RAIDON Rolls-out a DIY SSD Solution

[btarunr]

With the prices of solid state drives (SSD) on the fall, this gadget comes a tad late, but if you're (still) looking for an inexpensive SSD-like solution, Taiwanese manufacturer RAIDON unveiled an SSD enclosure, a device that holds up to two Compact Flash (CF) cards in either RAID 1 or NRAID (capacity increment) modes. Another demerit is that while the prices of SSDs are on a fall, the prices of CF cards aren't. 16 GB cards are selling for prices which make buying two 16 GB CF cards pointless compared to 32 GB MLC SSDs. What looks like the a 2.5 inch SSD with the hood closed, clearly isn't. The enclosure has the same exact dimensions of a 2.5 inch drive with mount-holes. The device supports both IDE and SATA host interfaces.



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[newtekie1]

This device came to the market too late. Two 32GB CF cards will cost you $100 a piece, $200 total, plus the cost of this device which I assume will be in the $50 range. A 60GB SSD drive goes for $300, so for $50 more you might as well just go with the SSD.

 

[Deleted member 24505]

Not in the uk,16gb cards are about £100($200)

 

[Deleted member 6693]

unless you have a bunch of CF card´s from old cameras or whatever...
then it would make sense

 

[FreedomEclipse]

Not in the uk,16gb cards are about £100($200)

actually - no, prices are not as high as that Amazon.co.uk Has them for £89.99

but year for a mere £10 difference roughly

 

[Baum]

CF cards are ssd? thought there are some sort of small HDD inside with running pattern and heads? they are not shock resistant or fast seeking.

and aren't they sloww?
i tried to mod my IPTV with new CF 145x speed @1GB but XP was ultra slow on write/read.
Transferspeed is/was far away from my sata 2.5"

am i wrong? correct me.........

but i would buy it as my lappi only got one slot for hdd and with that i would be able to upgrade right? just plug in another card.

 

[DrPepper]

CF cards are ssd? thought there are some sort of small HDD inside with running pattern and heads? they are not shock resistant or fast seeking.

and aren't they sloww?
i tried to mod my IPTV with new CF 145x speed @1GB but XP was ultra slow on write/read.
Transferspeed is/was far away from my sata 2.5"

am i wrong? correct me.........

but i would buy it as my lappi only got one slot for hdd and with that i would be able to upgrade right? just plug in another card.

They are definately SSD and not mechanical but as for performance I thought it would be the same as a SSD unless it was used from a usb or firewire etc.

 

[newtekie1]

CompactFlash cards are definitely Flash memory based, which is what SSD drives are based on. It is essentially the same technology and they are shock resistant.

However, there were Compact Flash sized hard drives released in the market a few years back, that were mechanically based. I know Seagate and Sony both released version like this to help increase the storage size available in the form factor. However, once flash memory became cheaper, they died off.

 

[DrPepper]

CompactFlash cards are definitely Flash memory based, which is what SSD drives are based on. It is essentially the same technology and they are shock resistant.

However, there were Compact Flash sized hard drives released in the market a few years back, that were mechanically based. I know Seagate and Sony both released version like this to help increase the storage size available in the form factor. However, once flash memory became cheaper, they died off.

You might be right there

 

[russianboy]

They were called "Microdrives" used in Mp3 players and the like.

They were fragile, and used a lot of power.

 

[Fitseries3]

this CF to raid drive thingy has been at my Microcenter for 4 months now. if 8gig CF cards were so damn much i'd pick one up to try. the price sucks but i get discounts. it sells at MC for $84.99 and the 8gig CF cards are $79 each.

EDIT: i'll go grab one today IF someone can find me 2x 8gig CF cards for cheap.

 

[iamollie]

its a shame that sd dont have a high enough read write. otherwise that would have amazingly high capacities. imagine you could fit like 50 sd micros into a 2.5 drive

 

[newtekie1]

EDIT: i'll go grab one today IF someone can find me 2x 8gig CF cards for cheap.

How cheap do you consider cheap? Newegg has 8GB CF cards for $26 a pop. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820211259

UPS 3 Day Shipping is $7, but if you change it to the 3-7 Day "Eggsaver" shipping, it is only $2.69.

Edit: I guess, now that I look at it, if you use 8GB CF cards for $26 a piece, you can build a 16GB SSD for under $100. That really is pretty good price wise. It is only the 16GB CF cards that are priced too high.

 

[Fitseries3]

eh... the cheaper ones dont write as fast. thats the problem with this idea. you need good quality CF cards that can read and write fast in order to make it worth getting.

 

[Solaris17]

This is an amazing idea

 

[OnBoard]

This has been out for ages, as in CF to IDE adapter. And it has veen tried also with CF card failing very soon. If some miracle hasn't happened with flash cards in last couple years, please don't put anything valuable in these, if you don't want to lose all the data.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but SSD drives write on different parts of the flash all the time to limit the wear and tear, while CF doesn't do it, they have no "brain". Make this a swap drive and see smoke coming out soon (well not, but they will fail, they have to, or I'll be sad as I would have used a flash card swap drive couple years now..)

edit: CF to IDE adapter is 3 bucks, those with free IDE slots on motherboard try that first. Now if someone has been using something like that with heavy usage for a while, please tell. 2-4GB card would work fine as a swap and cost next to nothing. Or go for two CF to SATA adapters and RAID-0 them