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Addonics provides a cheap and simple way to add solid-state storage

Addonics has introduced a new CompactFlash to IDE adapter that will give users a relatively cheap and simply way to add solid-state storage (SSD) to their notebook computers.

Addonics’ single-slot AD44MIDECF and dual-slot AD44MIDE2CF accept CompactFlash cards and plug into a standard 2.5" IDE connector. The adapter features an LED light for drive access, supports CompactFlash Type I and Type II cards, is bootable and supports almost any operating system imaginable.

The best thing about the adapter is its affordability. The single-slot version comes in at $25 USD while the dual-slot version can be had for just $30 USD.

Century came up with a similar idea with its 4-slot 2.5" Secure Digital IDE SSD adapter. That device, however, is priced at a whopping $265.92 USD.

Interest in SSDs have been growing in recent months as more annoucements have been made and prices have fallen to somewhat reasonable levels. Within the past month, SanDisk has introduced a 32GB 2.5" SSD priced at $350 USD while Samsung is touting its new 64GB SSD which offers read/write speeds of 65MB/sec and 45MB/sec respectively

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hmm
By yacoub on 4/4/2007 4:00:49 PM , Rating: 2
with IDE going away wouldn't it be better to see it connect to SATA or USB 2.0?




RE: hmm
By ksherman on 4/4/2007 4:29:53 PM , Rating: 2
Well, the CF connection is essentially an IDE connection with a slight modification. Connecting to an IDE interface is cheaper and easier. I imagine than a SATA version of this device would require some sort of bridge chip which would add to the cost.


RE: hmm
By mindless1 on 4/5/2007 11:37:20 AM , Rating: 2
Yes, SATA with a bridge should cost, maybe $15 instead of $4. This product is ridiculously overpriced by anyone's standard.


RE: hmm
By Chadder007 on 4/4/2007 4:31:17 PM , Rating: 2
Thats what I was thinking....


RE: hmm
By semo on 4/5/2007 12:20:44 PM , Rating: 1
i have no beef with ide (integrated drive electronics). it improves data integrity and performance in general.

old parallel ata on the other hand, i can't stand anymore with it's big cables and the possibility of it (hopefully) becoming a bottleneck soon.


RE: hmm
Not so novel
By Flunk on 4/4/2007 3:46:43 PM , Rating: 4
They have had these converters for a while. The compact flash interface is actually a scaled down IDE connector so these converters are fairly easy to make. These have been popular with the mini-itx and embedded communities for quite a while.

Anyway, still a good product and the ability to mount it directly in a notebook with no modifications makes it easier than ever.




RE: Not so novel
By Souka on 4/4/2007 4:58:26 PM , Rating: 2
I guess if u must have SDD....and can afford FAST Hi-CAP CF cards......

but for much less, you get a faster through put, bigger capacity, and likely more reliable traditional HD.

But SDD does offer better shock resistence and low latency....


RE: Not so novel
By jak3676 on 4/4/2007 5:02:10 PM , Rating: 2
I'm curious what the access times and read/write speeds would be like. Highly dependant on the quality of CF cards I know, but I'm not even sure you'd see a big improvment over modern traditional hard drives.

Time to go research CF cards I guess.


Nice to have a cheap adaptor but...
By jak3676 on 4/4/2007 4:58:36 PM , Rating: 5
last time I checked CF prices, 8GB was still about $100. Anything larger than that was real expensive. So we're looking at 16GB of storage drive for ~$200 - $250.

I guess that's cheaper than some of the SSD's out there, but don't loose the all important algorithms that SSD manufacturers use to manage the write patterns and prevent early burnout. I'd be afraid if you used this in a typical laptop as a primary drive for windows you'd be pretty disappointed in the CF failure rates.

Don't get me wong I'm not saying this isn't without good uses, but I don't see this being a mainstream product.




By fic2 on 4/4/2007 8:05:06 PM , Rating: 3
Newegg has 8G CF starting at $75.


THATS COOL.
By Mitch101 on 4/4/2007 3:39:13 PM , Rating: 3
I WANT ONE! Would make for a great car PC with OS and a few applications without any heat or vibration concerns.




RE: THATS COOL.
By fic2 on 4/4/2007 4:02:25 PM , Rating: 2
Me, too. This would make a great backup for my laptop. Especially if I could find a program that can hook into the shutdown and do a sync.


RE: THATS COOL.
By Mitch101 on 4/4/2007 4:36:58 PM , Rating: 2
Could use a right angle connector so one could connect it right on the mobo with no cable required. Or provide a 1 inch IDE cable.


FAQs
By ricera10 on 4/4/2007 5:59:46 PM , Rating: 2
Here's a FAQ page that also has optimizations for running Windows XP from a CompactFlash drive, just in case you missed on the site and are interested.

http://www.addonics.com/support/faqs/faq_cf.asp




RE: FAQs
By The Boston Dangler on 4/4/2007 7:44:29 PM , Rating: 2
poking around their site, there are all kinds of versions of the adaptor. IDE, SATA, USB, 2.5", 3.5" and PCI slot. i'm interested in the SATA 3.5" bay model


RE: FAQs
By RamarC on 4/4/2007 10:40:13 PM , Rating: 2
can't you just do a registry hack (ala bartpe) to remove the "no booting from removeable device" restriction and then image that xp install onto any flash device?

p.s.: i really need to know if such a hack exist!


RAID time
By shaw on 4/5/2007 2:14:04 AM , Rating: 2
I'd love to create my own UMPC with say two 8GB raided together and a nano-ATX motherboard.

64MB/sec is pretty impressive. Now when they hit transfer of 125MB/sec I'll actually upgrade my network to a gigabit network since the hard drive will stop bottlenecking the transfers.




RE: RAID time
By Lifted on 4/5/2007 12:42:08 PM , Rating: 2
The max transfer rate over 100mb is 12.5MB/s, so with modern day HDD's your network is clearly the bottleneck.

Regardless, unless you're running a server OS and a high quality NIC and switch, AND know how to configure all three for your usage patterns, you will never see over ~35MB/s for single session file transfers on a GB network anyway.


I wonder...
By Moishe on 4/5/2007 8:16:42 AM , Rating: 2
If they have the intelligence in the hardware to spread the writes out over the chip so that the life of the CF is not wasted. If this is purely managed by the OS it could be relatively quick to reach the max number of writes.




RE: I wonder...
By mindless1 on 4/5/2007 11:35:48 AM , Rating: 2
Do you know anything at all about CF? This is done by the card, has nothing to do with the adapter which is just a dumb pin-adapter.


How is this news?
By mindless1 on 4/5/2007 11:34:54 AM , Rating: 2
You could already buy these on ebay for $5, how is this news that someone comes up with same product but at a price premium. Regardless, considering the higher cost of the "drive" itself, the main issue might be whether it supports CF3.0 since that is even slated for replacement this year with CF4.




Not quite as nice as mine
By DOSGuy on 4/5/2007 1:48:20 PM , Rating: 2
I prefer the expansion slot-mounted Startech CF to IDE adapter I got from my computer store for $25. It accepts 40 or 44-pin IDE, and uses a floppy power connector if you use 40-pin IDE. I use it in my PC. Why did they limit their product to notebook users? Being able to add a second card seems to be the only newsworthy addition to this adapter. These things have been around for years.




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