Transportable disk drive Seagate of 160 Gbytes

Evgenie Rudometov

Rudometov@rudometov.com

Expanding the bar of transportable disk drives, Seagate corporation has presented on the computer market model Seagate 160GB Portable External Hard Drive, created on the basis of a 2,5-inch hard disk (HDD)

From development and implantation time microfloppy (3,5 ") diskettes with informational size of 1,44 Mb regularly played a role of the general-purpose carrier. Together with appropriate drives they many years were a convenient resource for durable storage of programs and data. Besides, thanks to the wide prevalence they fulfilled functions of the original general-purpose interface providing informational link between different computers that gave possibility of carrying over of programs and data.

However the size of this popular carrier has ceased to correspond for a long time already to permanently increasing possibilities of the computer industry and requirements of users. The replaced diskettes on this post various removable mass storages also could not troubleshoot carrying over of effective storage of great volumes of the information. The given circumstance became a consequence of perfection and complicating of the system and applied software, demanding more and more capacious carriers. Really, any more the rarity files, whose size is gauged in gigabytes.

It is obvious, that the considerable quantity of carriers at copying of the information demands rather big efforts and time. Moreover, carriers cease to arrange by such important criterion, as dependability and the price.

Not pressing in technical parametres of the enumerated resources, it is necessary to mark, that all of them possess both conclusive advantages, and some limitations.

As to resources for carrying over of programs and data in case of real great volumes of the information hard disk drives (HDD) remain champions as on information capacity, and low cost of storage of unit of the information.

As an example of arrangements for resocks and storages of programs and files it is possible to result the transportable USB-disk drives created and made by company Seagate.

This company is the world's largest manufacturer of hard disk drives of different form factors. However, not being limited to a role of the supplier of the given components, this company has created a number of external disk drives. Among them the visible place is occupied with models Seagate Portable External Hard Drive which is hooked up to computers by means of widespread interface USB  2.0.

 

Package Seagate Portable External Hard Drive

The package of USB-disk drive Seagate Portable External Hard Drive in size of 160 Gbytes is presented in a Fig. 1.

This package consists of following components:

·         Boxes,

·         the Transportable USB-disk drive,

·         the Cable of hooking up of the USB-disk drive to computer USB-ports. Thus the green plug is for an information transfer, dark blue - for the additional power supplies necessary in case of insufficient power supply through the dark blue plug. The second plug is necessary in case of usage of models of the notebooks which are not supporting to the full specifications USB 2.0,

·         the Short description in several languages (except Russian),

·         CD-ROM with the software.

Fig. 1. Package Seagate Portable External Hard Drive.

Key parametres Portable External Hard Drive

Arrangement Seagate Portable External Hard Drive (further — Portable External Hard Drive) is oriented to the computer market of compact transportable disk drives. Its dimensions correspond to a traditional notepad that allows to transfer easily the given arrangement, for example, in an internal pocket of a jacket.

By means of such disk drives it is possible to save great volumes of programs and the data reaching now for upper model 160 of a Gbyte (  1000 000 000 byte). It allows not only to transfer without problems from the computer on the computer files of practically non-limiting value, but also to use such arrangements as the resources expanding an information field of disk subsystems. Transportable disk drives can be shared both with servers and workstations, and with desktop and transportable computers.

Short parametres PortableExternal Hard Drive are resulted in Table 1.

Table 1. Short parametres of disk drive Portable External Hard Drive

Size, a Gbyte	To 160
The sizes, mm	25 h 94 h 127
Weight, g	292
The interface	USB 2.0, compatibility USB 1.1
Power supplies	Through USB
Noise level, db	23
Operating systems	Win XP/2000/ME, Mac OS 8.6, Win 98/SE

In arrangement Portable External Hard Drive the metal envelope of stylish design which provides the high dependability necessary for transportable arrangements uses.

Basis of disk drives Portable External Hard Drive are 2,5-inch HDD Seagate. Depending on models disks of different sizes use. For topovoj the model which are now high in bar Portable External Hard Drive, it is applied HDD Seagate ST9160821A. The given hard disk concerns the bar of disk drives in which the method of perpendicular writing (Perpendicular) is used, providing essentially more high density of allocation of the information on the carrier. It became possible thanks to perpendicular layout of magnetic domains whereas in earlier released models the traditional their parallel layout demanding bolshej square at equivalent density of written data used.

Short parametres HDD Seagate ST9160821A are resulted in Table 2.

Table 2. Short параметрыHDD Seagate ST9160821A

Size, a Gbyte	160
The interface	Ultra ATA/100
Writing method	Perpendicular
Speed of rotation of disks, rpm	5400
Quantity of disks/heads, sht	2/4
Internal transfer rate, Mb per second	44
Average access time, msec	12,5
The built in cache memory, Mb	8
Noise level, db	23
The sizes, mm	9,5 h 70 h 100
Power supplies, In	+5 (±5 %)
Weight, g	102
Guarantee, years	5

Realised in Portable External Hard Drive hardware-software resources of interface USB 2.0 do not demand installation of additional drivers. The given resources are compatible to all widespread operating systems and provide a data transfer high speed: speed limit of the interface — to 60 Mb per second.

Arrangement Portable External Hard Drive easily and was defined at once by WindowsXP operating system after its hooking up to the transportable computer. The menu fragment testifies to it «the Manager of arrangements», resulted on a Fig. 2.

Fig. 2. A menu fragment «the Manager of arrangements» after hooking up to disk drive Portable External Hard Drive notebook

High-speed parametres of transportable disk drive Portable External Hard Drive have been defined testing process. Results of the given testing are presented more low.

Testing Portable External Hard Drive

As a computer platform for testing of transportable disk drive Seagate Portable External Hard Drive in size of 160 Gbytes compact notebook Fujitsu Siemens LIFEBOOK P7010 used. Into its structure enter:

·         Motherboard FUJITSUFJNB189 (the processor bus of 400 MHz, Intel chip set 855GME with the built in graphics subsystem and ICH4-M),

·         Intel of Pentium M ULV 733 (1.10 GHz, 2048 Kbytes of cache memory L2, clock rate of the processor bus of 100 MHz that provides data transfer with frequency of 400 MHz),

·         the Disk drive on hard 2,5-inch magnetic disks HDD FUJITSU MHT2060AT in size of 60 Gbytes,

·         Units of dynamic storage DDR333 SDRAM of 512 Mb,

·         the Videoadapter presented by resources of the built in drawing of a chip set of Intel 855GME,

·         Optical drive MATSHITA UJDA755 DVD/CDRW,

·         the Operating system of Microsoft Windows XP HomeEdition.

After hooking up Portable External Hard Drive to a notebook in a window «My computer» appears a new logical disk. By means of a choice of appropriate options it is possible to output on the display screen of value of information capacity. In a Fig. 3 and Fig. 4 are presented menu fragments «My computer» and "Properties".

Fig. 3. A menu fragment «My computer» after hooking up to disk drive Portable External Hard Drive notebook

Fig. 4. A fragment of the menu of "Property"

As resources of an estimation of high-speed parametres Portable External Hard Drive tests of package SiSoftwareSandra have been used. The received results are presented in a Fig. 5.

Fig. 5. High-speed parametres Portable External Hard Drive

As follows from the presented results, disk drive Portable External Hard Drive possesses not only high size, but also good speed regulation characteristics. It allows to recommend the given arrangement as a carrying over and information storage effective remedy.

Transportable disk drive Seagate 160GB Portable External Hard Drive has been given by company EASTSIDEConsulting, notebook Fujitsu Siemens LIFEBOOKP7010 — the Moscow representation of company Fujitsu SiemensComputers