| From: | Martin Nicholson |
| Date: | 10 Aug 2000 at 16:07:21 |
| Subject: | Re: Hard Drive 2.5 or 3.5? |
Hiya Gareth
On 10-Aug-00, Gareth Griffiths wrote:
>> Can I use a 3.5" drive with my existing HD cable or do I need a new
>> cable? Are there any advantages in having a 2.5" drive over a 3.5"
>> drive?
>
> If you don't have a buffered interface, then no you can't. If you
> have a buffered interface, you can just connect the 3.5" drive up to
> one of the 40-pin ports, using a standard 40-pin IDE cable (you
> should be able to pick one up for a couple of quid from your local
> PC shop)
If you don't have a buffered interface you can, and you say so below
:)
> You can get cables to allow you to connect a 40pin device into a
> 44-pin socket (like the one on the A1200 motherboard) but they don't
> have the voltage cables, so you need a buffered interface really.
If you get a buffered interface, you'll still need the power leads,
unless they supply them.
Basically, if all you want to do for now is fit a 3� Hard drive, then
you can get a 44-40 cable from an Amiga dealer and connect it up.
Since you're running a tower, then you can take the power supply off the
tower PSU. Just try and keep the 44-40 cable as short as possible,
because the standard Amiga IDE is un-buffered. Later on, if you want
to fit more drives, inc CD-Rom drives, then you will need a buffered
interface. (though feasibly, you could fit two devices and still be
un-buffered). However, if you can afford to be sensible, then buy a
buffered interface right at the beginning. They do help protect
circuits on the Motherboard, and will also allow you to use longer
length connecting leads (~ 1 meter), as well as providing connections
for 4 IDE devices.
> That's my experience anyway. Why not get a buffered interface if you
> don't have one, and then you can use both drives at the same time.
This is potentially the biggest advantage of starting with an
interface, you can continue using the 2� drive as well as the new 3�.
However, the 2� will have to be the master drive on channel one (i.e.,
the boot drive) and most likely will not accept a slave device. Thus
the 3� will have to be the channel 2 master, and any other device will
have to be a slave on channel 2. SO, using the 2� means you will most
likely only be able to have 3 IDE devices connected in total.
>> Obviously the 3.5" drives are considerably cheaper than the 2.5"
>> drives so preferably I want to purchase one of those.
And they tend to be faster too :)
With Regards
Worzel
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