The ATA spec identifies the maximum data transfer rate from the buffer, among other specifications, but the sustained rate is more difficult to determine, as it is limited by file location and fragmentation, spindle speed, and buffer size.
Are you really seeing any ATA-2/3/4 or even ATA-5 drives in current production? Your original hard drive may have been an ATA-5, but your notebook will receive full benefit from any of the newer drives labeled as ATA-6/7 or Ultra ATA-100/133. Look for a drive with 5400RPM or (7200RPM!) spindle speed and an 8MB buffer in the capacity of your choice.
External USB enclosures include an interface for the external drive, and are for the most part backwards compatible with hard drives conforming to an earlier specification.
You are not likely to experience any limitation to hard drive capacities, given the vintage of the I4000 and Dell's support of XP on that notebook.
Although it requires a bit more work initially (to reinstall everything or copy and transfer an image from your old to your new drive), I would recommend you install a new larger drive in your notebook to replace the 10GB drive, rather than increasing capacity with a second drive.
Do you have a CDRW drive in the media bay? I believe you can also obtain a hard drive carrier and install a second hard drive in the media bay, switching between media bay devices as needed.
I think your notebook's USB port is the much slower version 1, but I may be mistaken. If you need USB 2 or Firewire connectivity, you can get an inexpensive adapter card for the PC Card slot.
Thanks for the response. I do plan to replace the 10 gig drive with one of the ones offered by Dell. My logic for that is that it apparently is in a carrier already which would fit the bay occupied with the old drive. I have an external CD/RW, but I am using a USB2.0 dual port PCMCIA card. My CD-ROM is in the media bay.
My plan is to purchase a larger drive, install it in an external USB2.0 enclosure, and then "ghost" the 10 gig drive over to the new drive. I would then put the new larger drive in the Inspiron and probably use the 10 gig drive in the external enclosure as storage. Dell's parts site indicated the 40 and 60 gig drives were ATA 3/4/5 and the 80 gig was ATA6. I wasn't clear whether the external enclosures needed to be specific for the ATA designation.
That sounds like a plan, though I would still opt for a different hard drive vendor. The hard drive is attached to the carrier with four small Phillips-head screws and is easily replaced. The drives from CMS Products, even directly, are about twice the price of the same drive from other vendors.
As an alternative to performing a drive-to-drive image copy, you could burn a bootable compressed image to CD-R and reinstall the image from your media bay CD-ROM after replacing the hard drive. This alternative wouldn't require an external hard drive enclosure, but an external hard drive may be convenient for extra storage in any case.
Actually on the 4000 there are only 2 screws holding the hdd to the carrier, and the small blade adapter that needs to be moved. You can save a lot of money going somewhere else to get the drive. Any 2.5" 9.5mm high drive will fit - get a 5400 RPM or better yet a 7200 RPM drive. I have had great succcess from
this site and using a Hitachi/IBM 40GNX series drive or the Seagate Momentus 5400 RPM drive that was ultra quiet.
Thanks for the great advice and information. I've been reading other posts regarding HD upgrades and suspected what you've both indicated, that any 9mm drive would fit in the 4000 enclosure.
GM, I'm interested in your suggestion to burn a bootable compressed image to CD. I'm running Windows 2000 Pro. Anywhere I can access information on how to do that? This is my sole business notebook, so I can't afford to lose the info and don't want to spend the time to do a full backup (although I know I should anyway).
I'm a relative rookie to the insides of the notebook, but I'm not shy about trying new things. Next I'll probably upgrade the RAM (currently 128 meg, will probably go to minimum 320 meg or may to full 512).
In addition to cloning drive to drive, some (most? all?) imaging software will allow the options of compression and saving an exact copy (image) of a partition or entire drive to bootable CD/DVD or other destinations, including another partition on the originating drive, a separate local drive, or a network drive, for backup in case recovery of the image is needed at some later date. In effect, imaging software offers a much quicker and significantly more complete and reliable recovery option than Windows System Restore.
Once an image is created and safely stored on CD-R, recovery is possible by booting to the first CD and selecting the location to which the image will be restored. Images stored on another partition, hard drive, or network drive may be recovered by selecting both the source and destination of the image.
A series of images offers the most flexibility for recovery. Images following a clean installation and initial set-up, and before and after major system updates or modifications are logical choices. A separate partition on the hard drive for the bulk of user data keeps the size of system images relatively small, convenient for archiving the system partition images on two or three CD-Rs. Separate programs, methods, and occasions can be used for data backups, which do not necessarily require imaging software as system backups do.
I am only familiar with Ghost 2003. Unfortunately, Symantec does not assure the compatibility of Ghost 2003 or 8.0 with PCMCIA devices. There may be some complication in communicating with a PCMCIA device when using any imaging software that executes in DOS. Variations in BIOS, PCMCIA implementation, and the availability of PCMDIA drivers for DOS are primary factors. I am not certain of Drive Image 7, Ghost 9.0, or other imaging programs, but those with the ability to create images while operating in Windows are likely to be capable because PCMCIA driver/access is available in Windows.
Ghost 2003 or 8.0 will support the creation of bootable CD-R recovery images on your system, but there are a number of considerations. Symantec has purchased PowerQuest, and Norton Ghost 9, incorporates both Drive Image 7 and Norton Ghost 2003 or something like that, depending on version. One executes in DOS, the other in Windows, and there are advantages/disadvantages to each. This article discusses the transition of Drive Image from DOS-based to Windows-based.
GM, you are a fountain of knowledge. Thanks for the pointers, links and cautions. I'll post again on this board if I have further questions. Again, many thanks for your help!!
Thanks for the recommendation. Certainly less expensive than Dell's website pricing!! I believe my Inspiron 4000 will only take two sticks of any size up to two 256's. That's probably what I'll do.
GreyMack
2.2K Posts
0
February 4th, 2005 09:00
Are you really seeing any ATA-2/3/4 or even ATA-5 drives in current production? Your original hard drive may have been an ATA-5, but your notebook will receive full benefit from any of the newer drives labeled as ATA-6/7 or Ultra ATA-100/133. Look for a drive with 5400RPM or (7200RPM!) spindle speed and an 8MB buffer in the capacity of your choice.
External USB enclosures include an interface for the external drive, and are for the most part backwards compatible with hard drives conforming to an earlier specification.
Although it requires a bit more work initially (to reinstall everything or copy and transfer an image from your old to your new drive), I would recommend you install a new larger drive in your notebook to replace the 10GB drive, rather than increasing capacity with a second drive.
dd4au
11 Posts
0
February 4th, 2005 13:00
Thanks for the response. I do plan to replace the 10 gig drive with one of the ones offered by Dell. My logic for that is that it apparently is in a carrier already which would fit the bay occupied with the old drive. I have an external CD/RW, but I am using a USB2.0 dual port PCMCIA card. My CD-ROM is in the media bay.
My plan is to purchase a larger drive, install it in an external USB2.0 enclosure, and then "ghost" the 10 gig drive over to the new drive. I would then put the new larger drive in the Inspiron and probably use the 10 gig drive in the external enclosure as storage. Dell's parts site indicated the 40 and 60 gig drives were ATA 3/4/5 and the 80 gig was ATA6. I wasn't clear whether the external enclosures needed to be specific for the ATA designation.
I appreciate the help and information.
GreyMack
2.2K Posts
0
February 4th, 2005 21:00
As an alternative to performing a drive-to-drive image copy, you could burn a bootable compressed image to CD-R and reinstall the image from your media bay CD-ROM after replacing the hard drive. This alternative wouldn't require an external hard drive enclosure, but an external hard drive may be convenient for extra storage in any case.
johnallg
2 Intern
•
7.3K Posts
0
February 4th, 2005 21:00
http://docs.us.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/ins4000/en/sm_en/remove.htm#1025004
dd4au
11 Posts
0
February 6th, 2005 15:00
GreyMack
2.2K Posts
0
February 6th, 2005 20:00
Ghost 2003 or 8.0 will support the creation of bootable CD-R recovery images on your system, but there are a number of considerations. Symantec has purchased PowerQuest, and Norton Ghost 9, incorporates both Drive Image 7 and Norton Ghost 2003 or something like that, depending on version. One executes in DOS, the other in Windows, and there are advantages/disadvantages to each. This article discusses the transition of Drive Image from DOS-based to Windows-based.
Here are some additional links for thought.
http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPORT/ghost.nsf/docid/2002030415014425?Open&src=&docid=2000012811284125&nsf=ghost.nsf&view=docid&dtype=&prod=&ver=&osv=&osv_lvl=
GM
dd4au
11 Posts
0
February 7th, 2005 02:00
GM, you are a fountain of knowledge. Thanks for the pointers, links and cautions. I'll post again on this board if I have further questions. Again, many thanks for your help!!
DD
dd4au
11 Posts
0
February 8th, 2005 03:00
johnallg
2 Intern
•
7.3K Posts
0
February 8th, 2005 03:00
johnallg
2 Intern
•
7.3K Posts
0
February 9th, 2005 23:00