The maximum size of a partition, file, or boot volume is mainly determined by the system software version and the interface used to access the hard disk. As a rule of thumb, how much older is your mac more tight are those limits.
Mac Os 9 , even can manage up to 2 terabytes in volume size, it only can boot from a volumen lower than 204 GB in size (once formated) .
The early ATA 66, ATA 33 and olders, are limited to a 128 GB maximum volume size. The Ultra ATA/100 and SATA arrived with 48-bit addressing, so in theory supporting drives up to 144 petabytes.
If the volume is HFS formatted:
#The maximum volume size under System 6 and System 7 is 2 gigabytes.
System 7.5 increased that limit to 4 GB
System 7.5.2 (and later) increases that limit to 2 terabytes on some computers, including:
any computer that came with System 7.5.2 or newer.
any Macintosh computer with PCI slots.
# The maximum file size is 2 gigabytes.
If the volume is HFS+ formatted:
#The maximum volume size is 2 terabytes
# The maximum file size is 2 terabytes.