Thinkpads Forum

I am thinking of setting up a home file server (or an FTP server, have not decided yet) with a 380ED with an external USB HDD. I was wondering if the 380 ED can take a USB PC card. If so, does anyone know of a card with both USB and ethernet ports?

Or should I just get a USB PC card and look for something like this:
http://www.ramelectronics.net/html/usb_ ... apter.html

Any other suggestions is also welcome.

The 380ED looks much like my 365X, which doesn't support 32bit Cardbus cards. And USB PCcards come only in 32bit...

A possible solution is to use a PCMCIA->CF converter, and a CF->USB1.1 converter. Downside is, together they cost more than a 600 series TP, and USB1.1 is [censored] slow.

But if you don't need a lot of space, you can use a 12GB drive in your 380ED. Maybe bigger ones work too, i never tested that.

Good news is, if you find a type II PCMCIA ethernet card, like the Compaq Netelligent 10/100, you can throw in 2 cards and use the machine as a firewall.

Timoti wrote:The 380ED looks much like my 365X, which doesn't support 32bit Cardbus cards. And USB PCcards come only in 32bit...

That was exactly what I was afraid of. 12 GB is too little, is that the max. capacity of HDD that a 380ED can take?

If a machine can take 12GB, it should take 120GB. The BIOS limits were at 8GB at 130GB (or so).

My ancient 750P has an 8GB limit, but if it boots of a partition in the first 8GB, it can use drives up to 120GB.

I say get a bigger drive. Worst case, it can go in another machine.

I had read on another discussion list that 8GB was the largest hard drive size possible for the 380 series, so 12GB surprises me. I assume that this is a hardware limitation, but I do not know what that limitation is.