Addonics Introduces IDE/SATA to CF Hard Drive Adapters

malware · Apr 6, 2007

Addonics Technologies has announced a family of CF Hard Drive Adapters, which allow users to replace 2.5-inch IDE/SATA hard drives with one or two less power-hungry compact flash(CF) cards. The low power and shock resistant CF media can be used on any desktop PC or notebook. Once installed, the CF appears as an ordinary hard drive to the system BIOS and operating system and can also be configured as a boot device. No special device drivers are required. The adapters are compatible with Windows, Mac, Linux and Solaris Operating Systems. The primary products in the Addonics CF adapter family include the IDE/CF Hard Drive Adapter and the SATA/CF Hard Drive Adapter. The IDE version comes with choice of single slot($24.99 MSRP) or dual slots($29.99 MSRP) to accommodate up to two CFs. The SATA version has a single CF slot and MSRP price of $35.99. The products will be available in April directly from Addonics.

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newtekie1 · Apr 6, 2007

I wonder how the double slot version works. Does it use some kind of RAID to write/read from both cards at the same time, or do both cards show up as seperate drives? I hope it is the RAID type solution because that would be nice speed wise.

The only problem I see with this is that Compact Flash memory is kind of expensive, especially for the 8GB ones. They go for $75+. Just to get something large enough to install Windows on and be usable you would need 2 of those. I don't know if that would be worth the price just to save a little battery life in a laptop, which usually only has one hard drive slot, so this would have to be the main drive.

Mussels · Apr 6, 2007

I know someone who works at a hospital that tests peoples hearing, and they had big issues because some warranty job seagate drives were too loud - they interfered with the tests. places like that would go bananas over these.

kakazza · Apr 6, 2007

Personally, I would use them in silent 24/7 boxes which don't serve or download files but run services like a Proxy, BNC, mail server...

As for the Controller, haven't they been around for like... years? At least a friend of mine has a CF drive in his router. And I hope it adds hardware-based Wear Leveling so you are not forced to use JFFS2.

OnBoard · Apr 6, 2007

Kinda tempting to put swap on one of these, waaaaaaaay cheaper than solidstate drives. 2GB would be plenty for a swapflie(drive) with 20e. Only dowsnside is that these arent faster than HDD:s :/ My swapfile is in the beginning of the drive (own partition) where it reads 65MB/s and sandisk says "Min 20MB/second** sequential read and write" for CF Extreme. Well it was an idea.

kureng · Apr 6, 2007

good for laptop.... reducing power usage n less heat generated since it does not use any motorized hardisk...

t_ski · Apr 6, 2007

Don't forget - these will work with IBM microdrives, too. As for the interface, the IDE ones use 44-pin connectors, so they won't do you much good in a PC, just a notebook.

OnBoard · Apr 6, 2007

But SATA version should be nice for eSATA or just stick it in somewhere,

tofu · Apr 6, 2007

Just to let you ppl know.

You can get these off eBay for around $6 US shipped.

You can also use a notebook to desktop IDE adapter if you want to use it on your desktop.

Poisonsnak · Apr 6, 2007

newtekie1 said:
I wonder how the double slot version works. Does it use some kind of RAID to write/read from both cards at the same time, or do both cards show up as seperate drives? I hope it is the RAID type solution because that would be nice speed wise.

The double slot version works just like an IDE cable with 2 connectors on it - one is master and one is slave.

Also for those of you who want your page file on a CF card they have a pretty low number of allowed writes compared to a hard drive so it might be a bad idea:

http://www.silentpcreview.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=38331&highlight=compactflash

kakazza · Apr 6, 2007

Poisonsnak said:
Also for those of you who want your page file on a CF card they have a pretty low number of allowed writes compared to a hard drive so it might be a bad idea:

http://www.silentpcreview.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=38331&highlight=compactflash

Which is why I wondered whether the adapter has a micro controller for wear leveling.

DaJMasta · Apr 6, 2007

kakazza said:
Which is why I wondered whether the adapter has a micro controller for wear leveling.

Judging from the picture, there's no way it would. There's no space for such a piece of hardware.

With the price being fairly high, you would hope, but I really doubt it. Flash memory is getting more and more tolerant of write cycles though, if you get a good CF and use a low write file system, it will last quite a while.

WarEagleAU · Apr 6, 2007

Nice little invention they come up with there.

OnBoard · Apr 6, 2007

They have already had this in 2005, must be just a new model then.

http://www.tomshardware.com/2005/08/18/accelerated_compact_flash/page2.html

In 3,5" bay a 16MB CF card would be a nice "floppydrive" for bioses & stuff (as it's totally useless the moment it came along my digi years ago). Have to keep eyes open for these.

Poisonsnak · Apr 6, 2007

t_ski said:
Don't forget - these will work with IBM microdrives, too. As for the interface, the IDE ones use 44-pin connectors, so they won't do you much good in a PC, just a notebook.

I found one on their site that is native 40-pin which is handy since you don't have to use one of those 44 pin to 40 pin adapters with the power plug:

http://www.addonics.com/products/flash_memory_reader/adebidecf.asp

This is the one I think I would use.

edit: it still takes a power plug I just noticed it on the side of the board, it's some proprietary one and it runs of 5V

zuckel · Apr 8, 2007

just wanted to note that CF cards already contain a controller that makes them behave like an IDE hdd, so this is merely a pin-to-pin adapter. therefore i hardly think there will be anything like RAID for two cards.

matt518000 · Apr 13, 2007

CF To IDE Adapter

The IDE version comes with choice of single slot($24.99 MSRP) or dual slots($29.99 MSRP) to accommodate up to two CFs. The SATA version has a single CF slot and MSRP price of $35.99. The products will be available in April directly from Addonics.

Source: Addonics[/QUOTE]

It is very expersive , I found the same product in http://www.soarland.com , just use quarter o f this price

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Addonics Introduces IDE/SATA to CF Hard Drive Adapters

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