I want to replace a 2.5 inch laptop hard drive with an IDE flash memory module such as these: http://www.memory.com/item.asp?item=CF014
in order to run puppy linux.
I've found many different kinds of IDE flash modules: 40 pin, 44 pin, horizontal, vertical. I took out my laptop hard drive and counted 43 pins being used by the connector. What kind of IDE flash module do I need to replace a 2.5 in laptop hard drive?
which IDE flash module will replace 2.5 laptop hard drive?
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wingruntled
Hi
Most likely a 44 pin flash "drive" like this one.
http://www.memory.com/item.asp?item=TS2GIFD25
Edited to add:
By the way. The 44th pin is plugged so the cable cannot be plugged in upside down.
Most likely a 44 pin flash "drive" like this one.
http://www.memory.com/item.asp?item=TS2GIFD25
Edited to add:
By the way. The 44th pin is plugged so the cable cannot be plugged in upside down.
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veronicathecow
- Posts: 559
- Joined: Sat 21 Oct 2006, 09:41
Tony, who mentioned a CF card adapter? Unless I am mistaken, IDE has a faster transfer rate than USB, so the limiting factor for your adapter is the adapter itself. The OP is talking about a flash based drive, so the limiting factor for it should be the IDE bus speed.
One thing to remember about flash memory, regardless of how it is implemented, is that it has very fast read speeds and sluggish write speeds. Puppy handles this quite well by allowing you to run in RAM and only write back occasionally. So, theoretically, if the bus speed is no issue then Puppy should actually load faster on a computer with a flash based drive and once in RAM perform just as well as, if not better, than an install to a hard drive. That assumes that you have ample RAM, of course. The main advantage of flash based storage is not its speed, but its incredibly low power usage. Hard drives might use more than 10 times the power of a solid state drive. Hard drives are far cheaper per gigabyte, though.
To answer the original question, I believe that 2.5" drives are 44-pin. Some of those pins are used for power transfer, and the rest are for data.
One thing to remember about flash memory, regardless of how it is implemented, is that it has very fast read speeds and sluggish write speeds. Puppy handles this quite well by allowing you to run in RAM and only write back occasionally. So, theoretically, if the bus speed is no issue then Puppy should actually load faster on a computer with a flash based drive and once in RAM perform just as well as, if not better, than an install to a hard drive. That assumes that you have ample RAM, of course. The main advantage of flash based storage is not its speed, but its incredibly low power usage. Hard drives might use more than 10 times the power of a solid state drive. Hard drives are far cheaper per gigabyte, though.
To answer the original question, I believe that 2.5" drives are 44-pin. Some of those pins are used for power transfer, and the rest are for data.
Be brave that God may help thee, speak the truth even if it leads to death, and safeguard the helpless. - A knight's oath
CF IDE speed
Currently most (cheap) CF IDE adapters in fact can't do DMA. For about 8 € to 10€ you can buy ones which CAN do DMA but max out at 33Mb/s. The only ones which are fast enough for the latest 266x CFs that I know of are from esskabel.de, costing 18.50€ 
Look for ADA-COMPACTFLASH-IDE40-DMA. Those can deliver up to 66 Mb/s to provide for the 40 Mb/s of the Transcends 266x and Sandisk Extreme IV CFs. USB2 can't do that in practice and 266x USB sticks don't exist yet anyway.
Buy the way, don't bother with CF IDE to SATA adapters. They currently cost 30€ and are even a bit slower than UDMA-66 capable adapters. Since CF cards host their own IDE controller SATA can't be faster. And as you plug the IDE adapter directly into the board, the bulky IDE cables don't come into play, so SATA makes absolutely no sense here (until the day when CFs connect through eSATA or something).
Me I'm going with a 4Gb OCZ Rally2 USB stick for 20€ until Sandisk CFs prices drop to half. Up to 20 Mb/s read speed with the OCZ is plenty.
Finally, the high-end Sandisk CFs are SLC flash which lasts 10 times as many write-cycles compared to MLC flash which is used in virtually any USB stick and the cheaper CFs. SLC NAND exceeds the life-time of hard-disks handily already with proper wear leveling. And even cheap MLC flash isn't really worse than hard disks. Hard disks may last longer in theory. In practice they often fail prematurly, as we all know. Therefore even cheaper flash isn't really less reliable anymore, if you avoid the bargain bin.
Guido
Look for ADA-COMPACTFLASH-IDE40-DMA. Those can deliver up to 66 Mb/s to provide for the 40 Mb/s of the Transcends 266x and Sandisk Extreme IV CFs. USB2 can't do that in practice and 266x USB sticks don't exist yet anyway.Buy the way, don't bother with CF IDE to SATA adapters. They currently cost 30€ and are even a bit slower than UDMA-66 capable adapters. Since CF cards host their own IDE controller SATA can't be faster. And as you plug the IDE adapter directly into the board, the bulky IDE cables don't come into play, so SATA makes absolutely no sense here (until the day when CFs connect through eSATA or something).
Me I'm going with a 4Gb OCZ Rally2 USB stick for 20€ until Sandisk CFs prices drop to half. Up to 20 Mb/s read speed with the OCZ is plenty.
Finally, the high-end Sandisk CFs are SLC flash which lasts 10 times as many write-cycles compared to MLC flash which is used in virtually any USB stick and the cheaper CFs. SLC NAND exceeds the life-time of hard-disks handily already with proper wear leveling. And even cheap MLC flash isn't really worse than hard disks. Hard disks may last longer in theory. In practice they often fail prematurly, as we all know. Therefore even cheaper flash isn't really less reliable anymore, if you avoid the bargain bin.
Guido
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prehistoric
- Posts: 1744
- Joined: Tue 23 Oct 2007, 17:34
IDE, USB and CF speed
Here goes nothing.
(Fool rushes in where angels fear to tread.)
@Babba
You are entirely correct about maximum transfer rates. However, this can be very misleading in practice. I can recall the introduction of each UDMA mode in hard disks. Retailers were busy shifting from 66 MB/s to 100 MB/s drives before the majority of system software actually used the 33 MB/s mode. At that time a system which always sustained 10 MB/s for video was pretty good. (N.B.: it is the worst case transfer rate and latency which determines suitability for video.)
The principle advantage to CF, beyond the absence of moving parts to fail, is elimination of seek time and rotational latency. Because these times are measured in milliseconds, while blocks of data are transferred in microseconds or nanoseconds, this is no small improvement.
@mogen317
By all means get an adapter which supports DMA. Don't worry too much about the difference between 33 MB/s and 66 MB/s. You won't see anything like double performance.
As for the speed over USB 2.0, that is acceptable in large part because the huge overhead of mechanical movement is eliminated. Sustained rates across USB don't come close to peak rates. If you have a slow processor, as in many industrial applications, the USB code stack can be a bottleneck.
Arguments about reliability tend to conflate different meanings of the term. Failures in hard drives are not generally due to the number of operations performed. They are more likely due to environmental factors: mechanical shock (dropping a laptop), temperature, particulate contamination, power fluctuations and accumulated operating life. Failures in CF, after initial burn in, are primarily due to too many writes to a single location.
If you are using a system like Puppy, which is careful about writes to CF, I agree that even common modules from good manufacturers are likely to be more reliable than hard drives in a typical laptop environment, as users perceive reliability. If you are running arbitrary software, some stupid little routine which pounds away at the same location can wear out a module quickly. A module has a limited amount of intelligence available for wear leveling. Most existing ones can be defeated by some bizarre combination of factors. Processors which execute 10 to the 9th operations per second are good at finding special cases you didn't consider. We are right at the point where really solid designs are taking over. In a year the choice will be unambiguous. Plan on that time scale. Getting a really expensive module now, which will be easily replaced next year, could be nearly as big a mistake as buying a cheap module which fails.
prehistoric
(Fool rushes in where angels fear to tread.)
@Babba
You are entirely correct about maximum transfer rates. However, this can be very misleading in practice. I can recall the introduction of each UDMA mode in hard disks. Retailers were busy shifting from 66 MB/s to 100 MB/s drives before the majority of system software actually used the 33 MB/s mode. At that time a system which always sustained 10 MB/s for video was pretty good. (N.B.: it is the worst case transfer rate and latency which determines suitability for video.)
The principle advantage to CF, beyond the absence of moving parts to fail, is elimination of seek time and rotational latency. Because these times are measured in milliseconds, while blocks of data are transferred in microseconds or nanoseconds, this is no small improvement.
@mogen317
By all means get an adapter which supports DMA. Don't worry too much about the difference between 33 MB/s and 66 MB/s. You won't see anything like double performance.
As for the speed over USB 2.0, that is acceptable in large part because the huge overhead of mechanical movement is eliminated. Sustained rates across USB don't come close to peak rates. If you have a slow processor, as in many industrial applications, the USB code stack can be a bottleneck.
Arguments about reliability tend to conflate different meanings of the term. Failures in hard drives are not generally due to the number of operations performed. They are more likely due to environmental factors: mechanical shock (dropping a laptop), temperature, particulate contamination, power fluctuations and accumulated operating life. Failures in CF, after initial burn in, are primarily due to too many writes to a single location.
If you are using a system like Puppy, which is careful about writes to CF, I agree that even common modules from good manufacturers are likely to be more reliable than hard drives in a typical laptop environment, as users perceive reliability. If you are running arbitrary software, some stupid little routine which pounds away at the same location can wear out a module quickly. A module has a limited amount of intelligence available for wear leveling. Most existing ones can be defeated by some bizarre combination of factors. Processors which execute 10 to the 9th operations per second are good at finding special cases you didn't consider. We are right at the point where really solid designs are taking over. In a year the choice will be unambiguous. Plan on that time scale. Getting a really expensive module now, which will be easily replaced next year, could be nearly as big a mistake as buying a cheap module which fails.
prehistoric
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veronicathecow
- Posts: 559
- Joined: Sat 21 Oct 2006, 09:41
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Runemaster
- Posts: 180
- Joined: Sat 05 Aug 2006, 04:41
- Location: Albany, GA U.S.
Since veronicathecow is right you could just get a usb 2.0 flash drive with 480mbps throughput and if your not scared to do a little hardware hacking then you can just desolder the usb end and solder wires there and probe the board for the usb leads and solder the wires there and lay the chip somewhere in the laptop as to not obstruct anything else or to prevent it from closing. Also strip the plastic/rubber/metal case of the chip as well.
Adventurer: I seek knowledge and strength.
Seer:Knowledge comes from experience.....Strength comes from battleaxes.
Seer:Knowledge comes from experience.....Strength comes from battleaxes.
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prehistoric
- Posts: 1744
- Joined: Tue 23 Oct 2007, 17:34
CF drives for laptops
Just found this company, which actually has pictures of their adapters being installed in a laptop. There is also good information available on that web site. addonics
I can't endorse their products because I haven't tested them, but they seem to know what they're doing.
I can't endorse their products because I haven't tested them, but they seem to know what they're doing.
CF to IDE ( vs USB)
The Holly Grail, at last !
Thanks Guys; The truth rings when you hear it. Or when you have been searching for answers on this subject for months.
There are well over a thousand CF to IDE adaptors listed on Ebay (cheap) The majority are from a couple of Hong Kong suppliers. One who has actually responded to my Emails and admitted that his IDE adaptor maxes at 20mb/s (the new CF to SATA will do 40mb/s though) Addonics on the other hand, has never responded to me, and nowhere on thier site do I see any suggestion of the speed of thier adaptors.
Being focused on the current state of flash memory, 266x; I have been in search of the "40mb/s " adaptor. "Esskabel.de" Thank You ! I agree that there are probably a few less expensive adaptors out there that can push 33mb/s and thus you would see very little difference. But I call this "a bird in hand " (as apossed to a Addonics that might do the job)
I would like to point out that the USB bus max's out at about 40mb/s and then there is that mysterious latency with USB ; but USB flash is also aproaching 40 mb/s.
This segways me to my final point. With Two 40mb/s CF to IDE, and Two 40mb/s CF to SATA adaptors in hand (finally!); I can now launch Linux Raid,( a coventional 2 x 2, 0 +1 configuration) I have seen some impressive results with this. but has been bottlenecked by bad IDE adaptor performance.
Thanks; I await your new input
Terry
Thanks Guys; The truth rings when you hear it. Or when you have been searching for answers on this subject for months.
There are well over a thousand CF to IDE adaptors listed on Ebay (cheap) The majority are from a couple of Hong Kong suppliers. One who has actually responded to my Emails and admitted that his IDE adaptor maxes at 20mb/s (the new CF to SATA will do 40mb/s though) Addonics on the other hand, has never responded to me, and nowhere on thier site do I see any suggestion of the speed of thier adaptors.
Being focused on the current state of flash memory, 266x; I have been in search of the "40mb/s " adaptor. "Esskabel.de" Thank You ! I agree that there are probably a few less expensive adaptors out there that can push 33mb/s and thus you would see very little difference. But I call this "a bird in hand " (as apossed to a Addonics that might do the job)
I would like to point out that the USB bus max's out at about 40mb/s and then there is that mysterious latency with USB ; but USB flash is also aproaching 40 mb/s.
This segways me to my final point. With Two 40mb/s CF to IDE, and Two 40mb/s CF to SATA adaptors in hand (finally!); I can now launch Linux Raid,( a coventional 2 x 2, 0 +1 configuration) I have seen some impressive results with this. but has been bottlenecked by bad IDE adaptor performance.
Thanks; I await your new input
Terry
Hi all
For what it's worth, & I know it will not kwell the arguments any
http://datamarck.com/benchmarks/2471#device-1247
From this, I'd go for OCZ ATV, 2Gb; OCZ Rally2, 4Gb; or Sandisk Cruzer 8Gb [OCZ also make up to 32Gb!!
]
Unfortunately I don't have any CF flash to test, but I'm open to donations
My own experience with identical 6Gb Seagate microdrives ST660211CF [red labelled ST1]
shows IDE 40pin CF adapter w/dma to be well over twice as fast at 5.8Mb/s @ 12.8ms
as a generic usb2 adapter which shows as myson cs8819a2 at 1.6Mb/s @18.7ms
however it is far slower than my fujitsu 10Gb IDE drive w/dma at 17.2Mb/s @ 8.8ms
My 9.1Gb fujitsu 10000rpm is fastest at 34.5Mb/s @ 4.7ms
Test program: Datamarck v 0.0.4 on W2K
NB: Although the adapter has a master/slave jumper, in practice with this particular microdrive it is only recognised by W2K as a master, so I temporarily disconnected my CD to run the test, consequently I haven't tested in linux
Also note: Some adapters are NOT bootable - you have been warned
Adapter details:
(This seller also has 44pin laptop adapters)
IDE2CF
USB2CF
(It ain't over 'til the fat lady blings!!)
Aitch
For what it's worth, & I know it will not kwell the arguments any
http://datamarck.com/benchmarks/2471#device-1247
From this, I'd go for OCZ ATV, 2Gb; OCZ Rally2, 4Gb; or Sandisk Cruzer 8Gb [OCZ also make up to 32Gb!!
]Unfortunately I don't have any CF flash to test, but I'm open to donations
My own experience with identical 6Gb Seagate microdrives ST660211CF [red labelled ST1]
shows IDE 40pin CF adapter w/dma to be well over twice as fast at 5.8Mb/s @ 12.8ms
as a generic usb2 adapter which shows as myson cs8819a2 at 1.6Mb/s @18.7ms
however it is far slower than my fujitsu 10Gb IDE drive w/dma at 17.2Mb/s @ 8.8ms
My 9.1Gb fujitsu 10000rpm is fastest at 34.5Mb/s @ 4.7ms
Test program: Datamarck v 0.0.4 on W2K
NB: Although the adapter has a master/slave jumper, in practice with this particular microdrive it is only recognised by W2K as a master, so I temporarily disconnected my CD to run the test, consequently I haven't tested in linuxAlso note: Some adapters are NOT bootable - you have been warned
Adapter details:
(This seller also has 44pin laptop adapters)
IDE2CF
USB2CF
(It ain't over 'til the fat lady blings!!)
Aitch
This is real interesting and timely that I found this discussion (by luck).
I just bought a laptop off ebay (will be here Tuesday after the long weekend).
The computer contains no HD or OS.
I plan to boot from CD or usb pen.
The usb pen I use now boots up my present home laptop in under 1 minute including opening firefox to a home page.
I was thinking of eventually modifying the laptop to reroute one usb to the empty bay and plug in a usb pen drive (almost as cheap as buying straight flash).
This way the usb can hide within the laptop and not hang out.
I didn't realize there were IDE to flash converters.
Again I would worry about the constant rewrite.
I suppose one could do a frugal install and change the setup to like a flash where it is save once per 1/2 hour.
So two things would be nice:
1. a site describing the expected write cycles for a particular brand
2. have a background program that takes care of bits not to be constantly rewriten to the same location.
I just bought a laptop off ebay (will be here Tuesday after the long weekend
).The computer contains no HD or OS.
I plan to boot from CD or usb pen.
The usb pen I use now boots up my present home laptop in under 1 minute including opening firefox to a home page.
I was thinking of eventually modifying the laptop to reroute one usb to the empty bay and plug in a usb pen drive (almost as cheap as buying straight flash).
This way the usb can hide within the laptop and not hang out.
I didn't realize there were IDE to flash converters.
Again I would worry about the constant rewrite.
I suppose one could do a frugal install and change the setup to like a flash where it is save once per 1/2 hour.
So two things would be nice:
1. a site describing the expected write cycles for a particular brand
2. have a background program that takes care of bits not to be constantly rewriten to the same location.
Here's an article that almost answers my question.
Don't know if Sandisk actual does this on all pen drives.
http://www.sandisk.com/Assets/File/OEM/ ... elv1.0.pdf
Anybody know how to model Puppy Linux if we do a full install on flash.
I got an estimate of under 2years.
Don't know if Sandisk actual does this on all pen drives.
http://www.sandisk.com/Assets/File/OEM/ ... elv1.0.pdf
Anybody know how to model Puppy Linux if we do a full install on flash.
I got an estimate of under 2years.
newbie, I could be wrong on this, I think it was pizzasgood who explained it
Puppy has been designed by Barry to only write save files to flash once every 1/2hr max and at shutdown, although there are methods for manually over-riding this, if you want, though you'll need to find his [pizzasgood] comment and method/script
http://www.wellminded.com/puppy/pupsearch.html
As to how often it will write to swap, it will depend on many factors, including;
your processor speed and size of ram [faster/larger is better - basic but essential]
how big the swap file is - smaller, more often
what programs you are running simultaneously, i.e heavy use with video rendering + internet, or compiling, for example
use of voip/messenger type apps use surprisingly high resources and may cause greater swap use etc,
but for normal browsing, letter writing, emailing, painting, playing gems likely as not you won't use swap hardly at all
not really a worry IMHO though there was a whole thread about this some time back
Latest predictions, as has been stated, are that flash will outlast the PC - unless you purposely write to the same location repeatedly, which is actually quite hard to do
They are cheap enough now to experiment and keep a 2nd flash or, a usb pendrive [virtually the same] with a backup of the first
puppy is very much about playing/trying/failing even, then trying again
- enjoy yourself!
Aitch
Puppy has been designed by Barry to only write save files to flash once every 1/2hr max and at shutdown, although there are methods for manually over-riding this, if you want, though you'll need to find his [pizzasgood] comment and method/script
http://www.wellminded.com/puppy/pupsearch.html
As to how often it will write to swap, it will depend on many factors, including;
your processor speed and size of ram [faster/larger is better - basic but essential]
how big the swap file is - smaller, more often
what programs you are running simultaneously, i.e heavy use with video rendering + internet, or compiling, for example
use of voip/messenger type apps use surprisingly high resources and may cause greater swap use etc,
but for normal browsing, letter writing, emailing, painting, playing gems likely as not you won't use swap hardly at all
not really a worry IMHO though there was a whole thread about this some time back
Latest predictions, as has been stated, are that flash will outlast the PC - unless you purposely write to the same location repeatedly, which is actually quite hard to do
They are cheap enough now to experiment and keep a 2nd flash or, a usb pendrive [virtually the same] with a backup of the first
puppy is very much about playing/trying/failing even, then trying again
- enjoy yourself!
Aitch
Thanks.
I agree Puppy is great to play with (Isn't that what one does with a puppy)
This is the first Linux I'm playing with (tried other boots before).
I wanted to play with it so much I bought a P4 laptop from ebay with no HD or OS ( I wanted it that way).
I'm looking to try CD then usb boot and either do an IDE conversion or try and bang on the laptop and install the usb internally. Actual thought about using a usb router so I don't run out of ports but don't know if I need that.
It's going to be interesting if the Wifi works because I think it is a card not internal.
Of course the laptop is coming Tuesday after the long weekend.
Well I guess that will give me time to clean up of work space incase I need to do any solder/dremeling.
I agree Puppy is great to play with (Isn't that what one does with a puppy
)This is the first Linux I'm playing with (tried other boots before).
I wanted to play with it so much I bought a P4 laptop from ebay with no HD or OS ( I wanted it that way).
I'm looking to try CD then usb boot and either do an IDE conversion or try and bang on the laptop and install the usb internally. Actual thought about using a usb router so I don't run out of ports but don't know if I need that.
It's going to be interesting if the Wifi works because I think it is a card not internal.
Of course the laptop is coming Tuesday after the long weekend.
Well I guess that will give me time to clean up of work space incase I need to do any solder/dremeling.
P4 eh?
Sounds modernish to me h/d or no h/d
About the only thing you'll need to check is that it runs, boots, and doesn't have a bios password lock problem or worst a broken screen
you should be able to see fairly quickly if it has usb boot capability, too
other than that, check the memory, by running memtest, and maybe install some more for super performance
you can always hang a usb h/d on it if need be, though a pendrive will probably suffice to start
good luck, and let us know how you get on, eh?
any probs, we're here
Aitch
Sounds modernish to me h/d or no h/d
About the only thing you'll need to check is that it runs, boots, and doesn't have a bios password lock problem or worst a broken screen
you should be able to see fairly quickly if it has usb boot capability, too
other than that, check the memory, by running memtest, and maybe install some more for super performance
you can always hang a usb h/d on it if need be, though a pendrive will probably suffice to start
good luck, and let us know how you get on, eh?
any probs, we're here
Aitch