VOGONS


First post, by Hamby

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I've been using an SD card to IDE adapter to provide the hard drive for my Toshiba laptop running Win98SE (with a 64gb card divided into 2 32 gb fat32 partitions).

I realized that I have two 2.5 or 1.8 inch (not sure which, atm) SATA hard drives from my old HP laptop (ZD7000? iirc).
So I began wondering if I could use a SATA to IDE adapter to put one of them into the Toshiba laptop?
One of them, iirc, is 60gb, the other 120gb.

Looking on ebay, it seems all the SATA to IDE adapters also have a molex power cable of some kind. So I'm guessing a SATA drive needs more power than IDE can provide.
(I do recall that the SATA to USB adapter I use with the two drives has two usb plugs... one for power...)

Is this possible?

Is there such a thing as an IDE SSD?
I'm looking for a solution without the drawbacks of SD Cards (limited life, read-only bug)

Reply 1 of 5, by jakethompson1

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Hamby wrote on 2024-09-13, 23:02:

Is there such a thing as an IDE SSD?
I'm looking for a solution without the drawbacks of SD Cards (limited life, read-only bug)

There are industrial ones, but I don't know if they come in 2.5" form to go right into your laptop.

CompactFlash nearly fits the bill, though, if you can find an adapter that fits.

Reply 2 of 5, by jtchip

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IDE (or PATA) SSDs do exist in 2.5", one example is the Transcend PSD330. This uses MLC and targets industrial users so is rather expensive.

A SATA to IDE adapter together with a 2.5" HDD might not fit into the drive bay. Assuming the adapter isn't too tall, a SATA SSD might fit once you take out the PCB from the housing (though that voids the warranty), modern drives usually have a PCB that only fills 1/3 to 1/2 of that bay.

Reply 3 of 5, by Hamby

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jtchip wrote on 2024-09-13, 23:55:

IDE (or PATA) SSDs do exist in 2.5", one example is the Transcend PSD330. This uses MLC and targets industrial users so is rather expensive.

A SATA to IDE adapter together with a 2.5" HDD might not fit into the drive bay. Assuming the adapter isn't too tall, a SATA SSD might fit once you take out the PCB from the housing (though that voids the warranty), modern drives usually have a PCB that only fills 1/3 to 1/2 of that bay.

The laptop takes a 2.5" drive normally.

I found a couple of things on ebay that look promising...
First is this msata ssd to ide adapter:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/284583177231
(I'd need to get a 64gb msata drive)

Or this laptop sata->ide adapter looks good, too, maybe?
https://www.ebay.com/itm/285306597391
Both should be small enough to fit in the bay...

Reply 4 of 5, by jtchip

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The mSATA to IDE should fit. Not sure about that SATA to IDE, the missing key pin on the IDE connector is at the top in the first picture, which means a drive that is upside down. Then the SATA connector is below the PCB and in that orientation the SATA drive also goes in upside down. That could make the whole thing too tall.

Reply 5 of 5, by Hamby

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jtchip wrote on 2024-09-14, 00:41:

The mSATA to IDE should fit. Not sure about that SATA to IDE, the missing key pin on the IDE connector is at the top in the first picture, which means a drive that is upside down. Then the SATA connector is below the PCB and in that orientation the SATA drive also goes in upside down. That could make the whole thing too tall.

thanks. I'd kind of like to go with msata anyway, cause... that's kind of cool. And even if I connected the SATA drive... it's still spinning rust.