Gigabyte's i-RAM has gotten a lot of attention for the promise of extremely fast access time, but the 4 GB maximum capacity is a limiting factor on a modern computer. My first thought when I heard about it was that it could be used to replace aging hard drives on old DOS computers.
I maintain a Pentium 200 with MS-DOS 6.22 and Windows 3.1 to play DOS games, but hard drives from that era frequently fail or develop bad sectors. Making the trip to my local obsolete hardware dealer to replace a 2 GB hard drive is time consuming and getting expensive. Besides which, the hard drives are loud and slow. I have 2 GB of DDR that I don't need any more, and they're solid state so they make no noise, draw little power, and have a lifetime warranty. If I could format the drive with FAT16, I could put one in my older computers. If only the i-RAM didn't require a SATA connection...
Buying a PCI SATA card isn't feasible because of driver support. I need something that will be invisible to the operating system. I've found an adapter called a MB-SA2HV on an Australian website that lets you connect a SATA hard drive to a PATA connector. Does anyone know where I can find more SATA to PATA adapters, preferably in North America to reduce shipping expenses? Is this likely to work?
Between the i-RAM and the SATA to PATA adapter, this may seem like an expensive solution, but someday it will be impossible to find a hard drive for a classic computer due to capacity, BIOS incompatibility, and new connection standards. The one-time purchase of a solution like this seems infinitely preferable to exhausting the world's supply of ancient hard drives. Gigabyte may have inadvertently come up with a way to keep these computers running indefinitely by removing the only component that has moving parts: the hard drive. I wonder if they could be convinced to release a PATA version.
I maintain a Pentium 200 with MS-DOS 6.22 and Windows 3.1 to play DOS games, but hard drives from that era frequently fail or develop bad sectors. Making the trip to my local obsolete hardware dealer to replace a 2 GB hard drive is time consuming and getting expensive. Besides which, the hard drives are loud and slow. I have 2 GB of DDR that I don't need any more, and they're solid state so they make no noise, draw little power, and have a lifetime warranty. If I could format the drive with FAT16, I could put one in my older computers. If only the i-RAM didn't require a SATA connection...
Buying a PCI SATA card isn't feasible because of driver support. I need something that will be invisible to the operating system. I've found an adapter called a MB-SA2HV on an Australian website that lets you connect a SATA hard drive to a PATA connector. Does anyone know where I can find more SATA to PATA adapters, preferably in North America to reduce shipping expenses? Is this likely to work?
Between the i-RAM and the SATA to PATA adapter, this may seem like an expensive solution, but someday it will be impossible to find a hard drive for a classic computer due to capacity, BIOS incompatibility, and new connection standards. The one-time purchase of a solution like this seems infinitely preferable to exhausting the world's supply of ancient hard drives. Gigabyte may have inadvertently come up with a way to keep these computers running indefinitely by removing the only component that has moving parts: the hard drive. I wonder if they could be convinced to release a PATA version.
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