i have UPGRADE my DR-HD100 40G TO 80G
 

yes yesterday i bought a 2,5 hard disk fujitsu 80g 5400rpm 8m buffer and 0,60A 5v.
I quit the hard disk hitachi 40g 5400rpm 8m buffer and 1.0A 5v.of the DR-HD100 and put into the new fujitsu, i close the DR-HD100 and power it, when it answer me do you want format hard disk? i push yes and the unit formated in a few seconds. Now 533minutes in my display. im very happy.

this is awesome news!
 

let us know how it works in the field, the cost performance ratio or this product is not justifiable, to jump from the 60Gb to the 100Gb model cost like $300 to $400 more, when you can buy a 250Gb harddrive now for around $100 Aust

Adam, the DR-HD100 works perfect, i was recording abaut 2,5 hours and it work fine. The new hard disk is 0,60A and the old was 1.0A, now my battery is ready for more time. im very happy with upgrade.

I have 160Gb installed. Works fine

Marc

When you press the ON button, does the fan spin for about one second at the beginning of the startup routine?

When the Firestore is hot, does the fan start automatically?

I will check it out. Next weekend I do a job with it.
I doubt the size of a drive would influence the operation of a fan.
It even consumes half of what the original 40GB drive did.

Hey Marc
 

haven't been game to open mine quite yet, might buy that a hard drive in the next couple of weeks, what was your exact model, is it sata or ide?

Crazy, but I can buy this new harddrive, and get close to double my battery life for a hundred odd dollars, but if Firestore want me to buy the next battery up, its like $400.

Thanks to Marc having the gumption to try something a little daring, we all have a affordable upgrade option now.

Thanks

Adam

You can test by watching the fan while you press the ON button. The fan should spin for a second and stop. If it doesn't, it probably won't start automaticallly either.

I have tried two different new drives, no fan. Go back to OE drive, fan works. Hmm...

Why should the Fan run at Start-up?
The fan starts running when the drive is running some time.
The harddisk size does not change it, which I expexted.
All works normal (922 min I can store now)

It is part of the self diagnostic test sequence bult into Firestore. The fan starts for about one second when the unit is turned on. If it doesn't spin on start up, if probably won't come on when the temp gets over 40 C either.

In my case, my fan doesn't start to run at startup, only when the unit gets warm above a certain level.
The cause of the Fan to run a short time will be caused by the boot-up of the hardware were the output of the processor is in a high impedance state for a short time.

just fitted the WD120Gb Scorpio Drive
 

and it works great, I am totally wrapped. Twice the capacity, twice the battery life (.55A), and only $100Aus.
Thanks guys for having the courage/necessity to do the upgrade and sharing it. People are mad not to do it, current Aus for only 100Gb model is 2,979.00, the 60Gb which I bought is 2,359.00, thats a whopping $620 difference, and you'd still probably have the same power draw as the 60Gb!

Additional FS4 Battery (90min) is $275.00, which is double the oem job, so thats $795Aus more to get the same result buying Firestore products than just whacking a hdd in yourself, and about 30mins labour. (Or 15mins if you weren't being overly cautious like myself!)

Hey guys, glad to hear you all upgrade ur DR HD100! I just got one in today and was wondering about a HHd replacement. It's gr8 to hear about the double battery life stuff as well. Anyway, can any of you please post the HHD model u use to replace the OEM one here.

Many Thanks.

as per my last heading
 

http://www.westerndigital.com/en/pro...sp?DriveID=200

Hey they come in 250Gb, which I would have bought if I had the $ at the time, the same power draw, so if I were you I'd go that model instead. The firestore uses IDE hdds

Enjoy

Adam

Just an observation from a HW/SW Engineer
 

Because the old (original) drives use more current, they get hotter. Because they are hotter, the fan will run more (using more power to run the fan).. so using newer, more efficient drives is a win/win.. and you will likely get more than twice the time as its not using the fan so much.

As far as bootup.. there is usually what they call POST (Power Up Self Tests) which run on just about any embedded equipment if the designers had even 1/2 a brain cell working during the design. Often, the default start before the processor is out of reset is to leave the system in the safest possible configuration.. which if it were me, would be to leave it so the fan turns on.. As a fan is lower on totem pole of importance, its probably out running a bunch of other tests such as verifying the system FLASH and DRAM, spinning up the drive, loading the application software into dram, etc.. So it may leave the fan on for a few seconds until it gets to a point where it could deal with it. So if your fan didn't run at power up.. its possible you have a newer/older, but different version of some FPGA firmware that leaves it in another state at powerup.. As long as you do see the fan working eventually, I really wouldn't worry about a thing..

It is funny however, as they wrote the Firmware, they EASILY could have written it to identify a given drive type or drive size to make it so you couldn't upgrade beyond their 100GB drive.. But a good firmware engineer would have written it to be as much without limits as possible at the time, expecting that the company would have been releasing new models with greater drive space. It would only be the marketing scum (technical term) who would have imposed a shim into the software to make it not work with larger drives or only with their selected drive vendors.. my suggestion is if they allow you to download the firmware, make a backup copy.. if they read this board they will no doubt pull this version so you can't do what you are doing. So if you drive crashes, you won't have to go back to the smaller less efficient drive to get it working...

Congrats!

Brian