Dell 5110cn hard disk

[John Beardmore]

Having got one of these printers I can believe that having the optional
inboard hard disk might speed up the printing of some documents on
occasions.

The disk Dell offering seems to be available from
http://accessories.euro.dell.com/sna/productdetail.aspx?c=uk&l=en&s=bsd&c
s=ukbsdt1&sku=400-13518 for £59, or from
http://accessories.euro.dell.com/sna/productdetail.aspx?c=uk&l=en&s=dhs&c
s=ukdhs1&sku=724-10018 for £97. The latter is sold as a printer part,
the former as a generic hard disk.

So four questions...

1. Is it possible to use the cheaper version of this disk in the
5100cn ?

2. Is it possible to use any generic ATA drive in the 5110cn ? 40 gig
doesn't seem that large these days !

3. Are there any instructions on lie for fitting this drive into the
5110cn ? And,

4. Does the installed drive have to have to be set up with any
particular file system or software ?


Cheers, J/.

 

[William R. Walsh]

Hi!

Having got one of these printers I can believe that having the optional
inboard hard disk might speed up the printing of some documents on
occasions.

I don't think the internal hard disk will speed up your printing, unless the
printer uses it for things like font caching. (If that's the case, it will
take the printer a little while to cache frequently used fonts.) Considering
that most fonts aren't really very large and can be downloaded to the
printer as a temporary soft font, the benefit of caching fonts to the disk
won't be very great. Other elements aren't usually very cacheable. The
processor in your printer only runs so fast, and as long as it has
sufficient RAM to process jobs, things are probably already as quick as they
will get.

The function of these internal hard disks is usually one of secured printing
(print jobs are only released when a PIN is entered on the printer and are
stored in the hard disk until that happens), job storage (for printing a
large job out of normal hours when others might want the printer), and job
control (make more copies from the printer control panel, etc...).

1. Is it possible to use the cheaper version of this disk in the
5100cn ?

Maybe. Dell doesn't give a good picture of the actual unit, so it is hard to
say. Most printers have special cards that hold the hard drive, and that's
the reason for the additional expense. My HP LaserJet 4050N uses an
EIO-styled card that fits into one of the EIO expansion bays. It has a
mounting area for a laptop hard disk (though not all screw patterns fit
well) and a standard 40-pin connector, as well as some capacitors, a few
coils and a CMD Technology IDE controller IC.

An educated guess says a standard (bare) drive won't work without the
mounting tray/circuit board.

2. Is it possible to use any generic ATA drive in the 5110cn ? 40 gig
doesn't seem that large these days !

If you can get the needed adapter card (if one is used) and mounting
hardware, just about any suitably sized disk *should* work. I've used a wide
variety of disks in my HP. Each one only required an initialization process
that can be done through the control panel. (This partially answers your 4th
question.) There's probably an upper limit to the capacity, though I
couldn't say what it would be. It would vary with each printer.

3. Are there any instructions on lie for fitting this drive into the
5110cn ? And,

It should be pretty easy and may even be in the owner's manual for your
printer. Or...maybe the instructions are something you get when you buy the
installation kit.

4. Does the installed drive have to have to be set up with any
particular file system or software ?

Yes. Most printers with internal hard disks use their own proprietary
formatting. If you get a used drive, run something like DBAN on it before
installing it in your printer. Some printers may not react well to a disk
that contains previous formatting and information.

The procedure will vary, and I don't know how you'd get it. For my HP, I
needed the procedure as the disk on my EIO card was bad. I was able to find
it on the HP discussion forums. There may be a way of setting up the disk
formatting in software as well. Every printer differs--I'd suggest running a
search against the Dell web site, discussion forums, tech support area and
your printer's manual.

William

 

[Brendan R. Wehrung]

I have a seperate question, general curiosity...

flash drives are now being touted as memory boosters (or perhaps caches)
for Vista. Wouldn't such a thing be possible with a printer aswell, a USB
port that would accept the flash drive of your choice to extend memory
when you have a particularly large file to print?

Brendan

 

[William R. Walsh]

Hi!

I have a seperate question, general curiosity...

flash drives are now being touted as memory boosters (or perhaps caches)
for Vista. Wouldn't such a thing be possible with a printer aswell, a USB
port that would accept the flash drive of your choice to extend memory
when you have a particularly large file to print?

ReadyBoost for printers? Sure, why not? It wouldn't take much more than
revised firmware to accomplish this. However, flash memory is slower than
volatile RAM and that might reduce performance somewhat.

There is also something of a "sweet spot" with most printers. The processor
can only go so fast when churning data coming off of a printer port (be it
parallel, USB or a LAN) and it might be possible to install RAM that will
never be used or needed because the processor simply can't work quickly
enough to keep it full while the engine is running off pages.

William

 

[John Beardmore]

Hi!


I don't think the internal hard disk will speed up your printing, unless the
printer uses it for things like font caching. (If that's the case, it will
take the printer a little while to cache frequently used fonts.) Considering
that most fonts aren't really very large and can be downloaded to the
printer as a temporary soft font, the benefit of caching fonts to the disk
won't be very great. Other elements aren't usually very cacheable. The
processor in your printer only runs so fast, and as long as it has
sufficient RAM to process jobs, things are probably already as quick as they
will get.

I would have thought that this would depend on what the drive stored.
Would it cache PCL, or the bitmap of the image ready for the laser
engine ?

Presumably the first of these would be compact, but the second would be
fast.

If ASCII postscript with lots of high resolution images is sent to the
printer, I suppose it might even be that the binary would be more
compact ?

The function of these internal hard disks is usually one of secured printing
(print jobs are only released when a PIN is entered on the printer and are
stored in the hard disk until that happens), job storage (for printing a
large job out of normal hours when others might want the printer), and job
control (make more copies from the printer control panel, etc...).

Yes - it's this last function that I'm interested in. It seems to take
forever to print copies of our (two sides of A4) company brochure out of
Pagemaker. Where ever the bottle neck is, I would have thought that
rendered device ready binary stored on the machine would be the quickest
place from which to access it.

Maybe. Dell doesn't give a good picture of the actual unit, so it is hard to
say. Most printers have special cards that hold the hard drive, and that's
the reason for the additional expense. My HP LaserJet 4050N uses an
EIO-styled card that fits into one of the EIO expansion bays. It has a
mounting area for a laptop hard disk (though not all screw patterns fit
well) and a standard 40-pin connector, as well as some capacitors, a few
coils and a CMD Technology IDE controller IC.

An educated guess says a standard (bare) drive won't work without the
mounting tray/circuit board.

OK. Anybody with any Dell specific info ?

If you can get the needed adapter card (if one is used) and mounting
hardware, just about any suitably sized disk *should* work. I've used a wide
variety of disks in my HP. Each one only required an initialization process
that can be done through the control panel. (This partially answers your 4th
question.) There's probably an upper limit to the capacity, though I
couldn't say what it would be. It would vary with each printer.
OK.



It should be pretty easy and may even be in the owner's manual for your
printer. Or...maybe the instructions are something you get when you buy the
installation kit.

Seems to be the way with the 5110cn.

Yes. Most printers with internal hard disks use their own proprietary
formatting. If you get a used drive, run something like DBAN on it before
installing it in your printer. Some printers may not react well to a disk
that contains previous formatting and information.

The procedure will vary, and I don't know how you'd get it. For my HP, I
needed the procedure as the disk on my EIO card was bad. I was able to find
it on the HP discussion forums. There may be a way of setting up the disk
formatting in software as well. Every printer differs--I'd suggest running a
search against the Dell web site, discussion forums, tech support area and
your printer's manual.

OK, thanks !


Cheers, J/.

 

[Warren Block]

I would have thought that this would depend on what the drive stored.
Would it cache PCL, or the bitmap of the image ready for the laser
engine ?

The bitmap, although possibly in compressed format. If you don't cache
that, the printer would have to re-render the page for each copy.

Presumably the first of these would be compact, but the second would be
fast.

If ASCII postscript with lots of high resolution images is sent to the
printer, I suppose it might even be that the binary would be more
compact ?

Sizes can be all over the map. It's easy enough to write small
PostScript code by hand, but that produced secondhand by applications
like Pagemaker can be inefficient and huge. A lot of applications do
all the rendering on the computer, and using PCL to transfer those to
the printer can be faster.

Yes - it's this last function that I'm interested in. It seems to take
forever to print copies of our (two sides of A4) company brochure out of
Pagemaker. Where ever the bottle neck is, I would have thought that
rendered device ready binary stored on the machine would be the quickest
place from which to access it.

You'll have to benchmark to isolate what's causing the delay. Could be
that Pagemaker is sending two copies instead of one copy that's printed
twice. Could be that the Dell has a slow PostScript interpreter. Could
be slow I/O to the printer, like an auto-select Ethernet problem. You
are using Ethernet, right?

Save your PostScript output to disk, then render it to compressed PCL5
with Ghostscript. Then print that file. That'll at least give you an
idea of how long the printer takes to render the PostScript.

There may be custom firmware or utilities needed for the drive,
coincidentally making commodity hardware sell for proprietary rates.

 

[William R. Walsh]

Hi!

I would have thought that this would depend on what the drive stored.
Would it cache PCL, or the bitmap of the image ready for the laser
engine ?

I'm not sure how reusable stuff like that is, and it might require a lot of
intelligence from the printer's onboard control program.

If you were to print and request a stored job, everything could certainly be
maintained on the hard disk in a "ready to print" format.

Yes - it's this last function that I'm interested in. It seems to take
forever to print copies of our (two sides of A4) company brochure out of
Pagemaker. Where ever the bottle neck is, I would have thought that
rendered device ready binary stored on the machine would be the quickest
place from which to access it.

The disk option could help your printing speed here, but that depends upon
how the printer's driver, onboard processor and control program work. My HP
goes ahead, does the print job processing and then stores a "ready to print"
file on the disk. When I request the file to be printed, it comes up very
quickly.

William

 

[John Beardmore]

Hi!


I don't think the internal hard disk will speed up your printing, unless the
printer uses it for things like font caching.

OK, I got one of these critters now. For one off print jobs it makes no
difference as predicted.

For multiple copies however it's fantastic.

We have an A5 company leaflet, (A4 printed both sides and folded in
two), which has full resolution pictures and logos.

Without the disk this takes a few minutes to get going, then a few more
minutes per sheet printed, presumably reinterpreting the PCL again each
time. This makes it no quicker than a grotty ink jet !

With the drive installed, it takes the usual length of time to get
started, but then does the rest of the copies very fast indeed, and
maybe as fast as paper transport allows.

Now I grant I could ask myself

'Couldn't it cache two sides of A4 in the 640 meg of RAM that
is installed ?'

or

'Would Postscript be quicker ?'

but clearly under some circumstances it makes a spectacular difference,
and in the general case of bigger, collated, multi sheet, full duplex
documents, it seems likely that it will deliver even bigger benefits.


For reference, the hardware provided is a laptop size ATA disk drive and
interface card. It looks as if it might be possible to put a higher
capacity drive in, but who can say if the printer would initialise a
sensible file system on it ?

Of course it could all be a lot better designed. There is no obvious
way I can see to save or preserve the content of the disk after the job
has finished printing, an opportunity missed there by the look of it !

On the other hand, if you've spent money on extra RAM, and enough paper
draws to make the beast into 'furniture', the hard disk option seems a
pretty cost effective way of realising the possible performance.


Cheers, J/.