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Sager 8890 with 100 GB Hard Drive Support?

post #1 of 12
4/12/05 at 9:56pm
Thread Starter 
Hello Everyone,

I was wondering if the Sager 8890 can support a 100 GB hard drive.

Here's the story...
I recently ordered a Seagate Momentus 100 GB 5400.2 Hard Drive that is currently in transit. The next day I was told that my Sager 8890 might not be able to recognize the hard drive, and if it did, then it might not be able to use all 100 GB of the capacity. So I then ordered two Seagate Momentus 80 GB 5400.2 Hard Drives since I know that the Sager 8890 can support 80 GB hard drives. I heard rumor that though it hasn't been "formally tested" by sager, they think that my 100 GB drive should work.

So the bottom line now is...
Do I open the 100 GB drive and try it out, and then try and get a refund on my 80 GB hard drives. Or do I immediately send back my 100 GB hard drive and then stick with the 80 GB hard drives. Also, I just found out after purchasing all of these hard drives, that Sager is backordered with their Hard Drive Brackets for the 2nd Bay. Does anyone have one of these that they would be so kind as to sell me? It would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you very much for your time and interest in my post. Your input is greatly appreciated.

- Denny
dennymet@bu.edu
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post #2 of 12
4/13/05 at 11:28am
I'm sure 100 GB drive would work, I couldn't think of a reason why it wouldn't.
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post #3 of 12
4/13/05 at 11:42am
Thread Starter 

Intel 865PE Chipset

Label:
See that's the thing. I was thinking the same thing when I bought it. The notebook is quite modern, with an Intel 865PE chipset so I didn't see any limitations there.

When you look at the documentation for the Sager 8890, which is almost a 2 year old notebook, it states that it is upgradable to 240GB of hard drive space. When you do the calculations, that's three 80GB hard drives in the primary, secondary, and tertiary bays. So when tech support told me that they suspected that the Sager 8890 wouldn't take the 100GB hard drives, I wonder if that is because they read the documentation literally, which was written when there were no 100GB 2.5" hard drives.

If anyone else has any information, please post. It would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!
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post #4 of 12
4/14/05 at 6:59am
Whilst I haven't stuck a 100GB disk into either of my systems, the 100GB and soon to be released Hitachi 120GB disks will work.
It sounds like the same piece of corporate cover your a.. I got a few years ago from Toshiba. "No no no. The laptop will only support 6GB disks...". Funny nobody told the laptop it couldn't read disks ten times bigger ie. 60GB.

The main constraint is in the BIOS during bootup. As long as it supports LBA (the 8890 does) you can read disks well over the terabyte size if they ever come out.

Once booted the next limitation is the OS and filesystems. Windows XP supports some large disk size (can't remember how much but its bigger than current disks). More importantly NTFS supports the big partitions you need to address these suckers. FAT cuts out at 32GB I think (could be less).

I have 250GB USB disks attached with no problem. Even so my twin 60GB Hitachi's are in RAID mode which gives a physical disk of 114GB and the 8890 boots from that.

The Sager tech is toeing the corporate line. Sager probably has not tested larger disks in the 8890 and therefore can't say "Yes go ahead" because some moron is likely to sue them if something way outside of their control happens to their machine.

Having said all that, you do have to watch heat load and current draw with larger disks. Get hold of the datasheets for the 7k60 disks from Hitachi. If the newer disks are within the current and heat loads of those disks you will be ok. Rotational speed is normally the thing that ups heat/current. The faster you spin the more heat/current you generate/use.

So let the 120GB RAID wars begin.
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post #5 of 12
4/18/05 at 2:32pm
Thread Starter 
Thanks Steve,

As always, you're most helpful. I actually did try out the 100GB and it's works just fine. I decided to keep the two 80GB and put them into external enclosures. Life is good...
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post #6 of 12
4/18/05 at 8:51pm
good stuff
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post #7 of 12
4/19/05 at 2:10pm
i have 8889 - older laptop .. and i have 2x 100gb segate momentus on it installed - working SUPERB ;] no problems at all .. it reads even the last sector .. it recognizes drives without any problem ..
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post #8 of 12
4/19/05 at 8:51pm
You didn't access the LAST SECTOR did you???!!!!

Very very slowly move away from the laptop. Do not make any sounds.
Now ring the FBI, CIA, the President (no forget him), the NSA, NASA, Texaco and the local Quik-E-Mart.

After they take you away because of making harrassing phone calls, send your laptop to Aussie, c/- ...

/What are those pills for nurse...
/Some days its just not worth chewing thru the straps...
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post #9 of 12
4/20/05 at 6:46am
Quote:
Originally Posted by aussie
soon to be released Hitachi 120GB disks
Aussie, you got any idea when those'll be released? Or links to more info? I searched and all I found find were sites in French.
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post #10 of 12
4/20/05 at 9:40am
From memory they were mentioned at the recent CeBit Expo.
Beyond that no idea.
Of course the 7200RPM versions will take a bit longer
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post #11 of 12
4/20/05 at 10:10am
Ok, no probs. I'm patiently waiting for Hitatchi's perpendicular drives
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post #12 of 12
7/27/05 at 6:09pm
I'm running a Seagate ST9100823A (100 GB - internal - 2.5' - ATA-100 - 5400 rpm - buffer: 8 MB) and a TOSHIBA MK8025GAS (80 GB) in my Overam 8800 (clevo d800P)
with no problems.

Layout is 1.9GB for "/boot" 15GB for "/" and the rest of it and the 80GB drive combined via LVM as a single partition. Yes, I'm a Linux only user so I can not tell you if Window (1.0, 3.0, 3.1, 95, 98, 98se, ME, NT 3.0, NT 3.5, 2000, XP, etc) will be able to use it or not. Have not used Windows since 3.1 and have fun computing...
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