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#51
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Suzeann,
I had a great laugh. All these people were giving you silly answers and acting very condescending and you're a knowledgeable power user. Karen's tools are great stuff -- my wife is a big fan too. I think your approach (which is similar to mine) works great. My storage needs (over a terabyte in the house) are identical to yours. I'm an amateur photographer and do all my 'darkroom' work on the computer. I recently upgraded to a decent digital SLR (Nikon D100). Every image is about 25MB. Those are small compared to the 120MB images from my 4000dpi film scanner. The storage adds up fast. I have a DVD burner, but at 60 cents a gigabyte for disk storage, fine just adding storage to be a better approach. I also use a Maxtor 200GB USB2/Firewire drive which is very handy, but am going to look into the drawer you mention. The downside is I have two drives in the open bays so I'd have to give one up. Run down to Circuit City if you have one and buy the 250GB drive for $149. 8MB cache and very quiet. Great deal! Have fun. Tom "Suzeann Loomis" wrote in message ... On Sat, 06 Dec 2003 02:25:11 GMT, "Kernelpanic" wrote: "Suzeann Loomis" wrote in message .. . Help, please. I have been told that I can only add another 120 gigabyte hard drive to my Dell 4550. But people at a local computer shop say I can add a 250 gigabyte hard drive. Which is true? I need more space for my photography. Thank you. Suze Loomis Suze, I read all the post, from which alot of it got off the subject that you had posted. Did you try and contact Dell? If you have support for you system, I suggest you contact Dell, even though there may be those that will oppose it. Please post the firmware rev that you BIOS is using(Rev. A04 added "UDMA support for 48-bit LBA hard drives over 137GB"), and what OS you are running on the system(i.e., WinXP Home, WinXP Pro SP1, etc...). You should be able to install a 250GB HD in your system, but it may depend on your OS and BIOS firmware for how big a partition can be. The new HD may come with a utility to help you partition your HD. If adding the drive as a 2nd drive, your problem may be simply that you can't create a partition greater then 120GB(Actually it's slightly larger), but you can create a few partitions on that new HD. I also hope that you are backing up your files. Windows XP Pro, Service Pack One. One gigabyte of ram. Thanks for all your answers, everyone. No, I didn't contact Dell because the answers here in this forum seem adequate. I had suspected that I was being given false advice about the limitation, which is why I posted here. I had a chance to buy Western Digital Caviar 200 gb drives, with the 8 mb cache, on a post-Thanksgiving day sale for $99 each, but passed them up because I was uncertain, as in my original post, A nephew has a 4550 computer and he also was uncertain if the BIOS would support such a large drive. Currently I use a 120 gb drive, and I have an identical 120 gb drive (both partitioned into four partitions) in a slideout drawer (Computer Geeks, about $7, I've used these for years). I use Karen's Replicator (outstanding freeware) to backup the non-system partitions, and Windows' own ASR backup for the system partition. That duplicate drive sits in bubble wrap, in a large plastic baggie, under my car seat. It simply plugs into and out of a drawer in a 5" bay. I also do a second backup of data and photos into an 80 mb drive that I put into a Plumax USB2 case. That goes elsewhere, outside my house. Thanks again. There will be more sales after Christmas. By the way, how soon will these Serial ATA hard drives be a regular feature and will there really be any advantage to them? (I do mostly photo work, with larger photos, more than 10 mb., and documents. No games or spreadsheets.) Suzeann |
#52
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"derek / nul" : Let me say that all drives on a controller can be reading and writing at the same time, this does not mean that they are holding onto the buss at that time. Buss speed 160Mb/s, drive speed 20Mb/s therefore 8 devices r/w at the same time. All drives have buffers (double buffers actually), when a buffer is full, the drive raises a flag (data available) to say he wants to transfer some data, when the buss is free there will be a buss available signal. In effect we have a multiplexed system happening here, unlike an IDE device which holds the buss for the complete transfer. Now I am really confused.. 20 Mb/s sounds measly, IDE drives can burst 100+ (150 on SATA) and they DO that, cause I tested.. Also they can supply sustained at 50 MB+ and they do that, measured from the speed of "ghosting" a drive on an other one. While I understand the concept of multiplexing, it seems to me that the numbers you presented do not quite add up.. I am looking forward for the approval of my new server, it should have enough "variety" to be able to demonstrate proof on concept and benchmarking for the technology in discussion.. Again, I hope I do not screw up - grin Cristian Croitoru |
#53
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"Cristian Croitoru" wrote in message ... I think they mean multi-threading. There are Fibre Channel, SCSI, IDE drive controllers. |
#54
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#56
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What in the world does the basic computer user need with Raid5? They are
unlikely to have 250GB worth of data. Unless they are doing big time video editing, in which case they should be moving up from basic Dell's to workstation class machines. Don't just stick something in your machine because you can. Put it in becuase its what you need. "David H. Lipman" wrote in message ... Except... You are not taking into account; the importance of the data, the reliability factor and the sheer speed that RAID 5 provides. As for the cost of the system vs the cost of the disk sub-system -- it's a moot point. It has no bearing what so ever. What matters is the functionality, application and the need for reliability. What happens if that 250GB drive dies ? Then what ? Think about the backup alternatives for 250GB. AIT2, DLT etc. Think about the time it takes to back up 250GBs of data. Using RAID, if one hard disk dies, the user still has access to the data and the failed drive can easily be replaced. Think outside the box. Think about the - what ifs.... Dave "Tom Scales" wrote in message ... | Dave, | | That's ridiculous. A $900 computer and $1500 worth of disk. | | 250GB works fine in a 4550. | | Tom | "David H. Lipman" wrote in message | ... | Suz: | | Go RAID 5 and SCSI and you will not have the artificial barriers of IDE | hard disk | controllers. Plus you a very reliable and very fast disk sub-system. | | Dave | | | | "Suzeann Loomis" wrote in message | ... | | | | Help, please. | | | | I have been told that I can only add another 120 gigabyte hard drive | | to my Dell 4550. But people at a local computer shop say I can add a | | 250 gigabyte hard drive. | | | | Which is true? I need more space for my photography. | | | | Thank you. | | | | Suze Loomis | | | | |
#57
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Swappable drives are very handy. Lian-Li is one maker of these hand devices.
It allows you to just keep buying HD's whenever they are on sale. This allows you to swap in whichever drive has the data you wish to work on. "Tom Scales" wrote in message ... Suzeann, I had a great laugh. All these people were giving you silly answers and acting very condescending and you're a knowledgeable power user. Karen's tools are great stuff -- my wife is a big fan too. I think your approach (which is similar to mine) works great. My storage needs (over a terabyte in the house) are identical to yours. I'm an amateur photographer and do all my 'darkroom' work on the computer. I recently upgraded to a decent digital SLR (Nikon D100). Every image is about 25MB. Those are small compared to the 120MB images from my 4000dpi film scanner. The storage adds up fast. I have a DVD burner, but at 60 cents a gigabyte for disk storage, fine just adding storage to be a better approach. I also use a Maxtor 200GB USB2/Firewire drive which is very handy, but am going to look into the drawer you mention. The downside is I have two drives in the open bays so I'd have to give one up. Run down to Circuit City if you have one and buy the 250GB drive for $149. 8MB cache and very quiet. Great deal! Have fun. Tom "Suzeann Loomis" wrote in message ... On Sat, 06 Dec 2003 02:25:11 GMT, "Kernelpanic" wrote: "Suzeann Loomis" wrote in message .. . Help, please. I have been told that I can only add another 120 gigabyte hard drive to my Dell 4550. But people at a local computer shop say I can add a 250 gigabyte hard drive. Which is true? I need more space for my photography. Thank you. Suze Loomis Suze, I read all the post, from which alot of it got off the subject that you had posted. Did you try and contact Dell? If you have support for you system, I suggest you contact Dell, even though there may be those that will oppose it. Please post the firmware rev that you BIOS is using(Rev. A04 added "UDMA support for 48-bit LBA hard drives over 137GB"), and what OS you are running on the system(i.e., WinXP Home, WinXP Pro SP1, etc...). You should be able to install a 250GB HD in your system, but it may depend on your OS and BIOS firmware for how big a partition can be. The new HD may come with a utility to help you partition your HD. If adding the drive as a 2nd drive, your problem may be simply that you can't create a partition greater then 120GB(Actually it's slightly larger), but you can create a few partitions on that new HD. I also hope that you are backing up your files. Windows XP Pro, Service Pack One. One gigabyte of ram. Thanks for all your answers, everyone. No, I didn't contact Dell because the answers here in this forum seem adequate. I had suspected that I was being given false advice about the limitation, which is why I posted here. I had a chance to buy Western Digital Caviar 200 gb drives, with the 8 mb cache, on a post-Thanksgiving day sale for $99 each, but passed them up because I was uncertain, as in my original post, A nephew has a 4550 computer and he also was uncertain if the BIOS would support such a large drive. Currently I use a 120 gb drive, and I have an identical 120 gb drive (both partitioned into four partitions) in a slideout drawer (Computer Geeks, about $7, I've used these for years). I use Karen's Replicator (outstanding freeware) to backup the non-system partitions, and Windows' own ASR backup for the system partition. That duplicate drive sits in bubble wrap, in a large plastic baggie, under my car seat. It simply plugs into and out of a drawer in a 5" bay. I also do a second backup of data and photos into an 80 mb drive that I put into a Plumax USB2 case. That goes elsewhere, outside my house. Thanks again. There will be more sales after Christmas. By the way, how soon will these Serial ATA hard drives be a regular feature and will there really be any advantage to them? (I do mostly photo work, with larger photos, more than 10 mb., and documents. No games or spreadsheets.) Suzeann |
#58
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True I suppose, but since my Dimension 4550 has 550GB I don't need to swap
very much. Tom "Ray Setzer" wrote in message ... Swappable drives are very handy. Lian-Li is one maker of these hand devices. It allows you to just keep buying HD's whenever they are on sale. This allows you to swap in whichever drive has the data you wish to work on. "Tom Scales" wrote in message ... Suzeann, I had a great laugh. All these people were giving you silly answers and acting very condescending and you're a knowledgeable power user. Karen's tools are great stuff -- my wife is a big fan too. I think your approach (which is similar to mine) works great. My storage needs (over a terabyte in the house) are identical to yours. I'm an amateur photographer and do all my 'darkroom' work on the computer. I recently upgraded to a decent digital SLR (Nikon D100). Every image is about 25MB. Those are small compared to the 120MB images from my 4000dpi film scanner. The storage adds up fast. I have a DVD burner, but at 60 cents a gigabyte for disk storage, fine just adding storage to be a better approach. I also use a Maxtor 200GB USB2/Firewire drive which is very handy, but am going to look into the drawer you mention. The downside is I have two drives in the open bays so I'd have to give one up. Run down to Circuit City if you have one and buy the 250GB drive for $149. 8MB cache and very quiet. Great deal! Have fun. Tom "Suzeann Loomis" wrote in message ... On Sat, 06 Dec 2003 02:25:11 GMT, "Kernelpanic" wrote: "Suzeann Loomis" wrote in message .. . Help, please. I have been told that I can only add another 120 gigabyte hard drive to my Dell 4550. But people at a local computer shop say I can add a 250 gigabyte hard drive. Which is true? I need more space for my photography. Thank you. Suze Loomis Suze, I read all the post, from which alot of it got off the subject that you had posted. Did you try and contact Dell? If you have support for you system, I suggest you contact Dell, even though there may be those that will oppose it. Please post the firmware rev that you BIOS is using(Rev. A04 added "UDMA support for 48-bit LBA hard drives over 137GB"), and what OS you are running on the system(i.e., WinXP Home, WinXP Pro SP1, etc...). You should be able to install a 250GB HD in your system, but it may depend on your OS and BIOS firmware for how big a partition can be. The new HD may come with a utility to help you partition your HD. If adding the drive as a 2nd drive, your problem may be simply that you can't create a partition greater then 120GB(Actually it's slightly larger), but you can create a few partitions on that new HD. I also hope that you are backing up your files. Windows XP Pro, Service Pack One. One gigabyte of ram. Thanks for all your answers, everyone. No, I didn't contact Dell because the answers here in this forum seem adequate. I had suspected that I was being given false advice about the limitation, which is why I posted here. I had a chance to buy Western Digital Caviar 200 gb drives, with the 8 mb cache, on a post-Thanksgiving day sale for $99 each, but passed them up because I was uncertain, as in my original post, A nephew has a 4550 computer and he also was uncertain if the BIOS would support such a large drive. Currently I use a 120 gb drive, and I have an identical 120 gb drive (both partitioned into four partitions) in a slideout drawer (Computer Geeks, about $7, I've used these for years). I use Karen's Replicator (outstanding freeware) to backup the non-system partitions, and Windows' own ASR backup for the system partition. That duplicate drive sits in bubble wrap, in a large plastic baggie, under my car seat. It simply plugs into and out of a drawer in a 5" bay. I also do a second backup of data and photos into an 80 mb drive that I put into a Plumax USB2 case. That goes elsewhere, outside my house. Thanks again. There will be more sales after Christmas. By the way, how soon will these Serial ATA hard drives be a regular feature and will there really be any advantage to them? (I do mostly photo work, with larger photos, more than 10 mb., and documents. No games or spreadsheets.) Suzeann |
#59
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"Tom Scales" wrote in message ... True I suppose, but since my Dimension 4550 has 550GB I don't need to swap very much. Tom You're just bragging now, Tommy. How many internal disks? externals? Controller card? Stew |
#60
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Two internals, a 250GB boot drive on the motherboard controller. A 100GB on
a separate controller (came free with the 250GB drive -- $149 total). 200GB External, either Firewire or USB2 depending on my mood. Big digital images (120MB each) take lots of space, particularly if you back them up. Tom "S.Lewis" wrote in message ... "Tom Scales" wrote in message ... True I suppose, but since my Dimension 4550 has 550GB I don't need to swap very much. Tom You're just bragging now, Tommy. How many internal disks? externals? Controller card? Stew |
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