#230814 - 16/08/2004 21:43
An unexpected surprise (100GB)
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 15/08/2000
Posts: 4859
Loc: New Jersey, USA
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Greetings! While wandering ZipZoomFly for other stuff, I happened to stumble on a Fujitsu 100GB laptop hard drive. Back ordered. But it gives an interesting price point and shows that Toshiba's competition is very close behind!
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Paul Grzelak
200GB with 48MB RAM, Illuminated Buttons and Digital Outputs
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#230815 - 16/08/2004 21:52
Re: An unexpected surprise (100GB)
[Re: pgrzelak]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 05/01/2001
Posts: 4903
Loc: Detroit, MI USA
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Aw man! I just installed an 80gb a few weeks ago and my "to add" folder is larger than the 20GB it gave me in increased capacity!
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Brad B.
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#230816 - 16/08/2004 21:57
Re: An unexpected surprise (100GB)
[Re: SE_Sport_Driver]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 15/08/2000
Posts: 4859
Loc: New Jersey, USA
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Searching around the web, I am finding a few places that have these available. Did I miss some big announcement or something? Did Fujitsu beat Toshiba to market? Anyone have any info on these, or will I be the first...
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Paul Grzelak
200GB with 48MB RAM, Illuminated Buttons and Digital Outputs
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#230817 - 16/08/2004 22:02
Re: An unexpected surprise (100GB)
[Re: pgrzelak]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 05/01/2001
Posts: 4903
Loc: Detroit, MI USA
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Is that a joke? ? You're always the first! Don't let us down! 
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Brad B.
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#230818 - 16/08/2004 22:06
Re: An unexpected surprise (100GB)
[Re: SE_Sport_Driver]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 15/08/2000
Posts: 4859
Loc: New Jersey, USA
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I have never dealt with the Fujitsu drives, and none of my normal online stores seem to know about them. But a few stores in a google search have them, and their real-time inventory checks show them in stock. I normally stick with Toshiba and IBM/Hitachi drives, but I am willing to try Fujitsu. I am just wondering if I am horribly misreading a spec somewhere... I would have expected to hear something about the company first to ship 100GB laptop drives - if not here then in the trade press...
<finger poised on the mouse button to order...>
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Paul Grzelak
200GB with 48MB RAM, Illuminated Buttons and Digital Outputs
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#230819 - 16/08/2004 22:10
Re: An unexpected surprise (100GB)
[Re: pgrzelak]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 15/08/2000
Posts: 4859
Loc: New Jersey, USA
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Okay. I just read the spec sheet on Fujisu's site and triple checked the part number. It looks real. It looks right. It looks very tasty!!! <click> <sigh...> I feel much better now... 
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Paul Grzelak
200GB with 48MB RAM, Illuminated Buttons and Digital Outputs
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#230820 - 16/08/2004 22:12
Re: An unexpected surprise (100GB)
[Re: pgrzelak]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 24/12/2001
Posts: 5528
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Would people please form an orderly queue for Paul's 80GB drives...
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#230821 - 16/08/2004 22:18
Re: An unexpected surprise (100GB)
[Re: tman]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 15/08/2000
Posts: 4859
Loc: New Jersey, USA
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I have at least two people at the office that were asking about my old 80s. I will not take preorders or anything until ... a) the new hard drives arrive b) they are proven to be as advertised c) they are installed, tested and working in all of my players d) those that already asked me at the office will get first shot e) I will then post exactly what is left f) all drives will be wiped before shipping. Sorry, but any new owners will probably not like my taste in music anyway.
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Paul Grzelak
200GB with 48MB RAM, Illuminated Buttons and Digital Outputs
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#230822 - 16/08/2004 22:24
Re: An unexpected surprise (100GB)
[Re: pgrzelak]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 24/12/2001
Posts: 5528
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Nah. I wasn't interested. Just everytime you do your very frequent storage upgrades there is a mad rush to get the old drives
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#230823 - 16/08/2004 22:27
Re: An unexpected surprise (100GB)
[Re: tman]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 15/08/2000
Posts: 4859
Loc: New Jersey, USA
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I have already had one email request that I politely put on hold for now. In a fit of paranoia, I called the company to make sure that they were real and that the drives were really what I thought they were and that they were in stock. After rambling (like that last sentence) for a minute or so, I was told "yes" on all counts. $288 each with free UPS Ground shipping. A bit expensive for a mere 100GB when you can get an 80GB for much less, but if you need the capacity...
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Paul Grzelak
200GB with 48MB RAM, Illuminated Buttons and Digital Outputs
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#230824 - 16/08/2004 22:28
Re: An unexpected surprise (100GB)
[Re: pgrzelak]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 05/01/2001
Posts: 4903
Loc: Detroit, MI USA
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I'm interested to see how your Builder Image works on this with your new RAM! 
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Brad B.
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#230825 - 16/08/2004 22:33
Re: An unexpected surprise (100GB)
[Re: SE_Sport_Driver]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 15/08/2000
Posts: 4859
Loc: New Jersey, USA
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I am curious also. But I might just build them manually. Especially because Roger is recommending different parameters for the partitioning / filesystem builds than what was used in the old builder software.
More to follow...
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Paul Grzelak
200GB with 48MB RAM, Illuminated Buttons and Digital Outputs
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#230826 - 16/08/2004 22:37
Re: An unexpected surprise (100GB)
[Re: pgrzelak]
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Carpal Tunnel
Registered: 08/02/2002
Posts: 3411
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Paul, you should buy a fifth player so you have the bragging rights of owning 1TB of mp3 storage!
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Mk2a 60GB Blue. Serial 030102962
sig.mp3: File Format not Valid.
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#230827 - 16/08/2004 22:41
Re: An unexpected surprise (100GB)
[Re: pgrzelak]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 05/01/2001
Posts: 4903
Loc: Detroit, MI USA
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It's a shame we can't get an updated builder...
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Brad B.
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#230828 - 16/08/2004 22:56
Re: An unexpected surprise (100GB)
[Re: SE_Sport_Driver]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 24/12/2001
Posts: 5528
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Oh yeah... I said I was going to do that...
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#230829 - 17/08/2004 00:06
Re: An unexpected surprise (100GB)
[Re: pgrzelak]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 29/08/2000
Posts: 14496
Loc: Canada
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I have a very reliable (and silent!) Fujitsu 80GB drive here. Love it!
Hopefully their 100GB models will be just as good or better.
Cheers
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#230830 - 17/08/2004 00:54
Re: An unexpected surprise (100GB)
[Re: mlord]
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journeyman
Registered: 02/07/2004
Posts: 95
Loc: 384400 km from the Moon
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Does the extra 20 GB of storage really justify the cost [$288 shipped]? For this much I would at least expect to have 120 GB  Paul, are you sure you just bought only one drive and not a batch? Fujitsu might have given you a discount as a beta tester The price is quite steep and I'm sure it will be more reasonable once the usual suspects will ship their own offerings. Meanwhile, Paul, please put me in line for your two finest 80 GB drives [clean or dirty]
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#230831 - 17/08/2004 01:55
Re: An unexpected surprise (100GB)
[Re: pgrzelak]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 24/01/2002
Posts: 3937
Loc: Providence, RI
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That really seems like not a bad price for a laptop disk of that size... but my music collection is stagnating around 60gb.
I should really find some time to work on that project I keep thinking about...
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#230832 - 17/08/2004 08:28
Re: An unexpected surprise (100GB)
[Re: Daria]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 15/08/2000
Posts: 4859
Loc: New Jersey, USA
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Greetings!
Let's see... (I read in flat mode, so this is likely to cross over a few subthreads...)
1TB. An interesting possibility, but I will have to pass on that for now. Not that the bragging rights wouldn't be cool. It is just that I already have plenty of redundant hardware and anything else would be further overkill. Plus I would have the 1TB storage, but it is cheating if it is used to store five copies of the same data...
As it is, this purchase has delayed my planned computer system upgrade / rebuild.
I will let you know how the 100s work out. They are on order and I should get them soon. I did not express ship this time, because I will not be able to get to them until the weekend anyway. So if someone wants to try for faster delivery to get the first 200GB (nominal capacity) player, the window of opportunity is open (but rapidly closing).
As for the price, it really is not that bad. On a price per gigabyte, yes, these are the highest cost laptop drives out there. But the capacity cannot be matched. I was wondering if Toshiba will try to "top this" with a 120GB drive also. They must be pretty close. But this is a good capacity for me - it should fit all of my data (no more offline archives) and leave some small room for expansion.
I am just a little surprised, and still slightly skeptical that the major PC OEM market and the other vendors do not semm to have them on their radar yet. Perhaps Toshiba was spending more time with their contracts and partnerships than with development and production...
In any case, I will document my adventures. Mark has already pushed the empeg capacity well beyond this with initial IDE testing (long ago using desktop drives), so I am fairly confident this will work.
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Paul Grzelak
200GB with 48MB RAM, Illuminated Buttons and Digital Outputs
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#230833 - 17/08/2004 09:58
Re: An unexpected surprise (100GB)
[Re: pgrzelak]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 05/01/2001
Posts: 4903
Loc: Detroit, MI USA
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My 80GB Hitachi drives are much thinner than my older IBM/Hitachi 60GB drives. Actually, I'm surprised that it has taken them this long to come out with 80gb drives. Seems like they could have added one platter to the 80GB models to be as thick as the older 60gb drives and had them out long ago. I guess two possibilities are a) the market no longer allows for taller 2.5" drives since notebooks are getting smaller and smaller or b) they've been sitting on 100gb drives for some time now and have simply been waiting for the demand to materialize.
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Brad B.
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#230834 - 17/08/2004 10:46
Re: An unexpected surprise (100GB)
[Re: pgrzelak]
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addict
Registered: 08/08/2001
Posts: 452
Loc: NZ
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Take it from me a former notebook repair specialist repairs involved Toshiba, Compaq/HP, IBM, NEC, Acer notebooks..
The Fujitsu notebook hard drives are pretty damned good.. I rate them higher than IBM/Hitachi, and Toshiba drives.
We had the worst failure rates with the IBM travelstars (since Hitachi took over they are getting better), then came the Toshiba’s. We use only Fujitsu for capacity upgrades and out of warranty drive replacements.
The Fujitsu drives are the quietest and coolest in operation and the Toshiba's are the loudest.
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#230835 - 18/08/2004 10:46
Re: An unexpected surprise (100GB)
[Re: JaBZ]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 15/08/2000
Posts: 4859
Loc: New Jersey, USA
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Greetings!
Thanks for the input with the Fujitsu's. That is great to hear!!!
Meanwhile, folks, do not expect a huge amount of hard drives to become available with this. Talking with some folks at work, I discovered (on trying to fix one of my co-worker's ancient laptops) that most of them are running with 20GB or less! I think I might have a bout of mercy and help them out, even though it goes against my nature to do anything that would help my company be cheap!
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Paul Grzelak
200GB with 48MB RAM, Illuminated Buttons and Digital Outputs
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#230836 - 18/08/2004 11:44
Re: An unexpected surprise (100GB)
[Re: pgrzelak]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 17/01/2002
Posts: 3996
Loc: Manchester UK
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Quote:
I think I might have a bout of mercy and help them out, even though it goes against my nature to do anything that would help my company be cheap!
I can sympathize with that....
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Cheers,
Andy M
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#230837 - 21/08/2004 11:31
100GB: Update
[Re: andym]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 15/08/2000
Posts: 4859
Loc: New Jersey, USA
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They have arrived...
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Paul Grzelak
200GB with 48MB RAM, Illuminated Buttons and Digital Outputs
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#230838 - 21/08/2004 11:55
Re: 100GB: Update
[Re: pgrzelak]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 29/08/2000
Posts: 14496
Loc: Canada
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Cool.
Once you have one of them plugged into a Linux computer (or Empeg), send me a copy of /proc/ide/hda/identify (replace hda with drive name)
Thanks
Edited by mlord (21/08/2004 11:56)
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#230839 - 21/08/2004 12:03
Re: 100GB: Update
[Re: mlord]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 15/08/2000
Posts: 4859
Loc: New Jersey, USA
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I am starting to build them now. Is this what you would like? (See attached file)
Probing primary interface...
hdb: FUJITSU MHU2100AT, ATA DISK drive
hdb: FUJITSU MHU2100AT, ATA DISK drive
hdb: FUJITSU MHU2100AT, ATA DISK drive
hda: IC25N080ATMR04-0, ATA DISK drive
hdb: FUJITSU MHU2100AT, ATA DISK drive
ide0 at 0x000-0x007,0x038 on irq 6
hda: IC25N080ATMR04-0, 76319MB w/7884kB Cache, CHS=9729/255/63
hdb: FUJITSU MHU2100AT, 95396MB w/8192kB Cache, CHS=12161/255/63
Attachments
230207-proc-ide-hdb-identify (264 downloads)
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Paul Grzelak
200GB with 48MB RAM, Illuminated Buttons and Digital Outputs
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#230840 - 21/08/2004 12:59
Re: 100GB: Update
[Re: pgrzelak]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 15/08/2000
Posts: 4859
Loc: New Jersey, USA
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Time for a change of sig... Meanwhile, I guess it is futile to rant about the marketing measurement of disk space vs. the real measurement of disk space... Still, 186GB isn't that bad...
Roger, your manual build instructions were perfect! No problems at all with either of the two drives. I am going to soak test this pair for a little while before populating LabRat (my experimental player) with audio. But first, Hijack and some config.ini data...
Edited by pgrzelak (21/08/2004 13:19)
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Paul Grzelak
200GB with 48MB RAM, Illuminated Buttons and Digital Outputs
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#230841 - 25/08/2004 21:27
Re: 100GB: Update
[Re: pgrzelak]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 18/06/2001
Posts: 2504
Loc: Roma, Italy
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It's so good to be back from vacation (4466 Km with my empeg on our side, all the way to Santiago da Compostela from Rome!) and see that some things don't change! Congratulations Paul! I am seriously thinking to get a 100Gb whenever I can find one, and replace my two 30GB, making my empeg lighter and cooler (and bigger, fo course) P.S.: while away, I received a second letter from you with the second set of meory chips, which I am now sending to whoever needs them. If interested, please see the For Sale forum.
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= Taym =
MK2a #040103216 * 100Gb *All/Colors* Radio * 3.0a11 * Hijack = taympeg
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#230842 - 26/08/2004 03:36
Re: 100GB: Update
[Re: pgrzelak]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 29/08/2000
Posts: 14496
Loc: Canada
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Code:
ATA device, with non-removable media
Model Number: FUJITSU MHU2100AT
Serial Number: NQ04T46259ES
Firmware Revision: 00000008
Standards:
Used: ATA/ATAPI-6 T13 1410D revision 3a
Supported: 6 5 4 3
Configuration:
Logical max current
cylinders 16383 16383
heads 16 16
sectors/track 63 63
--
CHS current addressable sectors: 16514064
LBA user addressable sectors: 195371568
device size with M = 1024*1024: 95396 MBytes
device size with M = 1000*1000: 100030 MBytes (100 GB)
Capabilities:
LBA, IORDY(cannot be disabled)
bytes avail on r/w long: 4 Queue depth: 1
Standby timer values: spec'd by Standard, no device specific minimum
R/W multiple sector transfer: Max = 16 Current = 4
Advanced power management level: 128 (0x80)
Recommended acoustic management value: 254, current value: 254
DMA: mdma0 mdma1 *mdma2 udma0 udma1 udma2 udma3 udma4 udma5
Cycle time: min=120ns recommended=120ns
PIO: pio0 pio1 pio2 pio3 pio4
Cycle time: no flow control=240ns IORDY flow control=120ns
Commands/features:
Enabled Supported:
* READ BUFFER cmd
* WRITE BUFFER cmd
* Host Protected Area feature set
* Look-ahead
* Write cache
* Power Management feature set
Security Mode feature set
* SMART feature set
* Mandatory FLUSH CACHE command
* Device Configuration Overlay feature set
* Automatic Acoustic Management feature set
SET MAX security extension
Power-Up In Standby feature set
* Advanced Power Management feature set
* DOWNLOAD MICROCODE cmd
* SMART self-test
* SMART error logging
Security:
Master password revision code = 65534
supported
not enabled
not locked
not frozen
not expired: security count
not supported: enhanced erase
100min for SECURITY ERASE UNIT.
HW reset results:
CBLID- above Vih
Device num = 1 determined by the jumper
Checksum: correct
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#230843 - 26/08/2004 08:25
Re: 100GB: Update
[Re: mlord]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 15/08/2000
Posts: 4859
Loc: New Jersey, USA
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Wow! You were able to get all of that from that single chunk of data??? Cool!
Meanwhile, an update. The disks stress tested well, rsync to copy the original 80GB drive contents completed successfully and I was able to move data around without problem. I am now loading up my "archive" folder of stuff I could not fit before. After that is completed and I rebuild the databases, I expect to have about 28GB free space on a 200GB (well, technically 186GB) empeg. Then I start building the next set...
For those that have been asking about my old 80GB drives, I had a few people from work ask for them, so if I have any left at all, it will not be many. So if you wrote to me about them already, or are waiting, it is unlikely that I will be selling drives on the board this time around. Sorry about that. See my posting above about that "bout of mercy" that I had when it came to those I deal with in the office...
I am actually quite pleased with the Fujitsu drives in terms of speed and noise. The performance is much better than I expected. I had not dealt with Fujitsu drives much before, and I was more than a little wary to start with, but I am extremely pleased by what I have seen so far.
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Paul Grzelak
200GB with 48MB RAM, Illuminated Buttons and Digital Outputs
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#230844 - 26/08/2004 10:50
Re: 100GB: Update
[Re: mlord]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 10/06/1999
Posts: 5916
Loc: Wivenhoe, Essex, UK
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Am I the only one who always reads "IORDY" as Lordy ?
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Remind me to change my signature to something more interesting someday
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#230845 - 26/08/2004 12:08
Re: 100GB: Update
[Re: pgrzelak]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 29/08/2000
Posts: 14496
Loc: Canada
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Technically, it's a 190.8GB array, or exactly 200GB in decimal measures. The "missing space" is the overhead of the Linux filesystem -- you know, on-disk structures for directories, file inodes, etc..
Hopefully the build process you have uses "-m0" as a flag to the "mke2fs" program, as otherwise it skims 5% off the top for "emergency" use -- a waste of space here and on most drives nowadays.
Cheers
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#230846 - 26/08/2004 12:24
Re: 100GB: Update
[Re: mlord]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 15/08/2000
Posts: 4859
Loc: New Jersey, USA
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"-m 0" was used, as per Roger's updated instructions. As for the filesystem structures, that is pretty much lost anyway. A blank disk is inherently not helpful for this particular application... Still, 200GB in marketspeak is not bad for capacity. And it certainly is better than MP3 format CDRs!!!
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Paul Grzelak
200GB with 48MB RAM, Illuminated Buttons and Digital Outputs
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#230847 - 26/08/2004 13:08
Re: 100GB: Update
[Re: mlord]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 25/12/2000
Posts: 16706
Loc: Raleigh, NC US
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Quote:
it skims 5% off the top for "emergency" use
But surely that space is reserved to only be writable by root, and root is the only user that exists on the empegs. While the notation would be there in the filesystem, it shouldn't have any practical effect, right?
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Bitt Faulk
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#230848 - 26/08/2004 22:37
Re: 100GB: Update
[Re: wfaulk]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 29/08/2000
Posts: 14496
Loc: Canada
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Yup, no practical effect, other than the under-reporting of available space. Which might be believed by (J)Emplode and friends.
Cheers
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