Frankenware: Modern flash storage on vintage computers: IDE to CF, SD, SATA & SSD

[@4wheelwarrior]

Did not realize CF was natively IDE. That settles it for my application (early 90's hdd audio recorder). Very informative, thanks!

[@ysmg9010]

Indeed CompactFlash uses ATA to connect to the host. This means the controller is inside the card. There was a short period of 1.8" hard drives in CF formart. CFast follows, using SATA protocoll. QXD and CFX is also based on this, using PCI-Ex. SD, MemoryStick, and many more have the Controller inside the host. The Stick is "dumb" but also cheaper. In the 90s there was also the SmartMedia format - mostly used by cameras. But same as SD, Controller is in the host.

[@DavidStahlOLDHAPPyMACs]

Great review I like the solid state option SATA always had great results on the vintage 68k Macs I use the blue SCSI They work fantastic great video

[@techjesse]

Thanks David!

[@Adrian802]

It's nice to have a blazing fast SSD in a pentium II, III, AthlonXP, Athlon 64 systems. However many of us forget is that pre 2009 systems lack AHCI and TRIM support which is crucial for retaining SSD speed. Don't quote me on this but Crucial still has active garbage collection but once in a while, it needs to be entirely idle for at least 6hrs ( overnight). Another solution is the Kingston V+100 SSD which doesn't require overnight idling period but it's garbage collection is pretty aggressive as it cleans "deleted" files on the fly.( the trade off is the theoretically reduced lifespan of the NAND flash)

[@colinmanton2992]

As a follow up, try the Startech IDE to SATA with an 80 wire cable as see how much faster your PC boots

[@techjesse]

I'll check it out. Thanks!

[@andre-le-bone-aparte]

Just found your channel. Excellent Content - another sub for you sir!

[@techjesse]

Thank you!

[@rockycassiano4756]

When W98 installs with errors, I set PIO to 2 instead of auto and it loaded fine.

[@andystandys]

For me, the are two downsides to CF cards. They are getting harder to find, especially the 8GB and under variety. I've also had problems with bent pins on some of my CF card readers. *But,* they are fast and I like the physical size of them.

[@ysmg9010]

There is one problem when using a flash based memory (CF, SD, or USB stick) as main drive. The cells have a limited amount of write cycles. Some cells will have alot of writes to them (mainly what the OS uses for cache folders). So these will eventually die, and lead to failures. SSDs work around this as they have an abstraction layer. They distrebute write cycles over all internal cells. CompactFlash could do this, as it has the controller inside the card, but as far as I know, none does this. Probably for cost reasons. If you use the drive for a retro PC with limited hours, it's not a big issue, tho

[@alexwisniewski8014]

Hi. Great video. Thank you. Do you have a link to the IDE to SD card reader on Amazon? I know it had issues but was curious to the price and reviews as of recent.

[@techjesse]

Thanks! This is the one I got which has good reviews. A lot of it comes down to the quality of the card itself rather than the reader. amzn.to/3QYViTv

[@alexwisniewski8014]

@@techjesse Thank you. I appreciate it.

[@Allen811973]

that one you suggested as a 2nd drive little washers and off of temu you can get this 2.5 to 3.25 one that you can put it a reg hard drive space its only around 2 or 3 bucks in USA btw without a 3d printer

[@delysio]

I see you are using cheap SD cards. This adapter is very sensitive to poor quality cards. I had similar problems which disappeared after inserting good quality media. I recommend the Sandisk and Samsung EVO brands - while being careful of fakes from eBay.

[@CompuforceWally]

Same here, using 2x of these, 1x as OS and 1x Multimedia stuff along with optical drive as slave, running pretty solid no issues. OS SD is a 4GB (Windows 98se) Lexar branded and multimedia SD is a 32GB SanDisk.

[@techjesse]

Thanks, good to know!

[@SenileOtaku]

Big problem using Compact Flash is it's becoming harder to get reasonably priced CF cards, and availabity in general is getting harder too.

[@techjesse]

Yeah as I mentioned in the video I think SSD is the way to go these days. After using them in many machines and for quite a few months since I made this video, I am even more confident SSD is the way to go.

[@spadesofpaintstudios1719]

I got a computer recently with an IED and I don’t even know what it was until today 😂, nice to know adapters do exist I didn’t wanna get rid of the old drives

[@techjesse]

You got a computer with an Improvised Explosive Device? Sounds dangerous...

[@TheRathead80]

@@techjesse He got it from a 10 year old in the middle east

[@reginaldojunior3517]

HD IDE = BAD CLUSTER

[@antdavisonNZ]

2.5" sata Hewlet-Packard 654540-001 adapter sleds plus sata2ide adapter with a decent bridge chipset number 1 chipset choice would be Marvell 88SA8040 or 52, as used by *some* StarTech adapters number 2 would be JMicron 20330 chipsets as used by the better chinese no name adapters, look for the ones with the lowest profile, like around 12mm, they should have JM silkscreened somewhere on the PCB if you cannot read the text printed on the chip, or they dont tell you what chipset is used, OK for PCs bad for old xBox consoles absolute worst choice is the chinese adapters using chipsets with the letters SUN in them, avoid like the plague kzbin.info/www/bejne/sGOak2dmiZufgtU has quite a good review / speed test of this and other options

[@techjesse]

Good info, thanks!