Second **internal hard drive in Dell Inspiron . Possible?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Michael
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M

Michael

Hi,

I am not a laptop user so please bear with me when I ask this question: Is
it possible to install two hard drives internally into a Dell Inspiron 8200
laptop? It seems like there would not be room for two hard drives that are
internal.

Mike
Mike
 
In comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage Michael said:
Hi,
Click to expand...
I am not a laptop user so please bear with me when I ask this question: Is
it possible to install two hard drives internally into a Dell Inspiron 8200
laptop? It seems like there would not be room for two hard drives that are
internal.
Click to expand...

I don't know about this particular model. Laptop HDDs, like
normal IDE HDDs can be two to a bus. The limiting factor is
usually space and fixtures. If either is missing you cannot
install two drived gracefully. It might be still possible
to install two drived with the right data cable and an open
case (i.e. one drive connected but not mounted mechanically.)

Arno
 
In comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage Michael said:
Hi,

I am not a laptop user so please bear with me when I ask this question: Is
it possible to install two hard drives internally into a Dell Inspiron 8200
laptop? It seems like there would not be room for two hard drives that are
internal.

Mike
Mike
Click to expand...

Depends on exactly what you mean by "internally". I have a Dell
latitude and there's no room to put in a second disk drive
permanently, but for a (significant) amount of money you can buy a
removable disk drive that plugs into the modular bay in place of the CD or
floppy drive.

Jerry
 
With raid gaining popularity with the almost average PC user, I think we'll
be seeing 2 disk raid arrays in laptops before too long.

--Dan
 
Eric Gisin said:
Just like all those dual CPU laptops?
Click to expand...


Woot..
I had a chuckle at his post
but yours was much better
:P

Granted
Dual core low power Athlon 64's

Not being a big HD guy (as many of you bastards here call me a troll, or at
least think it) :)
Would it be possible for 2 drives to be inside one housing with the main
reason being so you can connect 2 sata connectors for raid 0 ?
 
rstlne said:
Woot..
I had a chuckle at his post
but yours was much better

Granted
Dual core low power Athlon 64's

Not being a big HD guy (as many of you bastards here call me a troll,
or at least think it) :)
Would it be possible for 2 drives to be inside one housing with the
main reason being so you can connect 2 sata connectors for raid 0 ?
Click to expand...

Of course its technically possible, but it has an impact on a host of things
that are very important in a laptop such as:

Wieght
Power & Cooling
Size

Adding a second hard drive impacts all of these adversely.
 
With raid gaining popularity with the almost average PC user, I think we'll
be seeing 2 disk raid arrays in laptops before too long.

--Dan
Click to expand...

What??? You smokin crack?
 
rstlne said:
Woot..
I had a chuckle at his post but yours was much better

Granted
Dual core low power Athlon 64's

Not being a big HD guy (as many of you bastards here call me a troll, or at
least think it) :)
Click to expand...

Nah, you are just some misguided fool who thinks that google 'equals' knowledge.
Would it be possible for 2 drives to be inside one housing with the main
reason being so you can connect 2 sata connectors for raid 0 ?
Click to expand...

Maybe that 2 microdrives could fit in the space of a single laptop drive when
side by side. Unfortunately the smaller the physical size the slower they
usually are so probably you end up with just the same speed as a normal one.
 
Michael said:
Hi,

I am not a laptop user so please bear with me when I ask this question: Is
it possible to install two hard drives internally into a Dell Inspiron 8200
laptop? It seems like there would not be room for two hard drives that are
internal.
Click to expand...

You might add an external hard drive (PC card, USB, etc). Even if there
is physical space for a second internal drive (doubtful), laptops run so
hot that the second drive would most likely cause things to overheat.

If you're running out of disk space, add an external drive or replace
the original hard drive with a larger model if one is available.
 
it possible to install two hard drives internally into a Dell Inspiron 8200
laptop?
Click to expand...

I have a Toshiba 8100 in which I've replaced the DVD drive with a third-party
carrier which contains a second hard drive. I have a CD drive in the expansion
bay, but obviously I don't have a CD drive when using the machine as as a true
portable.

I boot XP off the first drive, and FreeBSD 5.2-CURRENT off the second drive.

The carrier came off eBay; it was made for an older Toshiba machine, but works
fine in the 8100.

I have no idea if this solution works on the Inspiron 8200.

Mike Squires
 
We'll see. Here we have a thread started by a guy who wants to add a second
internal drive. The very same thought has occurred to all of us here-I know
I have thought of it several times and heard folks at work ask me if they
could do the very same thing. How long before the manufacturers start
answering our needs? It is getting to the point where laptops are more
portable PCs instead of mobile PCs, if that makes sense. Some laptops can't
even make it through a whole DVD without a battery change or a dual battery.
On the road data and the ability to use it is more important than ever and a
RAID 1 array could really save the day. Mark my words on July 1 2004,
before too long we will see multi drive laptops configured with raid arrays.
Or not, but I personally believe it will happen.

--Dan
 
[ Snip ]
Would it be possible for 2 drives to be inside one housing with the main
reason being so you can connect 2 sata connectors for raid 0 ?
Click to expand...

Sure, it's possible. A while back IBM had a 5.25in drive that was
really a pair of 3.5in drives in the same enclosure, sharing a single
interface. (I seem to recall that the total size was ~4GB, i.e. each
3.5in mechanism was 2GB or so).

It worked, and worked well, but wasn't a commercial success since it
didn't save much over two 3.5in drives.

However, the issue with most notebook systems is the tradeoff between
size, weight and power. If you doubled the number of disks, you'd
double the power consumption of your disk subsystem, which would drive
the demand for a larger battery subsystem, etc. So you could
compromise by using slower (i.e. lower power consuming) disks, which
would make sense for RAID-1 reasons, but probably not when compared to
a single fast disk.

In short, you've stumbled into the portable-vs-laptop argument that
raged back in the late 1980s/early 1990s, which resolved itself by
recognizing that small, light computers with excellent battery life
sold better than big, heavy computers with poor battery specs. That
said, there *is* a market for battery-less portables, which is growing
due to the ready availability of external power sources (e.g. on
airplanes, either by in-seat power or by separate external battery
bricks). But as a market segment, it's not nearly as important as the
opposite philosophy: tiny, light systems with good synchronization
capabilities (i.e. super-PDA's).

Malc.
 
You might add an external hard drive (PC card, USB, etc). Even if there
is physical space for a second internal drive (doubtful), laptops run so
hot that the second drive would most likely cause things to overheat.
Click to expand...

Errr... My (old) Dell Latitude C810 (and it's siblings, the C800 and
C820, plus some Inspirons, to return to the point) happily runs with
two internal drives. Right now, it has two 40GB IBM 5400rpm drives,
plus its DVD-R/-RAM drive on the side. Even an ancient Inspiron 3700
could handle the second drive (but in that case it had to sacrifice
any CD-ROM or floppy drive to do it).

BUT: the second drive is removable, and gets replaced with a second
battery when I travel. With both batteries, the thing will play DVDs
for 4 to 5 hours (err... I mean, it will let me work very, very hard
for 4 to 5 hours)...

Malc.
 
I have a Toshiba 8100 in which I've replaced the DVD drive with a third-party
carrier which contains a second hard drive. I have a CD drive in the expansion
bay, but obviously I don't have a CD drive when using the machine as as a true
portable.

I boot XP off the first drive, and FreeBSD 5.2-CURRENT off the second drive.

The carrier came off eBay; it was made for an older Toshiba machine, but works
fine in the 8100.

I have no idea if this solution works on the Inspiron 8200.
Click to expand...

Yup. Actually, having done some homework, the I8200 is the Latitude
C820, so it's pretty much identical to my Latitude C810.

So the OP can happily stuff a second hard drive in the "removable
media bay", retain their "fixed optical"
CD-ROM/CD-RW/DVD/DVD-R/whatever drive on the side, and away they go.

The BIOS will let you boot off either disk...

(Actually, if you flash the BIOS so it thinks that it's a Latitude
C820 instead of an Inspiron 8200, you can put it in a C/Dock-II
docking station and get a *third* disk via the additional media bay in
the station. You can boot off that, too, IIRC).

The necessary Dell disk carriers are all over eBay, and cost less than
$40 or so...
Mike Squires
Click to expand...

Malc.
 
Malcolm said:
Errr... My (old) Dell Latitude C810 (and it's siblings, the C800 and
C820, plus some Inspirons, to return to the point) happily runs with
two internal drives. Right now, it has two 40GB IBM 5400rpm drives,
plus its DVD-R/-RAM drive on the side. Even an ancient Inspiron 3700
could handle the second drive (but in that case it had to sacrifice
any CD-ROM or floppy drive to do it).

BUT: the second drive is removable, and gets replaced with a second
battery when I travel. With both batteries, the thing will play DVDs
for 4 to 5 hours (err... I mean, it will let me work very, very hard
for 4 to 5 hours)...
Click to expand...

That sounds like it's designed to accept a second drive. I was thinking
of trying to add a second hard drive to a laptop not designed to accept
one. The biggest problem is most likely heat rather than space.
 
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