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External HD Setup, smoke that internal!

post #1 of 14
5/2/06 at 11:14pm
Thread Starter 
I posted this info at the end of another thread, but figured I would open it up for discussion.

The idea is to get an external that will out-perform an internal laptop HD.

eSATA PCMCIA (LINK)


eSATA Enclouser (LINK)



eSATA Hard Drive (Link)


Then put it all together yourself. And end up with a HD that is as fast (Or faster if you get a 10krpm or 15krpm) as your internal HD.

So, if your wishing you could run a Raptor in your XPS or whatever, In theory this shoud do the trick!

The PCMCIA card I linked to is only a 1.5Gb/s card, but they have 3Gb/s ones out there also. Not that you can really utilize that speed yet.

/Discuss
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post #2 of 14
5/3/06 at 12:12am
But you can't boot from the PCMCIA slot... so you're still stuck booting off the internal drive. The discussion we had about sliding a SATA connector into the HD slot of a 9300S/9400 and using a similar enclosure that you show is what would allow for booting from an external enclosure. You'd just have to disconnect the cable from enclosure, and not the HD bay - as that is the easiest way to keep reconnecting.

And this was discussed really just for DTR implementations. We could probably figure out a way to get rid of the PCMCIA/ExpressCard slots and replace with HD's for Raid if we REALLY TRIED. But I don't think the expense that the testing members would incur would be recouped enough in the number of members that would actually use a final solution.
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post #3 of 14
5/3/06 at 12:36am
Thread Starter 
Yeah, I dig that you cant boot off of it. But you can store your game data on it, and access it at 10k/15k rpm's.

That is all im trying to do really. I mean of the few bottlenecks we have as Laptop gamers, the HD is one of the biggest.
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post #4 of 14
5/3/06 at 1:29am
I'm not too technically savvy, so my question is:

Does that SATA PCMCIA card cause any loss? You know how if you run an external HD through USB you obviously lose speed, does the same happen using that SATA card?
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post #5 of 14
5/3/06 at 2:11am
I plan on doing this with my externals for LANing purposes. I am ordering the eSATA ExpressCard from newegg tomorrow, along with 2x 500gb SATAII drives and another Nexstar3 eSATA enclosure (already have one, and it works flawlessly).
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post #6 of 14
5/3/06 at 4:17am
Planning to do the same thing. USB 2 is too slow for my taste.
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post #7 of 14
5/3/06 at 4:21am
Makes one wonder if you'll be able to boot off the D-Dock if you stick a low-profile eSATA card in the PCI slot.

Stick this in there, figure out how to snake a wire internally, you could run two external drives plus an SATA DD DVD-/+R/W
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post #8 of 14
5/3/06 at 4:27am
Quote:
Originally Posted by destruya
Makes one wonder if you'll be able to boot off the D-Dock if you stick a low-profile eSATA card in the PCI slot.

Stick this in there, figure out how to snake a wire internally, you could run two external drives plus an SATA DD DVD-/+R/W

So the question is...to D/Dock or not....
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post #9 of 14
5/3/06 at 4:32am
It'd be a pretty expensive investment. If you bought the D/Dock from Dell, you're paying a LOT, if you buy from eBay, you're taking a risk...

...and there's no guarantee how problem-free an SATA card would *be* in the D/Dock as well.
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post #10 of 14
5/3/06 at 4:46am
Quote:
Originally Posted by destruya
It'd be a pretty expensive investment. If you bought the D/Dock from Dell, you're paying a LOT, if you buy from eBay, you're taking a risk...

...and there's no guarantee how problem-free an SATA card would *be* in the D/Dock as well.

Would that D/Dock work on the M1710?

http://cgi.ebay.ca/NEW-DELL-D-DOCK-E...QQcmdZViewItem
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post #11 of 14
5/3/06 at 5:06am
I don't think there are any "different" versions.

Of course, now I see the drive slot isn't full-size. My idea with an internal SATA port might work if they make a SATA version of that drive caddy.
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post #12 of 14
5/3/06 at 5:21am
Just pointing out that...

* running through the PCI bus and a PCI2eSATA chip will probably introduce some CPU overhead and lag
* Having a 1,5Gb/s eSATA link is cool but also rather pointless given the theorectical maximum PCI throughput of about 1Gb/s. And that's theoretical, not practical and only achievable when no other PCI devices are active.
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post #13 of 14
5/3/06 at 5:29am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Deceptikon
Then put it all together yourself. And end up with a HD that is as fast (Or faster if you get a 10krpm or 15krpm) as your internal HD.

/Discuss

15krpm drives are scsi-only currently
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post #14 of 14
5/3/06 at 6:13am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ice-Tea
\\* Having a 1,5Gb/s eSATA link is cool but also rather pointless given the theorectical maximum PCI throughput of about 1Gb/s. And that's theoretical, not practical and only achievable when no other PCI devices are active.
I was wondering about this. Thank you ;o.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Wikipedia
CardBus is effectively a 32-bit, 33 MHz PCI bus...
I'm thinking if you would buy into this (I'd stick to USB low-power-storage), you better not buy a raptor thinking you'll have the same performance.
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