[ltp] Slightly OT - 600E Max Hard Drive Size

[wes schreiner]

Rob Smith wrote:

>This is a question for all you 600 users out there. I currently have the
>original size hard drive in my TP 600E, loaded with SuSE 9.0 Pro. I would
>like to have more space. Will the 600E accept a 30 or 40GB hard drive and
>recognize it all under Linux? I am not going to be running any form of M$
>Windoze on this machine.
>  
>

You won't have any problem with any 2.5" drive you can buy today.  A 
year ago I took the 6GB Hitachi DK239A-65B drive out of my 600E and 
installed a 40MB IBM (now Hitachi) TravelStar 40GB 4200 RPM.  Then I got 
hard drive adapter for the UltraBay, so now, when I need it, I have both 
drives online.  I am very happy with my hard drive upgrade, and there 
are absolutely no problems with installing a new drive.  The 600 series 
has an PIIX4 IDE controller that is restricted ATA/33 (UDMA(33) in Linux 
terms), but that is a good match for the processor speed.  Any new drive 
you get will be ATA/66 or ATA/100 so you won't be getting those kind of 
peak transfer speeds, but you will benefit from the larger cache size 
and the higher sustained transfer speeds.  I went from

/dev/hdc:
 Timing buffer-cache reads:   376 MB in  2.01 seconds = 187.06 MB/sec
 Timing buffered disk reads:   28 MB in  3.18 seconds =   8.81 MB/sec

to

/dev/hda:
 Timing buffer-cache reads:   376 MB in  2.01 seconds = 187.06 MB/sec
 Timing buffered disk reads:   60 MB in  3.06 seconds =  19.61 MB/sec


Neither Linux or Windows will have any problem with any size drive you 
can get in your 600E.  You are running the latest (and probably final) 
BIOS, version inet35ww or ihet47ww, depending on exactly which model 
600E you have.  See this IBM link for the current BIOS for the 600, 
600E, and 600X:

http://www-306.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/DSHY-3TLQ2L.html?lang=en_US&page=brand&brand=root&doctype=&subtype=Cat

wes