Laptop Hard drives

SwampDonkey · January 26, 2006, 07:19:10 PM

Any of you laptop users ever use one of these PCMCIA hard drives? I'm thinking it would be a neat little upgrade for my laptop so I could transfer my program files and projects to it, freeing up my main hard drive for increased VM and performance.

Toshiba 5 gig PCMCIA hard drive

8)

I've dealt with Laptops-4-Less and they've been great.

Jason_WI · January 26, 2006, 08:29:21 PM

These small drives commonly fail when dropped. They can't withstand the shock of a normal sized drive due to the internal mechanics. A better option would be to upgrade your current laptop drive with a larger one and put your old laptop drive in an external USB case.

I had one of those 4GB USB Monster Drives for about 4 months. I dropped it once on the carpet from table height. After that it has never worked again. $100 bux tossed in the fire.

Jason

Troy · January 26, 2006, 08:29:46 PM

Those PCMCIA units seem a little pricey for what you get. 5 gig is not that much when you are looking at a HD. I would be more inclined to buy an external portable USB drive. You can get an 80 gig unit for less than $200.

Radar67 · January 26, 2006, 08:35:16 PM

SD,
I have not used the PCMCIA hard drive, but I have used the USB external hard drives. For the money, you can get a much larger hard drive to use with your laptop. I got a 40 GIG for about $130 USD.

Drive 1

Drive 2

Just a couple of the many available.

Stew

SwampDonkey · January 26, 2006, 08:39:00 PM

I would need Firewire, my USB is the slower V 1, besides I have a Firewire port free. I don't know what I'de be doing with a PCMCIA drive other than having it installed in my laptop. But, your right, compared to the normal internal drive they are pricey. But, that also comes with compactness I suppose. Maybe it's time for an upgrade, a new Toshiba can be had for $1200 CDN bucks. I just hate to give up something that works perfectly fine. ;)

Thanks for your input, appreciated.

Furby · January 28, 2006, 04:20:40 PM

Where are you folks getting those USB hard drives?
You can get 100 gig or better for under $100 if ya shop around the box stores.
Watch for specials. ;)

GHRoberts · January 28, 2006, 05:09:29 PM

I think the prices being put out are a bit high.

You can buy a 3.5" hard drive about $110 for 250G or $55 for 80G.

Add a USB external case for $30.

2.5" drives cost a bit more. Firewire connections cost about the same.

SwampDonkey · January 28, 2006, 05:15:04 PM

Man, I can remember my first HD in a new computer was 52 megabytes for a SCSI controlled HD. The OS was on 4 floppy disks. Woohooo!!! :D

Buzz-sawyer · January 28, 2006, 05:40:38 PM

swampy
Yep!!!
I had to continually feed that MAC disks just to run the software....it had a whole meg of memory though..........better than the apple 2"s I had been using :D :D :D

JimBuis · January 28, 2006, 05:40:51 PM

I have a Gateway notebook with a 2.8 GHz CPU that WAS rather slow at times. A friend of mine helped me check it out. It turned out that although my CPU speed was good my harddrive was slower than molasses. We went to one of the big box stores, bought a 60 gig HDD, he gave me an external USB case, transferred my data and programs onto the new drive, put the old one into the external case, AND boy oh boy MISS MOLLYwhat an improvement in performance. 8) 8) 8) 8) Not only was there the increased drive capacity, the increase in speed for my machine was huge.

Jason got it right.

IMHO

Jim

SwampDonkey · January 28, 2006, 05:51:38 PM

Quote from: Buzz-sawyer on January 28, 2006, 05:40:38 PM
swampy
Yep!!!
I had to continually feed that MAC disks just to run the software....it had a whole meg of memory though..........better than the apple 2"s I had been using :D :D :D

Who said it was a Mac??. It wasn't even a Windblows wannabe. ;D You not been following my antique computer threads. ;D :D

Buzz-sawyer · January 28, 2006, 05:53:55 PM

Well I didnt say yours was a mac..mine was.......and I still have it...in the attic somewhere

SwampDonkey · January 28, 2006, 05:56:19 PM

Quote from: JimBuis on January 28, 2006, 05:40:51 PM
I have a Gateway notebook with a 2.8 GHz CPU that WAS rather slow at times. A friend of mine helped me check it out. It turned out that although my CPU speed was good my harddrive was slower than molasses. We went to one of the big box stores, bought a 60 gig HDD, he gave me an external USB case, transferred my data and programs onto the new drive, put the old one into the external case, AND boy oh boy MISS MOLLYwhat an improvement in performance. 8) 8) 8) 8) Not only was there the increased drive capacity, the increase in speed for my machine was huge.

Jason got it right.

IMHO

Jim

I know with this Windows bloteware it's sure is a challenge with 3 or more programs open and the OS has to draw on the HD virtual memory to refresh the screen on a minimize/maximize. On my old Amiga, all I had to do was hit A-M and I was in the next program window and ready to go, no HD munching and flashing HD light show. Way more productive.

SwampDonkey · January 28, 2006, 05:59:26 PM

Quote from: Buzz-sawyer on January 28, 2006, 05:53:55 PM
Well I didnt say yours was a mac..mine was.......and I still have it...in the attic somewhere

I could here ya shouting all the way from Ill. Buzz :

:D

I still got my Amiga 4000 setup in one room and my C= 128 in another. All functional. ;D

Buzz-sawyer · January 28, 2006, 06:02:10 PM

I got some free ware a couple of years ago , that enables me to run the old mac in a windows configuration.......would be fun to see it again ....wonder what is on those old floppies I have?.....

SwampDonkey · January 28, 2006, 06:09:24 PM

Quote from: Buzz-sawyer on January 28, 2006, 06:02:10 PM
I got some free ware a couple of years ago , that enables me to run the old mac in a windows configuration.......would be fun to see it again ....wonder what is on those old floppies I have?.....

Yeah I can run any 68K Mac software on my Amiga with Fusion (commercial) or ShapeShifter (PD). For Mac 68k on Windows there is Sheepshaver later called Basalisk I think. I have a Mac Formatted hard drive on my Amiga and run Mac OS 7.6.1, also with internet. But web browsing on Mac 68k is very slow, same as it was on a real Mac 68k machines. Any I used at work anyway. I have screenshots in here somewhere, you've probably seen already.

JimBuis · January 29, 2006, 03:01:17 AM

Oh...............by the way, one thing I neglected to type about my new harddrive as I was gleefully describing the performance improvment is that the new drive runs at 7200 rpm. I think the increased rpm, improved seek times, etc., etc. helped out my machine as much or more than the increased drive capacity.

Jim

SwampDonkey · January 29, 2006, 05:28:03 AM

Quote from: JimBuis on January 29, 2006, 03:01:17 AM
Oh...............by the way, one thing I neglected to type about my new harddrive as I was gleefully describing the performance improvment is that the new drive runs at 7200 rpm. I think the increased rpm, improved seek times, etc., etc. helped out my machine as much or more than the increased drive capacity.

Jim

Maxtor's Atlas SCSI hard drives are 15k RPM, they are what I would recommend for GIS users. We had a DELL at work with a 7200 RPM IDE drive and it took for ever to refresh the GIS screen when you zoomed to the full extent of the view. I had 10 or 12 layers on the silviculture Project. Most IDE are 7200 RPM in computers off the shelf. But, most available SCSI drives have less storage capacity, up to 300 MB I think.

Bill · January 29, 2006, 06:09:42 PM

FWIW - PCMCIA seems to be going away. If anything I'd probably go for a PCMCIA to USB ( or even better to firewire ) and spend the remaining bucks on a decent external drive. It will then be ready to use with your next machine whenever that is - my 2 cents.

Good Luck