New HDs for our Toughbooks!!! ;)

h**p://www.storagereview.com/seagate_momentus_xt_review

Newegg lists the 500GB model at $129

 

Well yeah, for the CF19, CF-30 and CF-31 guys. But the rest of us need PATA drives.

Still an interesting HDD bridging the old and the new.

 

That's why they make PATA to SATA converters.

 

Very few of these fit inside the CF-29 or 28 caddy, its not as simple as you make it sound

 

Doesn't look or sound very difficult;

http://forum.notebookreview.com/pan...ic-cf-29-toughbook-thread-44.html#post5868558

 

Let us know how you make out with the first one!

There's more room if you take out some foam blocks but then that's the point of the HD caddy - vibration and bump protection!

 

An SSD is going into mine, so I won't be needing, but maybe I'll try it with standard SATA, I have some foam around here somewhere.....

 

Based on these charts I will proceed to cram a 600GB Raptor into my CF-30. I will let you guys know how it goes...

 

Yeah, a little time actually reading the board would save folks a lot of aggravation.

 

Been there...done that and will NOT do it again. Took me about a day to do this mod. What a pain in the AS& .You will lose about 75% of the foam in the caddy.

 

You would do it if you were putting in a 128GB SSD...

 

I don't understand the allure of an SSD for this application.
The existing caddy is so protected, a standard drive works great. You get way more HD for way less money, AND do not have to do any mods.
You get a speed boost w/ SSD but not as much as you should because of the ATA bottleneck.

 

I've had enough IDE HDs fail to not trust them.
Plus, I have the SSD sitting around, just no IDE drives over 20GB, but SATA drives out the WAZOO!!!

 

Yes, but considering what NTTD said, the IDE drives are now very cheap and while I have no idea how many drives you have used have failed, in the last ten years I think I had one to fail, or at least did not give me enough advanced warning to swap out before it was too late. I just got a Samsung 160GB 5400 rpm for less than $50, how much cheaper do you want? Time is money also and in the end, you will have more money tied up in the SSD than if you had just bought an IDE and pressed!

 

I've always wondered what people do to their HDs to have 'em fail left and right on them... I've had one failure from a 20GB drive...

The more 'sensitive' electronics in my house also have a OneAC hospital-grade line conditioner on them. Maybe? I dunno. Most likely overkill, but <<shrug>>

 

re: hard drives, the biggest disrespect people (and manufacturers!) seem to do towards them is temperature.

Hard drives like to be cool. They don't like to be hot. Failure is practically guaranteed when a drive doesn't have sufficient cooling.

My most recent hard drive failures:

1) Seagate 7200.11 750GB SATA: dead on arrival, NIB
2) Miniscribe 8450 40MB ST412: committed suicide after a long service life
3) Conner CP3181 80MB IDE: low level formatted one too many times

The only laptop IDE drive I've ever had fail was a Conner CP2024...20MB from a 386...which was going strong until I connected it backwards and the PCB exploded.

 

I think I have only lost one drive to failure as well. Unless you are dealing with servers drives usually outlive the useful life of the machine they're mounted in.
Notebook HDs have a higher failure rate largely due to the jostling and jolting the drive receives while in use. The caddy in the 29 pretty much takes care of that.

If I really wanted an SSD enough to shell out the dough I would likely get an IDE SSD so there would be no need to mod the caddy.

 

Wow, what a bunch of downers.
I hear talk of how much time and effort it would be, but I also read about how much time and effort gets put into other mods that don't always work.
You'd think with all the tinkerers and modders, your outlooks would be more positive.

I don't see it as a big deal to add a sata drive to an ide toughbook either using the supplied caddy or a mod, cant say its a waste of time considering it should take less than an hour...
Its a post about new sata drives, if you can use em great, if you can't, no big deal. SHEESH!

 

Well.... Do the mod and tell us about it! That is how it starts!

 

Aye!
Will do!

 

Sorry for the Debbie Downer bit.
I do not disparage those who mod. I was only presenting my own point of view, don't let it get you down.
Some would think it a waste of time to swap screens like I did to get touch on my MK3. To each their own.
If I had a large SATA SSD drive on hand I might be doing the same thing you are. However I would not go out and spend 2 to three times as much for a drive that's half the size for this machine. And I'm a little scared to mod the HD caddy. I could get a 320GB IDE HD for less than the cost of replacing an empty caddy.

I am glad that you and others like you are willing to do the mods I am not. It adds to the collective knowledge, which is good for all of us!



Go forth and modify!

 

"I could get a 320GB IDE HD for less than the cost of replacing an empty caddy."
Aye, the don't exactly give those away, do they?

I'm going to ATTEMPT, to not use the caddy... I have a few hair-brained ideas running around my head.

 

A 320gig WD Scorpio Black will be install soon, just have to decide between cloning or a fresh install........

 

I always go fresh..

 

That's what she said...

 

Sigh.........

 

*RIMSHOT*

mnem
Don't quit yer day job...