Solid state hard drive (CompactFlash Card) on Quadra 630?

[AG Wolf]

...or on any machine really...

I have a couple of IDE <-> CompactFlash card adapters, but I only have one chintsy 32mb compactflash card from like 1999/2000; when I tried using the card on the machine, it didn't do jack...

I'm just curious if anyone had gotten this working yet. I have an LC475 modded at 33mhz hosting a basic website from home, I wanted to use a Q630 as the server and use a CF card as a sort of SSD if possible. Has anyone else gotten some similar sort of combination to work?

 

[joshc]

What software were you using to recognise the card and format/mount it? If nothing else works its usually best to try FWB Hard Disk Toolkit. Also its worth trying different brands of CF cards - cards with small capacities are really cheap so you can't lose much.

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

IRC, and as I understood it back in the day . . . :-/

Apple's botched (read as intentionally crippled, IMHO) implementation of IDE on the Q630 will ONLY address IDE HDDs. I could well be wrong, and I hope you can prove me so, but you won't be able to get such Solid State Memory to work on a "stock" Q630, AFAIK.

It'd take a PCI equipped MoBo transplant and a USB card to do much of anything really useful with my favorite form factored Desktop Mac from the transitional NuBus->PCI architecture era.

It was my fovorite because it perfectly fit into the rounded desktop overhang I built to top off the dresser/desk/captains bed & custom adjustable shelving unit I built for the rug-rat's small bedroom up in the Big Apple.

Good luck hacking Solid State Memory onto the Q630's NuBus Architecture, comrade.

jt =8-\

 

[Bunsen]

From other things I have read, it may be worth trying a card that states it is UDMA or ATA mode compatible

 

[AG Wolf]

I unfortunately don't have other cards to try, and am at limited funds to really "experiment." is there a list anywhere that might say what brands/sizes/models of CF cards are UDMA/ATA compatible?

I don't plan to dwell on this too long (nor hold onto the machine) if it doesn't really look possible. It was just an idea I had a while back and left on the back burner; I only remembered it again recently because I'm going through all my old mac stuff again to try and get rid of stuff before I leave for college in less than two weeks. On that note, I'll have some stuff for sale very soon if I can get my butt in gear. a 512k, Plus, SE, Classic, G3AIO (maybe two), 9600 w/g3 (or g4, dont recall) upgrade, G4 400mhz, maybe some hardware and other accessories. But that's another thread for another day

I'd like to hold onto this 630 a bit longer, so any other input is definitely appreciated.

 

[Bunsen]

is there a list anywhere that might say what brands/sizes/models of CF cards are UDMA/ATA compatible?

All I have to go on are advertisements on ebay and manufacturer's spec pages, where available.

You could try a Microdrive, which is a real ATA hard drive in CF format. The Seagate ST1 goes up to 8GB from memory, and each has a 2MB onboard cache RAM. I picked one up for $20 shipped with a USB converter. OK, so it's not solid state and has moving parts, but it'll still be a lot lower in power use and noise than your average 3.5" hard drive. Otherwise I'd suggest a small (ie cheap) used Seagate HD. They're usually pretty quiet. Or a laptop HD on a 3.5" converter.

What are your reasons for wanting CF in there?

 

[register]

The new Sandisk Extreme III CF card (specified transfer rate 30 Mb/s) should do well, as it supports UDMA. This thing is pretty fast, better than any old harddisk drive. The 2 GB version might be affordable and the storage capacity is appropriate for a 68k machine.

 

[register]

P.S.: please be so kind to share your results for the Q630 here.

 

[johnklos]

The problem is finding CF cards which support the ATA standard. The most common place to find information about which cards are suitable is the iPod world, because lots of people replace failed microdrives with CF cards. Any CF card which will work in an iPod will work in an IDE-CF adapter, with the only exception being that certain adapters don't support CF cards larger than 2 gigabytes.

I use various IDE-CF adapters as boot drives for installing MacOS and NetBSD on m68k Macs (actually, SCSI-IDE-CF), and I have booted a Q630 via an IDE-CF, so it's certainly doable.