IDE/PATA upgrade options

[Mixolydian]

OK so I have several XP/Vista-era computers, laptops specifically, that use an IDE/PATA interface. Naturally, the stock 5400rpm drives are quite slow and somewhat flakey.

Interestingly, although computers were still being sold with IDE interfaces as late as 2008/2009, none of the major storage manufacturers seem to offer any IDE products any longer.

So my options are:

A. Buy the most recent 7200rpm hard disk I can find
B. Buy an IDE SSD such as this one.
C. Buy a 32GB/64GB CompactFlash card and use it in an IDE adapter.

I'm leaning towards B or C, but am unsure about a couple things. Assuming I get a CF card with a decent speed rating, would I notice much of a difference in performance between the CF-based solution and the off-the-shelf IDE SSD? What about reliability? Would the SSD necessarily last longer than the CF card?

Any thoughts are appreciated.

 

[razel]

C is a terrible idea. CF will stutter during writes.

Other's are ok. The best IDE 2.5" hard drive I encountered was the WD Blue IDE 320GB from 2009-ish. It's 5400 RPM but it outperformed the 7200 RPM Seagate I had at the time. WD still makes those. I also tried 32GB IDE SSDs from Transcend during that time. They were JMicron based, but were the 'fixed' versions that don't stutter. They were about $110 back then.

Your best and smartest bet if the laptop supports booting it is a SATA SSD in your CDROM caddy. IDE-SATA CD-ROM caddies are plentiful back in 2008-2009. 5 years later I am not sure. Your best bet for info is notebookreview forums.

 

[Mixolydian]

After some more searching, I stumbled upon this device: http://www.amazon.com/Aleratec-mSATA...ywords=IDE+SSD

Perhaps I should get an mSATA SSD and stick into this thing?

 

[dave_the_nerd]

After some more searching, I stumbled upon this device: http://www.amazon.com/Aleratec-mSATA...ywords=IDE+SSD

Perhaps I should get an mSATA SSD and stick into this thing?

That's the route I'd go. You can always migrate the mSATA SSD to the next computer.

As a general rule, though, don't spend more on adapters than the computer is worth...