Modern Hard Drive Alternatives for old Laptops and Thin Clients

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[@patchouli3422]

I love CF to IDE adapters. Makes my life so much easier whenever I want quick access times, but don't feel like finding a compatible SSD or bothering with a SATA to IDE adapter.

[@GodOfGamingBG]

for old IDE laptops an option I like is an adapter with a 2.5" drive form factor, that has two CF slots working in master and slave, so you can have 2 storage CF devices fit in a single hdd slot. For my IBM Thinkpad T42p, I can have one 128GB CF card for win98, and another 2TB CF card (when they become available, currently 512GB are the largest ones) for winXP. The adapter exists, look around ebay, doesn't seem to have a particular model name but its there.

[@Kenny-bw2cz]

Can you post a link? How is the speed compared to a mechanical drive? I also have the t43 and want to do something similar

[@GodOfGamingBG]

@@Kenny-bw2cz I ended up just getting wd blue 320gb for my T42p, the largest 2.5" IDE HDD, since large-sized CF cards are still quite expensive. Maybe some day.

[@kwiddel2256]

Just in time, searched for alternatives for dying IDE Drives, thanks!

[@Pidalin]

real IDE HDD (from end of IDE era) is still faster, ofcourse SD card has better latency, but copy speed is very limited thru those adapters

[@twiddler71]

Another alternative for thinclients is to use a usb flash drive. Some the HP Thinclients like the T5530 have 2 hidden USB ports inside the case, and I've installed linux on a usb flash drive this way, albeit USB 2.0 speeds.

[@Seatux]

Not just thin clients, the HP Proliant MicroServers have a Type A port on the board, considering many NAS distros work off USB drives like Freenas. Many unknowing people buy pricey SSDs for their Freenas boot drives, whilst a decent USB stick works just fine.

[@twiddler71]

Yes, many servers do have internal USB ports, mostly used for VMWARE. I used to install ESXi host servers this way, but now SSD are so cheap.

[@Seatux]

Now here I look at my TB ready SSD enclosure booting Fedora Linux like its a wet dream of years gone by. There is those Aliexpress USB header to type A port adapters too, so I made use of those for internal dongles on spare USB headers.

[@toysareforboys1]

Just FYI, 32bit version of FreePBX runs awesome on a USB stick on the HP t5745!!! Use it tons :)

[@Seatux]

I remember years back, my old defunct company made those PBX boxes, but since its enterprise grade, OS installed on SCSI drives instead. If I kept working there, would finally be using SSDs now.

[@agw5425]

You can in most cases remove the housing from a 2.5" ssd and many of the smaller ones only take up half the length of the housing and that way they can fit in more places, just do not forget to wrap it in plastic and/or electrical tape to protect against shortsurquits.

[@hlbatesjr]

Nice reviews. I have a old Toshiba Terca 8000 laptop that I was using for DOS and WIN 98 programs and games. I've been worrying about the age of the hard drive and stopped using it. Now I can go back to it with one of these products. Thank you.

[@BadManiac]

I have to say I agree with you on the SD-cards. They are cheap, perform extremely well, and are so easy to get working. Secondary is IDE to SATA adapters so you can use a modern SATA SSD in and old PC, although this only works in desktops, it's great for both performance and convenience.

[@AndyAKratz]

Loved the coverage in this video. I already own three adapters you show here which are the SD card to 44-pin, Compact Flash to 44-pin and an MSATA to 44-pin. One important note I would like to add with that very last adapter is to remind people there are two m.2 connections labeled type m and type b. MOST important is if you buy an adapter you MUST purchase an m.2 SATA - you CANNOT use an m.2 NVMe! If you wind up with an NVMe m.2 SSD and you try to use any adapter with one... you're going to have a bad time. The reason for this is because NVMe m.2 SSDs come with their own controller and attach to the pci-e interface which goes without saying you cannot connect a pci-e card to your sata connection; it just won't happen, lol! So just make sure you get the SATA version of an m.2 card for one of these adapters!

[@atomikrobot300099]

This video is also very helpful for DIY car mechanics. Even late model vehicles sometimes use PATA drives due to the simplicity interfacing with embedded systems using old SoC's. I plan to convert my Volvo XC60's and XC90's navigation systems to a PATA SSD. In the BMW community it is also very popular to upgrade the BMW CIC PATA drive to a SSD, as the QNX system stores a considerable amount data on the PATA drive.

[@philscomputerlab]

Cool, I didn't know about this application :)

[@HeyImGaminOverHere]

Daaaaang I didn't know all of these adapters existed! I knew of a few but you have really enlightened me to the others. Awesome video Phil!!

[@Llamarama100]

I quite like the msata to 2.5 ide converters, recently put one in my Thinkpad T42 and really like it

[@tellyjoossens4186]

I've had no luck with the 44pin to cf adapters you display here. Tried numerous cards and none worked in all the systems I have, although all cf cards worked just fine in a xt2ide solution. The 44pin to sd you mention works flawless in all systems I have.

[@Kithop]

I'm in the middle of a Win98 build around an Athlon Thunderbird @ 1GHz (just waiting on a couple parts), and one thing I really liked about something I saw LGR use recently for larger machines is an SD card adapter with a bracket for your rear PCI/etc. slots. Probably more for Win98 and older machines, but I love the idea of being able to just yank the SD card from the back of the case without needing to open it, then popping said card into a more modern machine to transfer some files at high speed. Maybe use a disk imager to do a routine backup of your retro machine once in a while, or just to transfer that really big game-that-came-on-a-DVD without pushing it over a network share or something. With the SD, CF, and even full-size SATA drives of course you can still yank them with these just by popping the case, but I'd assume getting adapters or docks for mSATA and M.2 drives is a bit tougher and something you'd have to keep around dedicated for purpose. Most laptops have SD card slots in them nowadays, which is why I'm going that route, at least for now. I might try and dual-boot between Win98SE and a modern Linux distribution though, and in the latter case something more permanently attached makes a lot of sense. Great roundup, thanks!

[@philscomputerlab]

Gary Carter What I've done in the past is get a 5.25" IDE drive bay. You can hide the modern storage inside for easy access :)

[@Reziac]

Nice idea. Went looking and found CF adapters like that, but so far not SD. Available in SATA and IDE. www.amazon.com/Syba-SD-CF-IDE-BR-Connects-3-5-Inch-Interface/dp/B001JTO782 www.amazon.com/Syba-SD-ADA40001-Compact-Adapter-Mounting/dp/B002623890

[@MinhasA]

Thanks for the video! I was wondering how I was going to set up my thin client, but now I have some guidance :) Much appreciated!

[@Semseddin.]

Storage Option Number 4 : Failed to fit in old Dell laptops. Instead of bidirectional, i should have bought horizontal adapter of the same type. Lesson learnt for 5$ :) Good video as always Phil, thanks !

[@Fender178]

Phil, Thanks for letting me know about CF and only recommending them only with Windows 98 and Below because I almost was going to go with a CF route with a Gateway M675 P4 based laptop with XP on it but I am going to go ahead and purchase an IDE/PATA SSD and leave it at that because of the way XP handles CF cards as removable media which is not compatible with the page file. I don't want to have to disable the paging file because alot of programs require it. Yeah they made IDE/PATA SSDs . I have an old modern HP laptop with 1st generation Core i series CPU and it has the weird 1.8in Hard drive so I thought of getting a MSATA to 1.8in HDD adapter for that to speed stuff up but never got around to it. I just helped my dad fix and old Windows NT based PC that had a dying small HDD in it so I told him to go the CF route since it's more reliable and can make backups of it easier.

[@amindlost]

Consumer CF cards are usually set as removable, while _industrial_ CF cards usually are not. The reason, in short, is that one of the bits of information returned by an ATA device when it is queried indicates whether or not the drive is removable. On consumer CF cards this bit is most often cleared (and so removable), while on industrial cards it is set (non-removable). There are a few workarounds, one of which is to install a filter driver that will toggle said bit off before passing the returned information to the OS. Another is an _"intelligent"_ CF-to-IDE adapter that ignores the bit in the CF cards, and handles it itself. The last option is software that can potentially toggle the bit within the CF card itself, with varying degrees of success. For more information, have a few links: www.os2museum.com/wp/removable-cf-card-or-not/ www.os2museum.com/wp/more-on-cf-cards/

[@linofreek52]

I guess you can also use an adapter for pata ide and a cheap M.2 or Msata on board ..the drives are expensive the other thing is no great performance boost because of bus speeds ect ..just cooler and no moving parts .

[@alecjahn]

I run an msata->IDE box in my Powerbook G4 and it is quite nice.

[@kevg2278]

sounds great to revive the old laptops.

[@ernstoud]

On the small msata to ide adapter there is a 5V to 3.3V linear converter sitting just below the pcb of the msata ssd. It runs terribly hot which severely limits the lifespan of the ssd. Be aware!

[@coryschneider4271]

Nice comparison, I am a fan of SSD's (2.5 inch and M.2 (NVME) type for anything that I can, access times and speeds are unbeatable and prices for retro gaming (120GB - 240GB) are great. Plus most SSD's (varies by brand) have things like over provisioning / TRIM support / etc. to minimize cell wear. If I can't go with SSD's I fall back to SD card / Compact Flash / 2.5 HDD (Spinning Disk) in that order. I prefer SD card because of 1) convenience (adapters are everywhere) 2) performance 3) cost.

[@LightTheUnicorn]

Good choices! With most of those there's much less power use, heat generation and no waiting for spin-up too. Perfect traits alongside just performance when keeping very old machines in active service.

[@ElNeroDiablo]

In my experience; if you can't find a SD-to-IDE adapter card but want to use cheap (Micro)SD for an old system, one can use MicroSD-to-CF module and plug that in to a CF-to-IDE card, the conversion from (Micro)SD to IDE being done in the module itself. I had to set up such a combo for my old XP-era gaming Retro Rig (wanted to avoid using HDD or SATA drives) using a CF-to-IDE card from eBay & MicroSD-to-CF module from Australia Computer Online up in Sydney in the past year and it's worked fairly well in my case.

[@eduardoavila646]

Wow these devices are really cheap out there! Where i live the price of any ssd (sata, msata, m.2) prices are still outrageous! Also the adapters are a bit expensive too. Thats very unfortunate.

[@philscomputerlab]

Yea you can just use SD cards instead, they are affordable, come in retro friendly sizes like 8, 16 or 32 GB and have good enough performance.

[@marceloalencar_]

Os caras metem a mão nas lojas online aqui, imagina só nas lojas físicas. E nem vale muito a pena importar por causa dos impostos e dos Correios (ou perde a encomenda, ou demora muito muito mesmo pra chegar). Acho que a opção do cartão SD é interessante, pois esses realmente tem baixado de preço por aqui.

[@eduardoavila646]

Marcelo Alencar Pois é. Um sd de 64gb sai aproximadamente 50-60, enquanto que um cf sai uns 200.

[@eduardoavila646]

Sword Thats interesting! I will search for that

[@osgrov]

I'm a fan of newly converted fan of mSATA, and a big reason for that is that Samsung makes (current gen) SSDs for them. You can get a 250GB Samsung 860 mSATA for like $100 or less, and they're really good. I grabbed two of them and two of those interfaces with a case, so I've got one setup for IDE and the other for SATA. Works in any machine I throw them into, desktop or laptop doesn't matter. :) Not sure how well they'd work in DOS and/or older configs though, might be too big for that. I'm on an XP roll right now so haven't tried yet, hehe. I should probably get one of those SD card thingies you have there, looks perfect for DOS machines. I'm asssuming M.2 will replace mSATA in the future though, we'll see.

[@TheHistoricRoute66]

Thank you very much for this video! At the moment I try to restore and speed up an old laptop with a PIII and 1GB of RAM for a DOS / Win98 system. Great work! I think I'll go for the M.2 SATA to 44 PIN adapter. Can't wait to see the true performance of an IDE controller ;-)

[@ryanjay6241]

I was watching these videos just to hear your recommendations on the subject. I've tried quite a few options and I think CF cards have to be my favorite overall - I've never really had "problems" with them running up to Windows XP on them, and I can't imagine them being that much slower with write times than a spinning disk drive. I guess the biggest problem with CF cards is the high price of them - SD cards are far cheaper for comparable storage space. I have tried a few IDE to SD adapters but have had various success with them - some older machines (Win3/95 era) seem to have problems with them with the drive becoming corrupted after a short time - I have no idea if this has anything to do with improper/non-existent wear leveling or something else to do with the specific adapters themselves, but I have had poor luck with SD overall. I have never tried one of the mSATA/M2 adapter cards, but they seem like a neat idea - and these days the format has dropped to a price even lower than CF cards. That being said, many of the CF devices just "slide in" or have brackets/mounts where you can just pop them out externally, bring them to a modern PC, write some files, and pop them back in - I feel like I would lose some of that convenience with a mSATA/M2 adapter ...

[@Dunbar0740]

I was stumped by an obscure laptop drive recently, a 1.8 inch IDE drive connected by a ZIF cable/connector. Google didn't help when I had no idea what it was called. Fortunately, a random image search of portable drive types revealed all.

[@PiercedJedi]

I have been accumulating a large collection of drives of various sizes and form factors (from 16GB up to 4TB, from 44pin IDE mechanical to SATA SSD to Mechanical SAS), and I'm always fascinated by using unconventional storages like an SD card or CF disk...

[@zirize]

12:52 I thought 16MB size. What a confusing brand name is.

[@jeffreyplum5259]

SD cards marked A1 are supposed to be best for OS uses. I hope to upgrade two XP /DOS laptops to SD cards. I hope to use a 40 pin IDE to SD solution on and old DOS desktop. I hope to replace my IDE HDDs with SD cards soon. I prefer to keep my Retro machines running as real metal as long as possible. In time I'd like to link them up with VM version on my newer machines. The DOS laptop may make a nice Linux terminal. My old machines have serial ports on them. USB dongles will give my newer stuff multi station abilities.. My computing life started with Teletype Model 33 terminals, and low speed dial up. Happy Retrocomputing and restro gaming everyone. Thanks for all your help.

[@kjjustinXD]

I recently Got an Fujitsu futro s900 thin client with a amd T56N APU and 4gb ram for 25€, bought an msata ssd with 32gb for 16€ from TCSunbow and installed Windows 10 on it. Runs Kodi and Retroarch, very Silent and Great Performance while also being Really Cheap.

[@philscomputerlab]

Nice, that's the same APU of the HP T610 Plus which I recently reviewed. Got to check out what sort of other Thin Clients are available from Fujitsu.

[@kjjustinXD]

PhilsComputerLab I have 4 Thin Clients from Fujitsu already, One Futro S550, One S550-2 (PCIe slot instead of PCI) both with a sempron 200u, The S900 with the T56N and the S720 with an AMD GX-222GC and 8GB of RAM. They all Work Perfectly under DOS Linux and Windows, The older Models Even Support Windows 98 and 2000. In Germany they are The cheapest thin clients you can get on ebay.

[@philscomputerlab]

The 720 looks very interesting, but it's not cheap, at least not the ones available to be shipped to Australia.

[@SuperCookieGaming_]

i have had a 128gb ssd in my main machine for 4 years now and i didn’t use any preservation methods and it is still going strong. the ssd puts the data to cause the least amount of ware so don’t worry about preserving an ssd. unless its an really old ssd that is just a couple gb

[@dikbozo]

Nice to see the Kingdian M.2. I have a 480 GB SSD from them through Aliexpress that works just fantastic. The prices on it with shipping included was very good. I think the others on the channel might enjoy a comparison video of SSD, M.2 and mSATA.

[@philscomputerlab]

Yea they have an official store on AliExpress which is nice.

[@hikaru-live]

Tip: if your thin client somehow has a PCIe slot, it can be used for a Samsung 950 Evo NVMe drive. That, and a few other NVMe drives, comes with a BIOS Option ROM inside the controller chip with a basic NVMe driver on it (reporting itself as a SCSI storage controller,) allowing the BIOS to pick up NVMe support and boot from that drive.

[@philscomputerlab]

Very nifty.

[@BoomBox02]

This video is great. I have a few Amiga computers that would benefit from a few of these adapters as finding period correct hardware in good working condition such as hard drives is getting harder to find and more expensive.

[@DanielCristofer]

Video well explanatory, good to know that there are better options besides IDE disks. Too bad the value of the dollar being so high in Brazil, would make a nice upgrade in my notebooks.

Very good help ! Thanks man!

[@subnumeric]

if a 2.5" ssd is too big, you can most likely just open it and take the module out. they tend to be like 1/3 of the actual size of the 2.5'' enclosure

[@DigBipper188]

This somehow reminded me I need to restore my Thinkpad R50-e...

[@matthewplehn4271]

kinda weird that this video came right as i was considering storage solution for my Win XP retro build..I want a BAy on the front of the machine so that i can swap out different storage medium...and one in the back of the machine for the same purpose..i considered compact flash but this video kinda convinced me i should use either regular sata drive or micro SD..what medium is best for a Win XP machine?..BTW ..anyone who gives a thumbs down on any of your videos is a jerk...LOL..Love your Stuff!

[@qixxxz]

Great vid! People could keep in mind when getting SSDs, that SATA 2 is half as fast as SATA 3, but should still saturate the bus of older computers. Getting a used SSD could be sketchy but something to consider.

[@randomreviews9016]

qixxxz TbH, I will NEVER get a used ssd... Prices are low enough now (especially for retro gaming) to buy a new one :/ I have several ssds I my PC's, the older one being a Vertex 2 (still working !) That is slow compared to my latest 960pro... And cost me the same :/ I also bought a kingdian ssd on AliExpress that is amazing for the price (60Go, better speeds than the V2) for like 25$ and also a Kingston 120G (v400 ?) That is really "ok". TbH my time and data is worth more the 20$ I can save on a used ssd (given that 60g with a kingdian is around 25, and I don't seed any ssd on eBay being less than 5)

[@philscomputerlab]

r4ndom reviews That M.2 is a KingDian from Ali :)

[@Ridata01]

I can recommend the SD card adapter, i tried it myself with a toshiba satellite pentium1 laptop. But sometimes it depends on the laptop maker, for example i have an old dell 5000e pentium3 laptop that refuses to boot with the sd card adaptor, so im waiting for a CF card adapter instead for that one. ALSO PHIL some sd card brands will give problems, and some wont even let you fdisk, the first thing you should do is to delete all partitions on the sd card with a program like minitool partition wizard and leave it raw. then use MSDOS6.22 floppy and let it do its magic.

[@CMDRSweeper]

Tempting solutions you are posting here too, so I may have to take some notes to apply for both retro and more modern machines such as my storage server. It currently uses IDE to run the OS, as all the SATA ports are occupied for storage of files.

[@Jack7277]

I ordered a CF2IDE for my P-II laptop

[@takeshi7]

Do not use flash as a hard drive replacement unless it supports AHCI for TRIM. If not, the performance and endurance will degrade. If the PC doesn't support TRIM, I recommend an SSHD because it doesn't need TRIM.

[@takeshi7]

It's not just the OS that supports it, but the motherboard's SATA controller. If it doesn't have AHCI (which many older computers don't), it's impossible to send the TRIM command, regardless of the software or OS you're using.

[@yorgle11]

I like SSHDs, but there's also another way around the problem. On a system/OS that doesn't have working TRIM, you can largely mitigate the degradation issue by over-provisioning the storage. As you probably know, performance degradation (and greatly accelerated wear) occurs because the drive controller reaches a point where it believes (and in the absence of TRIM, believes incorrectly) that almost all of it's Flash cells contain valid data. Lack of "free" space greatly complicates the garbage collection process and leads to massive degradation. If it is prevented from reaching that point, then it won't fall into the degradation scenario. Start by TRIMming the whole drive by whatever means you prefer. This is only possible on an SSD - if using a CF card or other such "disposable" Flash devices, then I think the only way to do this is to start with a brand new device. Then partition only a portion of the drive's total capacity. For example, if you only need half the drive's capacity, then just partition that much and leave the rest unpartitioned. This ensures that all writes to the device will take place within only half of the total logical addresses that are recognized by the device. So even though TRIM is not working, and the device has no awareness of which logical addresses still represent valid data, the worst long-term scenario will be that the drive controller approaches the point of believing it is half full. The other half of the logical addresses will have never been targeted by a write operation, and despite the abstraction from LBA->physical storage, this still ultimately means that the SSD will always regard at least half of it's Flash storage as free/available. A half-full SSD will still perform very well and not suffer any noticeable degradation. In fact just leaving about 25% pre-TRIMmed and unpartitioned is probably plenty sufficient.

[@takeshi7]

@unfragablegaming yeah but without TRIM in just a little amount of time your SSD can lose 80% of its performance. It's not about how long the drive works. It's about how long it works WELL. images.anandtech.com/graphs/graph13078/heavy-bw.png

[@ACE-fc8mj]

This is a great video from one of the best

[@jameslewis2635]

A couple of things I found from a bit of googling. There are M.2 adapters to IDE that will take up a space like an expansion card which could be quite neat for desktop machines and for some reason I can't quite work out I found an M.2 end to USB3.0 internal socket conversion card.

[@spy.re-drobe20]

Okay let's start with the compact flash, it's compact, does exactly what it says on the card. Access-times will be limited, though do keep in mind that it is very fast @ 120mb/s. Can in some cases improve cpu access times. I'd like to think fast ssd storage improves access times as well as speed, so if you choose the right ssd for the job, some gains can be had. Though with +120% in access-times @ 30-34mb/s, You'd be pretty lucky to get any gain at all.

[@Developer-online]

be aware that many of these from Ebay doesnt work , just a tip

[@Pidalin]

I bought 2 pieces of IDE-SD thing on ali and one of it was broken, SD slot just fell from PCB. At least second piece was ok, that's why I am buying such cheap shits always in more pieces. :-D

[@linoxyard]

Yay! New Phil video!

[@SuperLaplander]

Good solid info, thanks for sharing!

[@alexviralata1356]

Yo uncle Phil! FYI, those SD2IDE44 adapters do not work with Linux. Windows 9x or DOS or even XP work like charm, but no luck with linux. I tried every option for installation with puppy linux, also tried ubuntu server with different configurations and many other distros... nothing... truly a shame, since Puppy LXDE runs like wonders on the Thinkpad X40.

[@philscomputerlab]

That sounds odd, I shall keep that in mind, and try it out next time. I'll likely use Lubuntu.

[@alexviralata1356]

And the problem is also quite odd... since obviously, you can install any Linux distribution... you can reset the machine and it will boot... but once you turn off the computer, BOOM! The adapter is no longer boot-able. I tried different bootloaders, partitions formats, etc... and nothing, always the same result. I'm assuming that it has something to do with the chip in the adapter. Maybe a different adapter would yield different results? One last thing, some 2.5 SSD do not use the full size of the drive. So in theory, with a bit hacking skills, it would be possible to incorporate the SATA2IDE adapter inside the drive. Cheers

[@NaoPb]

Alex, just out of curiosity, what do you use the Thinkpad X40 with Puppy LXDE for? I like Puppy but I don't know what to use it for on computers that are too old to go onto the internet.

[@alexviralata1356]

XD precisely for that! Going on the internet! The battery is a beast, and with Puppy loaded entirely on RAM (1.2GB) the machine is quite snappy. Faster than some modern netbooks with Atom. I also use it for listening music, watching some videos here and there, and playing really simple games. The reasonfor it, is quite simple... I use a Samsung S4 with LineageOS and no GApps nor mobile Internet, so only wifi and F-Droid. Now you can imagine, for a quick reading of Reddit, or browsing the internet for geek stuff, with such a small screen and crappy keyboard it gets quite tiresome. But with a cute little Thinkpad, the experience becomes more enjoyable! Let me just add; To boot that pupplet, I had to use a pendrive and a permanently attached SD card to save the sessions, apps and configurations. And that became tiresome, so for meanwhile I'm not using it any longer. I'm waiting to get my hands on a better alternative for it. Like that HDD2Optical Drive thingy. Now, for computers that are too old going to the internet, I just install Win98 or something, and I use it for Dos gaming, or really early windows games... but that's more of a curiosity. But I have to admit, dos gaming on real hardware, is much better than dosbox. I was playing StarWars DarkForces on an old and awesome Compaq Armada and I was enyoing the hell out of it! So fluid with nice controls! And then I said to myself, "but why not play this game on the big i7 beast of machine?". So I loaded up dosbox and KAHPOW! I was struck with some hideous input lag!!! It might be dosbox, it might be the wireless mouse, I don't know. What I do know is that I had a much better experience playing that game on the Armada with PS2 optical mouse. TL;DR I use the X40 for simple internet browsing and time wasting, and on "too old for internet" PCs, mostly retro gaming. Cheers

[@alexviralata1356]

Definitely not the BIOS, since I can boot from USB no problem. Regarding GTP... One of the options of the puppy linux installation is to use MBR instead of GTP. It didn't work either... However, it did give a diferent error message, so maybe there's something that can be fix. I might try again, since I miss that little cute thing. Cheers!

[@rullypratama]

I think it will be better to include original IDE flash module which is included in many thin clients. Just to see how much performance gained :)

[@burdebc1]

I like SD cards and CF cards since they are much easier to transfer files or make an image of the drive using a modern PC.

[@philscomputerlab]

Ah yes, good point! I didn't cover this in the video, it was already quite long. You can also get USB 3.0 adapters for mSATA and M.2 as well as your standard memory card readers :)

Very nice video, thanks for making it! I think I'll go with the SD to 44pin adapter. I would really like to see a comparison of Chinese VGA to HDMI adapters some day from you, for retro gaming. :)

[@randomreviews9016]

István Nagy why do you need a VGA to HDMI adapter o_O ? A PC with PCI has at least access to FX5200 with DVI and with AGP you can go up to Ati 4650 with HDMI ? If you have neither ago or PCI, then it's another story.

[@Pidalin]

I bought some cheap IDE-SD card adapter on ali and it's very slow, speed is limited to cca 25 MB/s, it's probably ok for some 90s notebook, but when you need something for Pentium 4 or something little more modern, it's very slow.

[@EvanBThompson]

Hi Phil. Really enjoy your videos, even inspired me to get a HP T5710. I was wondering which thin client you're using in this video since I don't recognize it from your other videos. Thanks Evan

[@philscomputerlab]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/romxcmapqrtqq9U

[@philscomputerlab]

I got this one out of Germany. I don't think they made many, not nearly as much as HP.

[@FireFlyinWonderland]

update! 2.5 inch can be installed with an adapter! for this it is necessary to pull out from the box. in 80% of cases, it takes half the box

[@keithbeesting]

Great video Phil

[@kztech1319]

Is that a ThinkPad R40 in the video

[@pootispiker2866]

Microdrives actually shut down after a short idle period, meaning that they draw near 0 power if they do nothing, much like a flash card.

[@linofreek52]

I have used the same SSD a Kingston 120GIG in my main Windows 7 PC for the past 7 years so they must last a long time in constant use ..i never thought they would lol . I also had a problem with adapters (Msata) some units dont work in an adapter ..strange i know .

[@Tankyard]

In your video you mentioned Aliexpress. I've been noticed that lot of ppl avoid it as it's a Chinese market and the goods are produced in China. For my old Am2 computer with Sata2 connector I bought Ssd hard drive there and works good. As I'm Linux user and Linux is not hungry for hard drive space as Win, I bought 32GB Ssd and I paid it only $14, and even the connector is Sata2 there is a better performance than with old Sata2 hard drive.

[@johnrickard8512]

Aliexpress is alright for cheap adapters and cables(or other things that need not be very complicated), but that's about it. Fortunately they have a very wide selection of adapters and cables so it's definitely worth keeping around for that reason alone ;)

[@KaosSchmoo]

@@johnrickard8512 What the hell are you talking about? I have ordered over $8k worth of stuff from Aliexpress, and the worst that happened was I got sent a couple of faulty parts out of 600 orders and they refunded my money.

[@KaosSchmoo]

As opposed to produced where exactly? You think that part you get at your local electronics shop wasn't produced in the same factory in China?

[@ryanjay6241]

@@KaosSchmoo I was about to say ... which parts these days are NOT produced in China? 😂 I guess I should also say, I have never had a "problem" with Aliexpress - but I can understand why people would be hesitant to buy from there. It's very "sketchy" at times and I would personally be hesitant buying anything of high value from there - but if you're really looking for a 3080 why would you be on Aliexpress in the first place?

[@tadeustad]

ThinkPad

[@greggv8]

Those Apacer and similar DOM (Disk On Module) IDE flash devices are notT too robust. They do not stand up well to having a swap file on them. They're intended for embedded applications where an OS is installed that is optimized to not need virtual memory and either runs from RAM or very rarely writes to the DOM. If you must run an OS that needs virtual memory, set things up to create a RAMdisk during boot and put the swap file there. Of course that makes some of the RAM unusable by the OS, which can be an issue if you're wanting to try Windows 95 or 98 on a thin client that maxes out at 512 meg RAM.

[@IndellableHatesHandles]

Gnome is my preferred Linux DE for laptops in general. If only it had a lighter edition to use with older computers.

Awesome video, thanks a lot. :) Just a small question, why CF isn't necessarily a good recommendation for XP?

[@jangelelcangry]

Great guide Phil! BTW. Anyone got an SD card related AD?

[@knghtbrd]

I just don't think I can recommend the Microdrive for anything. They topped out at 4-8GB which is more than sufficient for a DOS machine, but DOS is going to be just as happy with a CF or SD card. The big problem I have seen with SD to IDE adapters is that they never seem to have master/slave settings. It's either cable select if your machine is capable of supporting that or single … and I can't tell which from a product listing. If I could pick up SD adapters and be reasonably certain that they'd work on vintage hardware, they'd be my default choice. for pre-Pentium machines. I picked up one of those mSATA adapters with a plastic cover over the PCB and found in my testing that it got pretty warm. Unsure if that's the mSATA or the controller chip. Either way I got the thing for a G4-based Mac mini and I'm a little concerned that it might be getting too warm to put inside that little hotbox. I haven't looked to see what kind of space constraints I'm looking at inside the machine for a possible 2.5" SSD drive with an adapter, but it's pretty small so I doubt there's room. Either way, the system in question's a little outside of Phil's usual wheelhouse.

[@Reziac]

Nice. Just what I need when I resurrect the old Win9x setups (I have a cranky P4-2.4GHz that won't accept more than 768mb RAM, but is good otherwise, that should work well for this). I've tried an SD-to-IDE adapter and a SATA-to-IDE unit, and both worked perfectly, but hadn't heard of the rest. The CF option is especially interesting, and makes me wonder if there's a way to reverse that (ie. to use an SSD to replace a CF card). Only problem I've run into is that the SD to IDE adapter has stuff sticking out that makes it a bitch to mount, so the only real practical method is to just dangle it off the end of the cable rather than trying to screw it into anywhere. Tried different mounts and no joy. It booted right up first try, tho. As someone mentioned there do exist IDE SSDs; I have a 64GB that I used to upgrade an old Mac G4.

[@KuntalGhosh]

check out the ide ssds on AliExpress, their is 44pin ide ssds ... from 32 to 128gb size on AliExpress! (can't post the link , or KZbin will mark me as spam)

[@greymonkus]

Excellent

[@greggv8]

The Hitachi (or IBM) 4gb Microdrive as used in old iPods and the Palm LifeDrive is terribly slow and highly prone to failure at the worst possible time. One reason why it's is it has only 128 kilobytes onboard cache. Seagate made a 5gb microdrive with 2 megabytes onboard cache thus it had a considerably higher transfer rate. Having more data on the same size platter also helped the 5gb Seagate VS the 4gb IBM/Hitachi with more data per second passing the head despite the same 3600 RPMs as the Hitachi. Something to be careful of with the Seagate models is they were made with several different connection styles for use in various embedded applications. You want to make certain you're getting one that's compatible with a standard CF connection. The highest capacity Microdrive is a 12gb Seagate ST1. Palm pulled a bait and switch with their LifeDrive PDA. Early review units were sent out with the 5gb Seagate drive but the production version had the crappy Hitachi drive. Naturally the LifeDrive had received good marks from reviewers before it went on sale, but after it hit the stores the reviews were burning it for its lack of performance. Now for good news. If you have a LifeDrive (or other Palm OS device) all the software formerly for sale at palmpowerups.com has been released as freeware. With PowerDrive you can update a LifeDrive to a Compact Flash (4gb or larger) or even one of those 5gb Seagate microdrives to have the pre-release performance experience.

[@quickbeamfilms]

Have you ever tried a PCMCIA adapter card? I know they make them for compact flash cards.

[@stamasd8500]

Compatibility depends in large part on the host system and its BIOS/firmware. I am currently working with an old Alpha system (DEC AlphaPC 164) and it does not like too much the CF and SD cards presented through an IDE adapter. Yes it can use them but it treats them as removable devices - which tells me that they are not working in true IDE mode but rather in PIO mode. And it's not dependent on the particular CF or SD card, I tried many brands with the same results. That limits what you can install - for instance I was able to install Windows NT Alpha on a CF card but the installer complained several times that I'm installing on a removable device, it limited what size of partitions I could make etc. What did work quite well on this platform were: 1. SSD through SATA/IDE converter 2. microSD through SCSI2SD adapter (rev.5.0b) to SCSI card.

[@philscomputerlab]

Hence my recommendation for using CF cards in DOS and Windows 98 :)

[@stamasd8500]

PhilsComputerLab at one point in the video you say that you recommend CF for Windows NT. That is quite machine dependent in my experience.

[@stas_da_killer]

There are SSDs with hardware trim support. In that case you don't have to worry about garbage collection. Also there are ide ssd, but they are pricey

[@Fender178]

Yeah I just picked up an IDE SSD 64GB for just under $50 bucks since CF wasn't a viable option for me because of Windows XP.

[@lluisruscalledaturon9400]

Hi, very nice video! , it gives hope.. I have an IBM thinkpad R52, could you recommend me a set up for SSD you think may work? Thank you very much

[@rorywalters1614]

6:30 No, there’s another difference between CF cards and Micro Drives: the thicknesses. Micro drives are thicker.

[@namesalvaje]

Great video!

[@WorldJustice5]

You're the best. Aroooound.

[@matt4193]

The small IDE connector / pin layout lets you plug the drive backwards, I know because I killed my Thinkpad X40 drive that way.

[@philscomputerlab]

Yea that wasn't my issue, they are actually wired wrongly. I'll be sure to test any future cables I'm getting!

Alternativa name , Make Your Old Machine Faster !

[@agw5425]

Can you pre install win98 on any of these so the thin client can boot and set up drivers with out installing it while in the client? Booting from fdd and installing win 98 was a nightmare, not for a novice to do with out help. Is there a possibility of down loading a disc image of your thin clients to use in ours? The installation can be lengthy and I really could use the help. All we need is that when you finished your installation/video you save a copy of the disc image we can download. Perhaps users can submit their disc images to you and you keep a data base of helpful pre installed images? Is there such a thing as usb to 44 pin adapter for writing to these discs outside of the clients?

[@lukedavis436]

I don't think the SATA to IDE adapters will fit in some laptops... Unfortunately

[@davel8116]

I wish someone would make a new cheap PCI or IDE/PATA RAM drive device.

[@brandonupchurch7628]

Have you ever tested any 1.8" HDDs? You should be able to use a more modern 1.8" (micro)sata drive with a 2.5 ide adapter and it should still fit into a standard 2.5 drive bay.

[@randomreviews9016]

Brandon Upchurch could also be a good solution for old iPod projects !

[@philscomputerlab]

Brandon Upchurch Be very careful with these, AFAIK, they use lower voltage and special adapter is needed.

[@brandonupchurch7628]

Yeah they use 3.3v the adapter would either need an LDO regulator or a switchmode DC-DC converter built onto the adapter to drop 5v down to 3.3v, I wouldn't really want to use a 1.8" mechanical HDD, but there are plenty Intel relatively cheap 1.8" SSDs floating around out there, I think I seen some new bulk OEM 80gb drives for about $20/ea so it'd be nice to be able to put a cheap good quality ssd into an old ide laptop since most of the IDE SSDs I've ever seen are quite expensive and/or seem to be from dodgy manufacturers.

[@luiscasanova1409]

Nice video

[@Technicalmindtechnicalsupan]

Nice

[@BetamaxFlippy]

I have an Acer Aspire 5100 which I wanted to upgrade to ssd but it absolutely REFUSES any storade different from the original 2.5" hdd. The original drive is dying and I'm getting desperate to find a solution that will allow me to transfer all its content on a solid state memory and having it boot as it should.

[@dawn1berlitz]

if a Samsung q1 ultra i picked up awhile back wasnt as messed up as it was and i didnt have the Lenovo thinkpad yoga 260 i was considering converting the q1 ultra to using sdxc instead of the zif based hdd it bad and i even considered fiding a replacement battery for it at one time but due to severe issues with the screen (i havent tried seeing it the issues appears on a external screen) i abandoned the project

[@HektorBandimar]

I purchased an M SATA SSD to a IDE connection adaptor, that comes with the enclosure to make up a 2.5" SSD , it fits nicely into the laptop. The problem is that the laptop won't boot from it or even see it, I have loaded an Ubuntu operating system onto it from a CD, but I just can't figure out what the problem is.

[@zachgiacalone3445]

@philscomputerlab what thinkpad was that?

[@psychoticgiraffe]

Why did you not include PATA ssds was it due to their higher pricing? They do save you the need for an adapter and the speed doesn't bottleneck the controller

[@Kenny-bw2cz]

Can you make a video for alternatives for mfm drives? ( There are some Isa cards that work with sd cards or compact flash)

[@philscomputerlab]

I don't have anything that old, so nope :(

[@AlejandroRodolfoMendez]

could you do a video about thin clients please? also this video was very helpful and interesting.

[@philscomputerlab]

I reviewed quite a few Thin Clients already!

[@AlejandroRodolfoMendez]

i was talking about a video in general about all of them. but i didn't see those videos already, i got to check those.

[@kinxofsepluv]

For the M.2 one, I had trouble with getting my Toshiba 440CDT, unfortunately.

[@michaelprox1172]

Hi does m.2 ssds with adapter will work on this Toshiba laptops?

[@martijn208]

you din't mention partition alignment, the partitions on SSD's need to be offset. this is best done on a new system just make a MBR partition table and a partition. let the old OS handle the formatting. the only time that you can't do this is if your system does not use MBR, like a PowerPC MAC.

[@DumbSkippy]

Great video. Thanks!!!! I have a Canon 5D which uses CF storage. I want to use msata or sata as storage but cant find a mSata to CF Card adapter . Can anyone help me out ? PLEASE ?

[@cwyckisslick9444]

I have several cf-ide adapters and bought some lexar 4gb cards that are ide compatible. They are detected by my CF-25 MKIII and NT4 setup will format and write to them, but when I reboot to finish installation it won't boot from the cf cards. I tried again with a 10gb hard drive and it worked. I have IDE noncompatible cards for comparison and the laptop will not detect them, so I am unsure my issue. Suggestions?

[@mastersofboarddom7570]

Trying to use a WD Blue 500GB hard drive in a Windows 95 PC with an old motherboard, is a SATA-to-IDE adapter all I need, or do I need to mess around with hard drive jumpers or BIOS settings as well?