be huge, but I've been having some trouble formatting a CF card with Disk Utility in OS X 10.4 & 10.5. Any partition roughly equal to 1.5 gigs results in an error message saying "Size not compatible with partition type."

But, this seems weird, since Wikipedia tells me HFS supports up to 2 TB... and I know I've used Power Macs with drives larger than 1.5 GB under 7.6 or 7.5.5... what gives?

Thanks!

#2 Mon, 3 Nov 2008 - 21:55

Standard HFS can go to 2Gig.

#3 Tue, 4 Nov 2008 - 01:44

Interesting. Anyone know why a 1.2 GB partition fails to format in disk utility then?

#4 Tue, 4 Nov 2008 - 02:24

but I've been having some trouble formatting a CF card

Some CF and USB memory sticks can only be used with FAT16 or FAT32. They omit the DOS partition table and make assumptions about the layout.