Are 1.8" and 2.5" 44-pin IDE connectors compatible?

[gameface]

I'm looking for an 2.5" IDE SSD, but so far I'm not finding many affordable options. Surprisingly (to me), there are a lot more options in the 1.8" size, so I began looking into whether there were adapters available. So far, I haven't found anything, and then I came across the spec sheet for a SuperTalent drive that shows the dimensions and pin-outs of the connectors on the 1.8" and 2.5" IDE models to be the same:

http://www.supertalent.com/products/ssd_detail.php?type=DuraDrive ET

But I have not been able to find anything that confirms this. Can anyone here tell me if one of these 1.8" drives would be plug-compatible with the 2.5" drive it would be replacing? I believe some of the ZIF-style connectors use lower voltages, but the specs here say they are all 5V.

And if anyone has actually put a 1.8" drive in a 2.5" laptop bay, what did you use to hold the drive in place. I looked for some sort of carrier to adapt the form factor of the smaller drive so it will fit securely in the 2.5" bay, but again came up empty. Is it sufficient to just tape the drive down?

 

[Blain]

You're not looking for high performance out of these 1.8" drives, correct?

 

[razel]

Try the Runcore 32GB $155 or Transcend 32GB $125. I think the Runcore is Intellidux (sp?) and Transcend is a Jmicron (probably the fixed version). I have no experience with them, but those are my two choices for 2.5" IDE SSDs. I have the fixed Jmicron in SATA (Kingston V) and found it to be one of the most solid and the most troublefree. No babysitting with TRIM, toolbox, degradation at all.

 

[gameface]

You're not looking for high performance out of these 1.8" drives, correct?

Why not, Blain? Is there a difference in performance between an 1.8" SSD and a 2.5" SSD?

 

[gameface]

Try the Runcore 32GB $155 or Transcend 32GB $125. I think the Runcore is Intellidux (sp?) and Transcend is a Jmicron (probably the fixed version). I have no experience with them, but those are my two choices for 2.5" IDE SSDs. I have the fixed Jmicron in SATA (Kingston V) and found it to be one of the most solid and the most troublefree. No babysitting with TRIM, toolbox, degradation at all.

I was looking at the Runcore Pro IV (Indilinx), but distribution is a bit a problem. Suffice it to say that, for me in Canada, I'm looking at a total cost of about $230 and that's more than I wanted to spend for this particular case.

I haven't been considering the Transcend because of the JMicron controller, at least until I find some first hand accounts that the write performance is okay. And it doesn't seem to be a whole lot easier to get either. (If I want to go JMicron, there's tons of Kingspec drives on eBay for even less, but again I'd like to see some first-hand test results.)

Anyway, the reason I ask the question, besides opening up a lot more options for myself, is because I came across someone selling the aforementioned SuperTalent SLC drives for less than the Transcend or Runcore. Now, I don't yet know what controller is in the DuraDrives, but I've read that even the JMicron is okay in an SLC drive. While I would certainly like to know the answer to that, my first question is whether or not I can even use this type of drive in my machine. (I had planned to ask specifically about the Super Talent drives in a separate thread.)

 

[Blain]

You're not looking for high performance out of these 1.8" drives, correct?

Why not, Blain? Is there a difference in performance between an 1.8" SSD and a 2.5" SSD?

The SuperTalent 1.8" drives you linked to, perform about the same as spinning platter drives from 5 or 6 years ago.

 

[Beautiful_Life]

All you have to do is head over to ebay and you can work up something. They have every single connector you can ever dream of there.

There probably is a bay specially to fit 1.8" HDDs to 2.5" form factor bays.

 

[Emulex]

yeah tape it down. but be careful 1.8" drives use ZIF or LIF or uSATA connectors. there is not room on those drives for 2.5" size connectors.

1.8" drives for the most part are 3.3V devices too - a few exceptions - 5V would require a power regulator stepdown since 2.5" are mostly all 5V.

without NCQ and peak of ATA-100 you do not gain the same as sata.

suffice to say - anything with PATA is pretty much time to kick the bucket and replace.

A ghetto $299 special walmart with an indilinix will smoke most pata laptops.

heck a netbook with an indilinx or intel will smoke many pata laptops lol.

 

[gameface]

All you have to do is head over to ebay and you can work up something. They have every single connector you can ever dream of there.

There probably is a bay specially to fit 1.8" HDDs to 2.5" form factor bays.

I've looked and looked (on eBay and elsewhere) and haven't found such a thing, so I'd be most grateful if someone could point me to an actual instance of one. Even to an example of someone who has homebrewed one.

 

[Blain]

Are you still planning on using one of those SuperTalent drives?

 

[gameface]

yeah tape it down. but be careful 1.8" drives use ZIF or LIF or uSATA connectors. there is not room on those drives for 2.5" size connectors.

Have a look at the spec sheet on the page I linked to, or the pictures below.

The 1.8" version has what looks like a regular 44-pin IDE connector on it. It's mounted along one of the long sides instead one one of the short sides. (The long side of a 1.8" drive is the same width as the short dimension of a 2.5" drive.) It looks to be about the same size, but I was hoping for confirmation from someone who had seen these in person, or who knew the IDE specs.

suffice to say - anything with PATA is pretty much time to kick the bucket and replace.

Most certainly not true, and quite beside the point of my post. Please let me decide whether the upgrade is worthwhile. (If I must justify my reasoning, the machine in question is a particularly nice pen tablet, and it would cost closer to $2000 to replace with something comparable new. A $100 for a silent and more rugged drive does not seems extravagant to me.)

 

[Blain]

True, they are solid state drives, but the max read/write speeds for both versions of those SuperTalents are slow
* Sequential Read Rate 65 MB/sec (max)
* Sequential Write Rate 50 MB/sec (max)

Compare to an old 320GB WD Caviar SE SATA-150... Max Read = 65MB, Max Write = 65MB

 

[gameface]

True, they are solid state drives, but the max read/write speeds for both versions of those SuperTalents are slow
* Sequential Read Rate 65 MB/sec (max)
* Sequential Write Rate 50 MB/sec (max)

Compare to an old 320GB WD Caviar SE SATA-150... Max Read = 65MB, Max Write = 65MB

IME, max write speed tells you almost nothing about real-world performance, unless all you're ever doing is moving massive files around (which I'm not). Also, the drive you're using for comparison is pretty new drive, not a 5-year old model. What's in the machine now is a 60GB ATA-5 drive that probably maxes out well these numbers. Random write speed is far more important for my usage, and none of the current SSDs break 50 MB/s in that department. My only concern is to avoid the bottom end of that scale (under 1MB/s).

http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3631&p=22

Anyway, this is getting off topic. I've started another thread to discuss the particular SuperTalent drives. Could we pick this up over there?

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2059707

 

[gameface]

Still looking for an answer to the original question...

Are the 1.8" and 2.5" 44-pin IDE connectors compatible?

No one knows?

 

[Emulex]

sure plug it in. if it blows up return it

odd that you'd have to rotate the drive to make it fit??

 

[Nomgle]

Still looking for an answer to the original question...

Are the 1.8" and 2.5" 44-pin IDE connectors compatible?

No one knows?

I've also looked into this exact issue for an old PATA laptop.

The Supertalent MLC and Kingspec MLC and Transcend MLC drives all use the original broken JMicron controller - they're junk.

The RunCore is the only one that performs "OK" - probably quicker than a mechanical drive, but not much.

My conclusion was that the 1.8" and 2.5" IDE connectors were the same - but 2.5" IDE drives use 5v, and your 1.8" machine may want a 3.3v drive.

The 44-pin 1.8" IDE connector, was generally used by Hitachi.

There's also a 50-pin 1.8" IDE connector, generally used by Toshiba, so beware !

The JMicron controller wasn't as broken with the SLC drives, so it will probably be OK with the surplus drives you've found - but like the RunCore above, I suspect it won't be much quicker than a decent mechanical drive. I'd also be interested in buying one - can you let me know who the seller is ? PM if you wish.

Just for reference, here's in image of a 44-pin 1.8" drive, and a 44-pin 1.8" CompactFlash adaptor (which specifically says it will fit any IDE laptop) :

 

[Nomgle]

The SuperTalent 1.8" drives you linked to, perform about the same as spinning platter drives from 5 or 6 years ago...

...at sequential reads and writes, which is an utterly meaningless metric for Operating System use

 

[Blain]

...at sequential reads and writes, which is an utterly meaningless metric for Operating System use

In all fairness dude, the only 3 performance specifications listed in the SuperTalent data sheet were...
Sequential Read Rates
Sequential Write Rates
Access Time

 

[Nomgle]

In all fairness dude, the only 3 performance specifications listed in the SuperTalent data sheet were...
Sequential Read Rates
Sequential Write Rates
Access Time

Yeah, their spec page is rubbish !
It would be useful to know how they perform in real-world use - if the access time can randomly increase by orders-of-magnitude like the busted JMicron MLC drives, then they're worthless junk.

I've never managed to find anyone who actually owns one though, so it's difficult to know, and I don't recall ever seeing a review of a JMicron SLC drive ?