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Upgrading the Epson P2000--Part 1

John Hollenberg

New member
Meta.editorial™ A researched and evaluated contribution. 2006_opf_a0001

I have had an Epson P2000 for the last year or so. The image quality on the small LCD is fantastic, but I have started to wish for a larger storage capacity and faster access to the data on the hard disk. I ran across a post on DP Review quite some time ago describing this upgrade and finally decided to attempt it myself. Note that this is provided for informational purposes only. Opening the Epson P2000 will almost certainly void your warranty (mine is expired) and any damage you do is your own responsibility.

This post (Part 1) will cover the research I have done so far, the components I have selected and the directions I have located which make this a reasonable project. Part 2 will be submitted after I attempt the upgrade and will include a report of my success (or failure), pitfalls, and recommendations.

The thread on DP Review can be found here:

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1003&message=12096558

At first I was suspicious whether this was real and whether it could be accomplished by a mere mortal, but a video produced by Inkjetart.com and hosted by Google allayed my fears and gave a lot of specifics about how to do the upgrade:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3637613075261606641

Parts selection:

1) Hard disk - after reading the reviews I settled on the Hitachi 7200 RPM 100 GB IDE 2.5 inch hard disk to replace the current 40 GB hard disk. Note that you need an IDE hard disk, not SATA. The current hard disks in the 2.5 inch size are 9.5 mm thick. It isn't clear to me whether the 40 GB hard disk is the 9.5 mm thickness or an older standard of 12 mm, but from my reading I am pretty sure this disk will work fine. The increased areal density as well as the 7200 RPM speed should increase the speed of accessing data on the disk (I plan to test this with before and after). The Hitachi came in at the top of the heap for the drives that were reviewed:

http://www.storagereview.com/articles/200511/notebook_4.html

I had some concern about the amount of power needed by the higher rotational speed of this disk, but the 7200 RPM Hitachi did very well for idle power consumption compared to 5400 RPM hard disks, and had power use during a seek which was only about 20% higher than the slower hard disk average:

http://www.storagereview.com/articles/200511/notebook_7.html

This drive (Hitachi Travelstar 7K100) can be purchased from Newegg for $160 (current price):

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822146052

Note that you do NOT want to get the E7K100, which is a version of the drive intended for blade servers. The E7K100 has no power management and much lower heat tolerance, so it is not a good candidate for the upgrade.

2) An external case to use for cloning the original drive to the new drive. There are some very cheap external cases, but I settled on one that is slightly more expensive but a lot more flexible--the Macally PHR-250CC Aluminum 2.5" USB + IEEE 1394 External Enclosure ($33 current price):

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817146604

I chose this as a more robust enclosure with Firewire and USB connectivity and very good reviews from purchasers. In addition, I noted that a 12 mm high drive can still be used with this enclosure by leaving the top off. Apparently works well with both Mac and PC. If all goes well with the upgrade, I will install the 40 GB hard disk from the P2000 in the enclosure and use it as a small, convenient way to quickly transfer large amounts of data from one computer to another (often needed when purchasing a new computer and transferring programs and data to the new machine). This will certainly be faster and more convenient than burning CDs or DVDs to transfer the data.

3) Cloning Software - I already own Achronis True Image 8.0, which was the software used in the Google Video (about $50). Success has been reported with Norton Ghost and perhaps other software choices.

The parts (total of $216 including CA sales tax and shipping) were received today. Stay tuned for part 2, which is probably about 2 weeks away due to a backpacking/photography trip to the Sierra Nevada over Memorial Day.

--John
 
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Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
John,

I am delighted to inform you that your post meets the criteria for a researched topic which leverages and attributes other peoples hard work.

Since you add you own points of view, your post is now classified as a meta.editorial™.

Asher
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Gift!

Well, John, seeing that you have the first meta.editorial™, I am offering you one of the gifts I purchased to celebrate by birthday last week and the opening of the forum. This is my small way of saying "Thanks!"

Shortly, I will list the items available for your choice.

Kind wishes,

Asher
 
John, I know your thoroughness from the Pixmantec forums. You certainly by now know more than you wanted to know about external storage using 2.5" hard files. Your Epson upgrade comes just as I have had to start dumping saved data from mine as well. I am interested in using minimalist external storage for directly backing up CF and SD cards before erasing them. Would you be willing to continue the research for a bit and put a review of today's options together?

scott
 

John Hollenberg

New member
Asher,

Thank you for your kind words. I have been interested in this project for some time now, but only recently discovered the Google video buried in one of the posts on DP Review. Since I spent quite a bit of time figuring out what to purchase, I thought others might benefit from my research. Of course, the real test will be seeing whether my Epson P2000 ends up in the Silicon Landfill or becomes a large and speedy version of its former self.

Scott,

I am not sure exactly what you are looking for. The best bang for the buck using 2.5 inch external hard disks? Or regular 3.5 inch external hard disks? Does it need to be light and transportable? Are you looking for a replacement for the Epson P2000, or just want to offload some data while at home?

--John
 

Michael Tapes

OPF Administrator/Moderator
I upgraded my Epson P-2000 to a 100MB drive quite a while ago, following some posts from DPR. I have not looked at the posts you referenced, john, but I will say that this task is not for the meek. I am quite comfortable with technology and I used to own a company that designed and built $50k+ recording consoles, so i can hold my own with a soldering iron.

But the Epson upgrade should not be attempted by the meek. It is not rocket science, but it is quite a watchmakers task, in that the circuit boards and interconnects and quite small and fragile. What I thought would take an hour or 2 took all night because I was foolish enough to take on the task the night before going on assignment with Jack Hartzman. So in between sleep and working I got it done just in time, but I was quite surprised when it actually worked, and has continued to work over this past year or so.

So beware that this is a task that requires dexterity, and attention to very small details and parts. be careful, but for me, other than the foolish time I picked to do it, it has worked out very well, but it could have gone the other way. I am interested to hear from others who have done this.

Thanks John.
 

John Hollenberg

New member
Michael,

Good to know it can be done. I agree it is not for the meek, but for some reckless fool (such as myself) who wants to take a risk and enjoys a bit of tinkering. Watching the Google video, it really didn't look that hard. Seemed to me that more of the time and hassle would be spent getting the hard disk cloning right than getting the thing apart, but clearly care must be exercised. I plan to time my project, and also to approach it when I am fresh and have plenty of time.

Thanks for your comments. I will report back after my attempt.

PS Did you put in a 7200 RPM hard disk, and if so, is it any faster?

--John
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
John,

Do some research on transfer rates. You might find that buffer is more important than rpm!

Asher :)
 

John Hollenberg

New member
Asher,

I am not sure what you are getting at here. In the review I read from Nov, 2005, all of the hard disks had 8 MB buffer. The sequential transfer rates were a lot better for the 7200 RPM drives tested:

http://www.storagereview.com/articles/200511/notebook_3.html

Edit: I didn't realize there are notebook hard disks with 16 MB cache (but 5400 RPM). While I couldn't find any benchmarks, my gut level feeling is that the larger cache would mainly be of benefit for a more random pattern of access, not for copying a couple of GB from a CF card to the drive. Thus it might be a good choice for a notebook, but I remain unconvinced that it is the best choice for a replacement drive in the Epson P2000.

--John
 
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Best most reliable deal with 2.5 inch files was my thought. Especially the battery powered external setups. For picture backup on short trips without a laptop.

I second your point about avoiding the blade server 2.5" files. I work with 100+ blades from 2004, which means more than 200 40 GB files, and we have seen more than 10% failures in under two years in that population. Do you know if reliability of these files has improved as they approach 100 GB in standard configuration?

scott
 
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John Hollenberg

New member
Scott,

I am by no means an expert, but for what you want I would look at www.hyperdrive.com You can get a bare unit for $130-150 (can't remember which) and put in the notebook drive of your choice. Seem to be getting rave reviews for speed and with the battery setup can copy up to 80 GB of data on one set of batteries.

--John
 

John Hollenberg

New member
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