Would this card work in my 5300CS?

[spaceinvader12]

Hi everyone,

So, I've got a nice 5300cs that until fairly recently was running on a CF card in a PC card adapter. However, the friend who gave them to me found an urgent need for them back and I returned it after restoring the files on it. Point is, I'm now on the internal drive of my 5300 and it's slow. After some googling I found this and was wondering if there would be any issues using it as a hard drive.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00MFVG9XO/ref=mp_s_a_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1490824895&sr=8-4&pi=SL75_QL70&keywords=sd+card+to+pc+card

My laptop already has an SD card slot and I have many SDs in various sizes so it looks like it'd be perfect, and cheap too. Question is, are there any potential compatibility issues more experienced Mac users could spot? I'm not super knowledgeable on this topic and wanted some external opinions before dropping money on this. Does it look ok to you guys?

 

[Rajel]

Huh, Jeida compliant ATA adapter.. might work?
I didn't know you could boot off PC card, that's nifty. Might use that to test out CF image builds.

 

[FacnyFreddy]

I got my 5300CS to boot from a Sandisk 512MB CF card from an old digital camera I was not using.

I formatted it first and installed the bits onto it like any new drive. You can boot from CF/ATAcard.

But, its not nearly as fast as an IDE drive is going to be.

Ideally, you would want to use a mechanism with a buffer built into it for running apps. No removable storage (CF, SD, ...etc) include those that I am aware of. Not even "industrial" or "fixed disk" cards.

The best solution I have found is a Sandisk or Toshiba mSATA SSD inside one of the newer jmicron mSATA <-> 2.5" IDE cases/adapters. They run just a bit warm, but, the boot up times are faster and the I/O is significantly improved.

I've now standardized on this for my 5300's (16GB) and Pismos (128GB). I even have on in an old Mac Mini G4 (256GB).

I first heard about these when replacing a dead 40GB drive in my AppleTV (gen1). It has been going strong now for nearly 5 years since the swap.

 

[Rajel]

I've got a Sandisk Extreme 4GB CF card in an IDE adapter in my 190cs right now and it's quite snappy. Miles better than the original drive.
Might look into the SSD option later though, I have a 32GB msata sitting around doing nothing. At least I think it's an msata? Might be M.2, will have to look.
Still, PCMCIA ATA adapter will be super handy for transferring data that won't fit on a floppy, or if I need to fresh install.

 

[Rajel]

For anyone interested, if you're considering the SSD solution that FacnyFreddy is recommending, 16GB Sandisk mSATA SSDs are about $8 shipped on eBay right now.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/371809716245

 

[spaceinvader12]

My adapter arrived today and it looks like it's a no-go in the 5300, sadly. Does nothing on boot, not even ejecting like an unbootable CF would. When it gets to the desktop, everything freezes but resumes to normal as soon as i pull the SD or the card. Probably some weird quirk trying to translate to IDE and it just doesn't work, sadly.

So, if anyone else was considering these, don't bother. They seem to not work in this type of application, despite glowing amazon reviews for pretty much any other situation. Unless I'm doing something wrong, that is. I had just put in a standard zeroed 4GB Sd into the adapter and left it plugged in on boot and also tried inserting it after boot. Neither did anything except freezing the computer. If anyone can think of anything I'm doing wrong, let me know. For now though, I wouldn't advise spending money on it specifically for classic apple computers.

 

[rsolberg]

I think this is a 32-bit 3.3v CardBus device, even though it is lacking the characteristic and specified gold grounding band. The very verbose description states 32-bit CardBus in one spot, but 16/32-bit in another. Also, the mentioned JEIDA 4.2 defines 32-bit CardBus. The freezing behavior makes sense if this is indeed a 32-bit card. The 5300 only supports 16-bit PC Cards. With my 1400c units, I've actually found that a fast CF in a PC Card adapter beats the internal IDE bus performance wise. I'm trying to get some definitive benchmark of throughput. I seem to be achieving about 8MB/sec read and write with both a later model IDE hard drive and a CF in an IDE-CF adapter. The same CF (SanDisk Extreme III 2GB) in a PC Card adapter gives me about 17MB/sec to and from RAM disk.

 

[FacnyFreddy]

I had to use a OLD sandisk CF-PCMCIA adapter. I have 2 card (one with 7.6.1 and the other with 8.1) that I use for imaging my 5300cs/5300ce powerbooks.

I don't know where I got my old CF<->IDE adapter, but, its the only one that works reliably. not as fast as my mSATA setup, but, I was able to resurrect my 5300ce before I got the PRAM battery hack working.

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

Yeah, I don't see the business side of any adapter on that page. Gold/silver color code checking is a must. PCMCIA = CardBus has been a common error in adverts for a very long time. Gold edge = CardBus = No go in anything pre 2400c/3400c.