NotebookForums.com › Forums › Notebook Manufacturers › Dell Forums › Dell Home (Inspiron, XPS, Studio) › Are the Dell 9300 HD's SATA?
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:

Are the Dell 9300 HD's SATA?

post #1 of 17
7/18/07 at 5:20pm
Thread Starter 
Are the Dell 9300 HD's SATA or ATA-6? I'd like to upgrade my 9300 with a larger hard drive, somewhere around 100GB or so. Any recommendations? Do I just need to look for a laptop SATA drive 7200RPM or are there other specs I need to consider?
Reply
Reply
post #2 of 17
7/18/07 at 5:41pm
if i remember correctly the HDD in my 9300 was ATA-6
Reply
Reply
post #3 of 17
7/18/07 at 5:50pm
I believe that towards the end of the run they started putting SATA drives into the 9300s, but when the run started they were not SATA. I don't know what the ones that shipped before hand were, but I am pretty sure that mine was a SATA drive. I ordered my 9300 in late December 2005, just before the 1705 and M1710 came out.
Reply
Reply
post #4 of 17
7/18/07 at 6:21pm
Some are but most aren't. There were 20k test '9300s' in the US that had SATA drives. Not sure whats listed under device manager so the most conclusive way to tell would be to undo the 2 screws and take a look.
Reply
Reply
post #5 of 17
7/18/07 at 8:18pm
Mine wasn't sata and I received around August/September 05.
Sata ones started appearing for maybe a month before the 9300's were updated to 9400's? Not very long, there are much more IDE than sata.
Reply
Reply
post #6 of 17
7/18/07 at 11:02pm
Mine is IDE. Scored in early 2005. I've got a Hitachi 100 GB 7200 RPM HD in it now.
Reply
Reply
post #7 of 17
7/19/07 at 12:13am
Quote:
Originally Posted by celly View Post
Mine is IDE. Scored in early 2005. I've got a Hitachi 100 GB 7200 RPM HD in it now.

So do I
Pretty sweet drive... but it was expensive!
Reply
Reply
post #8 of 17
7/19/07 at 2:55pm
My 9300 purchased in late Oct (arrived first week of Nov) in 2005 was SATA. That system has since been sold and replaced by a 9400 which died and Dell replaced with an XPS m1710 Special Edition.

And K9387 was correct about the production numbers... the final 20,000 I9300 run off the line were SATA during a transition to retooling their Inspirons for SATA in the next generation.
Reply
Reply
post #9 of 17
7/20/07 at 6:58pm
Thread Starter 
Thanks for the help guys, I will pull it out and check.
Reply
Reply
post #10 of 17
7/21/07 at 5:28pm
Thread Starter 
Mine appears to be ATA-6 then, correct? I'm just a little confused by the black thing with metal pickups sticking out of the drive?



Reply
Reply
post #11 of 17
7/21/07 at 8:54pm
That's ATA/IDE. SATA is a small little serial connector.

You should be able to bring up Device manager.....and you'll either have a ATA controller or a SATA controller I think. (I have an ATA)
Reply
Reply
post #12 of 17
7/22/07 at 7:20pm
HDTune v2.52 Download:

http://sharebigfile.com/file/196886/HDTune-exe.html

Reply
Reply
post #13 of 17
7/23/07 at 3:23am
The 9300S (Dell internal designation) only used a SATA HD with an in-line adapter to do the SATA/PATA conversion.

Since you took your drive out I'm assuming you did write down the model number and Google'd it just to make sure? You can also grab your serial number from Device Manager under Hard Disks.

Btw... yours is a Toshiba drive from Dell? Dell only used Hitachi for the SATA drives in the 9300S models from what I remember.
Reply
Reply
post #14 of 17
7/23/07 at 6:42pm
My 9300 came with a 60gig 7200rpm Hitachi SATA drive. I ordered it the day after Thanksgiving Nov. 2005 and received it early Dec. 2005. So they had to have been shipping from at least that time period. My Device Manager mentions nothing about SATA controllers, but then again I flashed it to the XPS2/M170 BIOS many moons ago when I installed my 7800GTX and have no recollection of what the device manager originally said. It's actually pretty easy to find out what kind of drive you have without removing it. Just click on "Disk drives" in the Device Manager and the drive's make and model number should be listed. From there you can check the manufacture's website and get all of the detailed info about it.

I hope this helps.

Ciao
Reply
Reply
post #15 of 17
7/24/07 at 6:12am
i ordered and received my 9300 in jan 2006 and it was ata-6 which i replaced with a 100gig hitachi travelstar 7k.
Reply
Reply
post #16 of 17
7/24/07 at 3:41pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by makaveli25 View Post
i ordered and received my 9300 in jan 2006 and it was ata-6 which i replaced with a 100gig hitachi travelstar 7k.
Did you custom order yours or get it preconfigured either from a kiosk, online, or from existing stock (such as from the refurb dept.)? The reason I ask is by mid-Jan 2006 Dell was blowing out all of their existing stock to make way for the 9400/1705 which was introduced shortly thereafter. It's quite possible that your 9300 was actually manufactured earlier than mine or that it was made with leftover parts which is why you got the ATA-6 drive instead of the SATA version. I ordered mine completely to my specs via the EPP website when Dell was running their then famous 35% off, plus additional 12% when choosing 3 year complete care, plus I got from here an additional $250 off stackable coupon which let me get my rig for a song. You've got to love the info you can get from this site. Ciao
Reply
Reply
post #17 of 17
7/25/07 at 5:42am
i'm from new zealand, so not sure about SATA drives in the 9300 in other countries. i didnt have a configuration choice for my hard drives when i ordered apart from hard drive capacity. i ordered online, chose the components i wanted and it was as simple as that. and then a few months later the 9400 was out.

i got the 9300 cause it was on offer (i assume cause the 9400 was about to come in) so they gave heaps of upgrades, like free carry case, free hard drive upgrade, free 9 cell battery and 3 year standard cover also included in the price.

so all i did was go online, choose the 9300 and configure what i wanted and that was that.

i did put in epp because my work does participate in that program, unless thats what it was. as far as i could tell, my laptop was new and not refurbished....i tried to check every component when it arrived at my doorstep.
Reply
Reply
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:
  Return Home
NotebookForums.com › Forums › Notebook Manufacturers › Dell Forums › Dell Home (Inspiron, XPS, Studio) › Are the Dell 9300 HD's SATA?