Has anyone had any experience using the Toshiba (also sold as Kingston) 5GB PC Card hard disk? The pricing on it doesn’t seem too bad at $150 . I figure since our TRs are limited to only 30-40GB having another 5GB would be nice.

My only real concern is how much battery life it would use during typical sessions. I know it won’t be completely negligible but it would be nice to know a ballpark figure.

I envision using it to store my digital photos/digital audio libraries on it and then transporting it to my desktop system for quick and direct transfers.

It would be awesome if they offered larger sizes since the 5GB model has been out for some time. But 5GB is a decent amount of space…

I have the smaller capacity 2GB Kingston model, purchased back in 2000 for the ridiculous price of $550 to use with my now ancient iPaq 3630. It works pretty well, and I haven’t really noticed a drop-off in battery life. The power management is pretty good, and it will spin down when not in use for a few minutes. Transfer rates can be a little on the slow side at times, I’m not sure if it’s because the drive is old or what. It’s a pretty good deal at $150, but considering the nature of hard drives, I mainly use a 1GB Memory Stick Pro in the media slot.

I forgot to mention that the drive sticks out of the slot a little bit, as do many PCMCIA cards on the TR, and has some sharp edges that can catch on things. Some pics of mine in action:

Sorry, forgot to login, this was me.  Thanks.

Thanks fellow-forum members…

Ok, I might have to check out this drive. It seems like the battery ddrain issue is not much of an issue so it might be a worthy travel companion. I guess one could fit on several DivX’d movies on the 5GB drive for travel. Also, the specs seem to indicate that it probably uses less battery than the DVD drive so it’s probably a good alternative.

I don’t mind if it sticks out a little bit. As long as it fits in my case…which it should.

I also have the 2gig Kingston that I found on TechBargains.com for $80, 2 years ago (sorry Cellery).  Have never had a problem with it.  I agree it is a tad slow, but I just use it to back up critical data from my TR2 (quicken, mail file, contacts ...)

One thing I will say ... for not accessing it much, and being spun down most of the time ... this sucker gets HOT inside the PC.

-Drew

Prototype’s experience with the heat is the same as mine, I recently copied a 1.4GB file to the PCMCIA HDD and besides taking forever (I’ve been spoiled by the FireWire transfer speed of my iPod), it got very very hot. If there’s going to be constant disk access, then make sure the PCMCIA slot area gets adequate ventilation. Still an excellent TR accessory though, especially with that nice pricetag.

Yeah, I think that pretty much any kind of PCMCIA/PCCard card gets pretty hot. Most of the ones I’ve used over the years get fairly warm so I’m not surprised that something like this gets really warm.

I’m still torturing myself over this I’m finger hovers over the buy button on that website… :wink:

A really cool accessory that Toshiba put out was this 5GB PCMCIA hard drive inside an enclosure with a battery and a Bluetooth chip, so you could have a portable wireless hard drive. I would get one if it was cheap, though the transfer rate would be unbearably slow.

Ooh, that’s cool…but yeah, it would be way too slow for my needs. I’m still wavering on this 5GB drive…i think it would be really helpful…but i’m wondering if it’s worth it. Also, I’m worried about what the power drain is like… :?

For those of you that have one, what is your typical usage of the drive?

You only see about an 8-10% increase in power drain, though that’s quite a bit compared to a 10% savings using a flash card. It’s interesting that the movies I play off of the PCMCIA hard drive can get choppy at times, almost as if the drive can’t keep up transfer-rate wise. The movies play fine off of the hard drive or a Memory Stick, but not off of the PCMCIA card. The specs of the drive indicate that it should be able to handle about 1MB/sec transfer, but that hasn’t been the case for me.

hey, i am thinking of buying TR2, but I have 1 concern. Can TR2 power up an external USB2.0 portable Harddisk? My current IBM notebook sometimes can’t power up my external USB2.0 portable Harddisk.  :(

Yes and no.

The TR series notebooks can power USB2 portable hard disks as long as they are 1.8” or 2.5” types.

If the USB2 hard disk is of the 3.5” variety then the TR notebooks (and essentially any computer out on the market) cannot supply enough power.

So, it depends on the type of hard disk used in your “portable” hard disk.

Ok you guys and gals…I did the evil deed and ordered the 5GB PC card! Woohoo! Of course, I will share impressions and stuff when I get it…once i finish my forthcoming reviews…yeah, I’m lagging…but it’s all coming along. I had to rearrange my work area so that’s been delaying all of my plans…but now it’s done so the reviews should start coming again…