From: Kevin Jarrett (kevin_jarrett_at_hotmail.com)
Date: Sun Dec 23 2001 - 14:47:10 EST
Well it's not really been an that much of an adventure but anyway...
Finally got my DJSA-232 installed. First impressions: super QUIET and FAST
but man does it get hot! My palms were sweaty before, now they're really
bad.
Quiet - I can barely hear the drive running and accesses are nearly silent.
My T21 is a year old and it's gotten nearly 70 hours of use a week for the
entire year. I found the comment about whiny drives after a year very true!
Speed - HDTach reports an access time of 16.3ms (vs. 21ms with the Hitachi);
burst read at 26mbps (no change)and average throughput of 14.5mbps (no
change). I am suprised by the access time improvement and lack of change in
throughput but I am still happy.
Heat - I will have to install the IBM tools to keep an eye on the drive. At
least it's got the ability to monitor temps.
Anyway, on to the adventures...
REMOVING THE HD COVER - the T21 does it DIFFERENTLY than other 264x class
machines I've seen. The little cover is secured by a screw, yes, but the
cover itself is ATTACHED TO THE DRIVE AND THE CADDY. On all the other
Thinkpads I've done this for, the cover popped off easily, then there was a
little tab that you pulled to disengage the drive. Not so in this case. You
have to disengage the drive from its connector by PRYING THE COVER OFF. If
there's another way I'd love to know what it is, the Access Thinkpad help
screen was useless.
REMOVING THE CADDY - what IS IT about the screws on the sides of these
things? The heads are barely strong enough to turn the screws and they are
frozen tight. I had to use a mini pair of Vise-Grips to hold the screw head
from up top (on its sides) to loosen them. WTF? Once the screws were off,
the caddy itself was GLUED TO THE DRIVE WITH DOUBLE SIDED TAPE, some of
which came off easily, some of which didn't, resulting in a slight bending
of the caddy, despite me using a thin plastic ruler to gently pry it off. My
advice, if you're going to do this, have another caddy handy just in case.
Well it's all over now and thanks to Ghost I was up and running with the new
drive in about 20 minutes after installation. I'll keep an eye on the heat
but the speed and quiet are most welcome. I wonder how hot the fluid-bearing
drive gets...hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm... ;)
Happy holidays everyone,
-kj-
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