In car computer - heavy duty hard drive?

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Skaven

Senior member
Oct 18, 1999
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We are developing an in car computer system here at work. We want to make sure that everything in it will take the abuse from being driven on a test track. Basically I'm worried about any sudden g-shock forces. Our old systems were solid-state (also DOS based 486s) so we never had to worry about it. But the new systems must be windows based. I've thought about using notebook drives - but can I hook them up to a regular IDE interface?

Are there any companies that make solid-state IDE hard-drives?

The other option would be to buy a crap-load of ram and possibly load 98 off of a ram-disk? Not sure how feasible that would be.

One 'hiccup' in operation could cause major problems with the engine and the car. Not to mention stress on the driver/tester on the track.

Any help/ideas would be greatly apprecaited!
 
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yg17

Member
Jan 17, 2002
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notebook hds can be hooked up to an IDE connector with an adaptor, but theyre not solid state.

Using a bunch of RAM or CompactFlash cards would cost a lot of money for enough to install windows and other stuff, and may not even be possible
 
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Skaven

Senior member
Oct 18, 1999
835
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Do you have any more info on this adaptor? Will it also take a standard 12v connector from an ATX power supply?

Thanks!
 
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stevewm

Senior member
Dec 6, 2001
742
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My Maxtor 15GB in my car mp3 player wihch is mounted in the trunk has been running fine for 2 years now. Its been through below 0 and above 95 temps and over some of the worst roads in my area and still doesn't have a single bad sector.

The 5GB Seagate in a friends car is going on its 3rd year with no problems.

I think most hardrives can take the abuse of being in a car.
 
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Phloodpants

Member
Oct 9, 1999
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I would suggest mounting the drive vertically rather than horizontally. That way the heads will not slap down on the platters when the car hits bumps. Might not matter, but a good precaution if you can do it.
 
flood

flood

Diamond Member
Oct 17, 1999
4,213
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I put an mp3 player in my car several years ago, details are here
I used a quantum EX drive, they are designed so the entire drive takes the impact, leaving the platters and heads almost unaffected. This feature was included on their EX, EL, CR, and CX drives.
 
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Scootin159

Diamond Member
Apr 17, 2001
3,650
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A few options:

RAMDISK option: Could work, but you would still need a physical HDD to boot off of.
Solid State HDD: They make them. Really expensive, but madd fast & obviously no moving parts.
Laptop HDD: With a $2 adaptor you can hook them up to a regular 3.5" IDE cable & 4-pin molex connector.
 
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Skaven

Senior member
Oct 18, 1999
835
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Just got some prices.

IDE SSD
512mb - $445

Not too bad! I figured with memory prices so low - the SSD shouldn't be too bad. Now I have to figure out how to trim down Win98 to fit it along with the application software on a small drive.

Anybody know if you need a swap-file in an SSD drive?! :)
 
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FishTankX

Platinum Member
Oct 6, 2001
2,738
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Can I give you some advice for cutting down space? There's a product called Windows98lite, at 98lite.net, it'll cut down your instillation to, I believe, 100MB. That shouild leave 400MB for your software. Another option is EOS, another 98lite.net product, that would cut down the installation size to !!*11MB*!! but i'm not sure if it'd be useable to you.

As for the swapfile, arm the system with 512MB of RAM and shut off the swapfile. You can do that in performance options. Be ye warned, if you go over the memory limit, it'll crash. So you have to make sure you dont use more or less than 512MB to reduce the chance of this. And if you need more than 512MB system RAM for this software.. turning off swapfile wont work!
 
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