[admin] 2.5" hard disk

[steve ravet]

Peter Gargano wrote:
> 
> At the expense of a making a blanket statement:
> Most laptops use a 2.5" drive with a 44 pin IDE interface
> that includes the power (+5 volts needed only - usually)
> Most PCs use a 3.5" drive with a 40 pin IDE connector and
> a separate 4 pin +12 and +5 Volt connector. Note that the
> 44 pin connector is basically the 40 pin connector with the
> extra 4 pins carrying the power. Consequently, you can buy an
> adapter that lets you you use a 44 pin IDE drive with a 40
> pin cable AND a 4 pin power connector.
> 
> But this all begs the obvious question - why use a 2.5"
> drive when a 3.5" drive is probably cheaper (and dare I
> suggest - more reliable - or are laptop drives less reliable
> because people drop them more often?)
> 
> Plus, are we jumping the gun here? What has Steve/Orin/John/etc.
> decided about a new server?

The decision has been made -- Jon Valesh has graciously loaned us his
slightly used Alpha to host the WWW pages, lists, and ftp site.  This
Alpha was only used on Sundays by his grandmother to browse the internet
and is in cherry condition!

Anyway, it only has space for 1 2.5" drive, and that's what we need to
get going.  Not surprisingly there don't seem to be many spares lying
around in the size we're looking for, so we'll probably buy one and pass
the hat.  Shouldn't be more than $200 or so.  More on that at a later
time.


-- 
Steve Ravet
steve.ravet at arm.com
Advanced Risc Machines, Inc.
www.arm.com