adding 3.5" hd

dhon · 03-20-2006, 07:15 PM

Now thinking about it, could be my 80 wire cable being too long or I've got pin 34 mixed up... hmm, definitely need brain to work harder...

Shampoo · 03-20-2006, 08:54 PM

You got the 3.5 to fit in your laptop????

Wait, I'm guessing you want to use it externally, but want to connect it to the IDE connector.

Hrmm, if you can do this successfully let us know~! Imagine the performance gains, plus it would be cheaper than getting a 2.5.

Spare Tire · 03-20-2006, 11:38 PM

How about one of those PCMCIA or ExpressCard SATA adaptors?

dhon · 03-20-2006, 11:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Spare Tire

How about one of those PCMCIA or ExpressCard SATA adaptors?

Gone down that path already with pcmcia but speed is still too slow...(and laptop doesn't support expresscard)

dhon · 03-21-2006, 07:55 AM

Seems to be working now. Running a Maxtor 300gb DiamondMax10 on the secondary IDE channel in UDMA6 mode, getting much better performance than the original Hitachi 80gb 5K100 on the primary in UDMA5 mode, at least according to HD Tach.

Here is the difference according to HD Tach:
Hitachi vs Maxtor
Seq. Read: 35 ~ 20 mb/s vs 65 ~ 35 mb/s
Burst Speed: 92.4 mb/s vs 115.9 mb/s
Random Access: 17.8 ms vs 16.3 ms
Avg. Read: 28.2 mb/s vs 54.1 mb/s

Before I get too far ahead of myself, let me run some tests & see how stable/reliable it is. Also may need to "shield" the cabling a bit better rather completely exposed.

I know it's not the best looking external drive but can't have everything...

dhon · 03-22-2006, 06:45 AM

Finally got it to work!

It kept dropping to UDMA mode 2 and 3 before. Changed cabling & fixed up the removed pin 19. Now it consistently stays on UDMA6. Ran surface test & all seems fine (touch wood).

Now just have to work on making the whole setup to look better. Will get 3.5" external casing (but take out usb as now using ide). Need a bit more work on the modular bay to make it easier to plug the round ide cable in.

chinna_n · 03-22-2006, 10:26 AM

Congrats! for you determination and success!! Some snaps would be great to see how you connected. I always wondered if we could do that( But in my case I do not have option as I do not have any modular bay).

dhon · 03-24-2006, 02:42 AM

been running it non-stop without any problems.

before upgrade when running software (c++ compiler), CPU was mostly idle waiting for disk, now cpu is 99% utilised. so seems hd is finally keeping up, but now needs faster CPU! Just an endless cycle...

Will post some pics once when all is tidy up.