How to swap Hard drives

[HD-Swap]

I have a gizmo that mounts in the 5 1/4" bay that holds a hard drive.
With this I can remove or put back in a hard drive (not when the machine
is on). But this gizmo is only wired for a 40 pin ribbon.

Are there such devices available now for 80 pin cables?

Or, would the one I have work OK for the newer hard drives that use 80
pin cables, seeing as the 40 wire interconnects in the gizmo are only
about one inch in length?

BTW, what does one call these things? I would look them up on Google if
I knew how.

Thanks for your help. I have 4 extra smaller hard drives here that I use
for backups about the same way I used to use a tape machine. I want to
be able to swap in and out different hard drives without having to lift
the lid on my machine.

Thanks........

Dick

 

[Rod Speed]

I have a gizmo that mounts in the 5 1/4" bay that holds a hard drive.
With this I can remove or put back in a hard drive (not when the
machine is on). But this gizmo is only wired for a 40 pin ribbon.

Are there such devices available now for 80 pin cables?

Yep. And they're still 40 pin, just 80 wires in the ribbon cable.

Or, would the one I have work OK for the newer hard drives
that use 80 pin cables, seeing as the 40 wire interconnects
in the gizmo are only about one inch in length?

The problem isnt the electrical stuff like that, its how the
motherboard decides if an 80 wire cable is being used.
It checks that to decide what UDMA modes can be used.

BTW, what does one call these things?

The name does vary a bit, usually called removable bay kits.

I would look them up on Google if I knew how.

Thanks for your help. I have 4 extra smaller
hard drives here that I use for backups about
the same way I used to use a tape machine.

Yeah, much more viable than tape now for personal desktop systems.

I want to be able to swap in and out different hard
drives without having to lift the lid on my machine.

Yeah, what's under the lid can be a tad obscene at times |-)

 

[Tom]

If it still plugs into an 80 wire cable, you have added two extra
connections between the drive and mb.
Every connection introduces noise and potential problems.

In both cases, not plugging into an 80 wire cable or having extra
connections, you most likely won't get ata 100 performance.

 

[Folkert Rienstra]

I have a gizmo that mounts in the 5 1/4" bay that holds a hard drive.
With this I can remove or put back in a hard drive (not when the machine
is on). But this gizmo is only wired for a 40 pin ribbon.

Are there such devices available now for 80 pin cables?

What point is there when the cable connector is still 40 pin?

Or, would the one I have work OK for the newer hard drives that use
80 pin cables, seeing as the 40 wire interconnects in the gizmo are only
about one inch in length?

Very likely. Use them at the end of the cable and always have a drive
inserted and 'live' when the computer is in use. Using at the middle
connector has the advantage that you can run with a drive removed
but the one inch stub may cause trouble at higher speeds when in use.

 

[John]

You can buy removable drawers to suit ATA/133 (80 wire) drives. Just look
for the ATA/133 or IDE/133 insignia on the packaging.

Incidently, I don't know about other hard drives, but there is a utility for
IBM hard drives (on the IBM website) that can set the hard drives with a
ATA/66 or ATA/100 interface so that they never exceed ATA/33 (yes 33 not
133) which is the comms standard for your 40 wire cables and your current 40
wire drawer. So you can use even the very latest IBM's in that drawer,
albeit with a slightly slower top speed.

Also, you can insert/remove extra hard drives (using removable drawers)
without rebooting WinXP. Just insert the drawer into the PC, turn it on,
then go to Device Manager and right click on the PC and select
ScanForHardwareChanges. The partitions on the newly inserted drive will
appear in MyComputer a few seconds later.

 

[Folkert Rienstra]

If it still plugs into an 80 wire cable, you have added two extra
connections between the drive and mb.

What two, sleepless "Tom"? I see at least 5 to 7 extra 'connections'.

Every connection introduces noise and potential problems.

In both cases, not plugging into an 80 wire cable or having extra
connections, you most likely won't get ata 100 performance.

Get some sleep, "Tom".

 

[Rod Speed]

You can buy removable drawers to suit ATA/133 (80 wire) drives.
Just look for the ATA/133 or IDE/133 insignia on the packaging.

80 wire is used for everything faster than ATA33

 

[Lil' Dave]

Inside the removable case is a short length (2-3 inches)of ide cable. This
connects the removable portion to the hard drive. Most are just 40 wire
versions. Some are 80 wire versions.
This does two things, in the internal 40 wire version situation, changes the
length of the cable from 18 (if you're using spec ide cable) to
approximately 21 inches. And, it diminishes the noise reduction.
And, the bay portion connector is approximately 1/2 inch to the internal
connector that varies in the number of connectors depending on the make of
the removable case. This connects the ide cable from your ide port to the
removable case. The steel case models I've seen have 75 connectors, and
less expensive plastic models that I've seen have 50 connectors. I'll leave
it up to the researchers to say what the extra 25 connnectors are for that
I've seen on the steel cased models.

The names of the two parts seem to vary some between manufacturers.
Dave

 

[Tom]

You mean pins, not connectors and what they are for is grounding.
Alternating ground/data waire is what keeps the noise down.

 

[chrisv]

You mean pins, not connectors and what they are for is grounding.
Alternating ground/data waire is what keeps the noise down.

What pins are for grounding, "Tom"? Still haven't learned how to
post, I see...