Possibly the quickest drive for the PowerBook G3

[coius]

Also known as a 1.8" LIF/ZIF Solid State drive.

Uses a Sandisk 1.8" 16GB Solid State drive. Connected to a LIF/ZIF to 44-pin IDE Connector (provides data and power).

I routinely max out the internal 16.7MB/s ATA-3 Bus. Doesn't support SMART though.

But here's the pics:



This is the machine I scored off of eBay, unfortunately, it was advertised as having a 100Mhz FSB, which would have made it a Pismo, but it was in fact a Lombard (the guy didn't really realise what it was)

That's ok, I am getting a Pismo in the mail with a trade to another member (Thanks man!)

Anyways, this is the SSD hooked up:



Anyways, the drive's supposed specs are 35MB/s Read, 17MB/s write. After testing, I concluded if it does 256KB random write, I can actually max the controllers (with MacBench 4.0 under OS 9, I have scored 15,367KB/s)

it's really helps too! I have 10.4 optimized on the system. OS 9 (which resides on a 350MB partition) boots from chime to desktop in about 9 seconds (yup! it's that quick!) 10.4 in about 1:30 to desktop after chime.

I used XPostFacto, I have 10.4 with some data and apps occupying about 2.6GB, but am going to continue hacking away at it trimming down stuff (like printers/fonts/languages)

The machine has the following specs:

400Mhz Lombard w/ 1MB L2, 66Mhz FSB

USB 1.1, HDI-30 SCSI, Ethernet/Modem/Sound-in/out/IRDA, PC-Card.

512MB (well, 256MB + 512MB High-Density, this will go in the Pismo). 16GB SanDisk ZIF with adapter)

24x16x24 (CD-RW) 8x4x8 (DVD-+RW) and DVD-RAM 2x 2008 Slot-load superdrive0

Lucent WaveAccess Wifi. DVD-Decorder Card. ATI Rage LT 8MB VRAM PCI Video card (internal) 14" LCD.

It's a nice machine.

 

[reekdaddy]

Do these ZIF SSD's need to be manually aligned like if I was to use a CompactFlash card or something?

I've got a Pismo on the way (my faithful iBook G3 bit the dust), and I was actually wondering about doing a mod like this.

 

[theos911]

Would this work in a Wallstreet, or better yet, a 2300c? Also, where would be the best place to find these drives?

 

[reekdaddy]

^ As long as it's ATA/66 compatible

 

[coius]

the ZIF SSDs are no longer made or rather, they are no longer used. These are IDE/ATA-based Solid State drives. They are essentially Class-5 Flash chips on a small board with an IDE controller. It's 4x 4GB Chips to equal 16. It's like having a Compact Flash (same type of chips) but it's not exactly the same as a CompactFlash. You have to have a custom controller for CF to IDE where-as this is a direct pin-for-pin from the ZIF/LIF Cable to the 44-pin adapter.

There is no logic in the Adapter, the SSD has all the IDE logic.

FWIW this is the same type of connector in the 1.8" small hard drives on the drive-based iPod and iPod Classic.

I have a 30GB 1.8" iPod HDD sitting in my NetBook which this came out of.

Keep in mind some SSDs reverse the polarity of the pins on the cable. I had to order a special LIF/ZIF cable that reversed the pins.

Unlike a normal cable (which the on each end the side that exposes the pins on the left part of the cable is the same side as the right cable), This has to have one side exposed on the left part, but on the other side, the opposite side of the ribbon is exposed. So it reverses the pins.

If you ever get an adapter and can't get it to work, that would be the reason. This is also the reason I had to use that cable on the 1.8" hard drive on my netbook is because the HDD requires it to be exposed on the same size as the other, but the actual LIF host connector on the netbook requires it to be backwards. I will post a pic of the ribbon when I get it in the mail. I got three of them coming (the cheapest option required I get three of them, but shipping was free and it was only $1.25.

 

[reekdaddy]

cool, definitely post a picture because i'm very interested in doing something like this. i suppose i can track one of these down on eBay.

 

[Toni_]

Hi,

With the information kindly posted by coius in this thread I was also able to install the SanDisk SSD to my PowerBook G3 lombard, to replace the original ATA hard disk drive which was starting to fall apart. Here's a couple pictures of what I ended up with:





Luckily I had my Mac OS 9 CD at hand and the Hard Disk Toolkit installed on the backup disk so formatting the SSD was quite easy process.

If anyone of you are going to attemp the same upgrade, here's a couple links to where I bought the parts which you might find useful:

The SanDisk ZIF-SSD on eBay: http://www.ebay.com/itm/SanDisk-1-8-CE-ZIF-PATA-16GB-SSD-HDD-Hard-Disk-Module-SDPA3AD-S-/251146722890?ssPageName=ADME:L:OC:US:3160

The ATA-ZIF adapter on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004HPKE50/ref=pe_175190_21431760_3p_M3T1_SC_dp_1

And like coius also mentioned, you need the exactly right kind of ZIF cable for this to work, with the contact pins on opposide sides on each end. I recall the cable I got was Samsung compatible type.

I didn't experience any dramatic improvement in the boot times (takes around 60 seconds from startup sound to usable desktop on the full installation of Mac OS 9.1), but overall the system feels much faster while working with applications.