Interested in SATA notebook drives in the PhatBox?

[Terry_Kennedy]

Looking at the current and upcoming 200GB / 250GB / 300GB notebook drives, they all seem to be SATA. The only announcement that doesn't specifically state SATA-only is the Hitachi one, and I've requested a clarification, though I assume I'll get "We don't comment on unreleased products" as a response.

Thus, it seems that if we want larger drives, we'll need to use a SATA drive in the DMS. There are certainly enough available pins in the existing DMS connector, though a different adapter board will be needed in the DMS. There's enough space inside the PhatBox itself to install a SATA / IDE adapter card. Likewise, old cradles can be recycled to have SATA / USB adapters in them.

The question is whether there's enough interest to go ahead with getting the circuit boards and other items made up. The 160GB DMS seemed to generate a collective yawn from the crowd here, so I'm not sure it is worthwhile to pursue this.

If this is something you might be interested in, or have any suggestions / comments, please post them here.

[markbowen]

I don't think there was a collective yawn at the 160GB project, so much as people balking at the price difference between 100/120GB and 160GB at the time, which was quite steep for relatively little gain.  Now, talk about doubling or tripling the capacity of the Phatbox, and there will certainly be some interest, but again for a lot of folks it's going to depend on the investment required.  (Toshiba already has a 200GB SATA notebook drive out, and it costs $250, which is actually less than the 160GB when it first came out.)

If we're going to talk about changing out circuit boards, a lot of people (me for one) have little to no knowledge of electronics.  It's quite a jump for novices to go from a software hack to hacking the hardware, so the interest will also be limited by people's abilities.

[S80_UK]

I have to agree with Mark.  The 160GB was a huge price jump when it came out, and that held folks back (me included).  But at the same time it involved relatively little know-how on the part of the user, and was a low risk exercise for those who had already hacked their boxes.  

From my point of view 160GB would be more than enough.  I am one of those here who is more comfortable hacking hardware than software, but I doubt that I would want to go to an even larger drive than 160GB, even with most of my music ripped to FLAC.  It is also the easy option.

I don't want to dampen anyone's enthusiasm, but since the use of SATA drives involves modification to both the cradle and the Phatbox, I suspect that this would have limited appeal, even if the modifications could be made reversible.

Another possibility (I think considered in the past) would be to add a second ATA hard disc.  But I guess that would be ruled out again due to the hardware mods required (and some software I guess).

Regards,

Les.

[Terry_Kennedy]

II don't want to dampen anyone's enthusiasm, but since the use of SATA drives involves modification to both the cradle and the Phatbox, I suspect that this would have limited appeal, even if the modifications could be made reversible.

To clarify, the kinds of mods I'm looking at would be:

1) A replacement transition board in the DMS - if you've already upgraded your hard drive, you've disconnected the transition board from the old drive and put it on the new drive.

2) Unplugging the ribbon cable from the socket in the Phatbox and plugging it into a new adapter board, and plugging that adapter board into the PhatBox.

3) Opening up the bottom of the cradle and replacing the circuit card.

4) Installing yellow "SATA" stickers on the modified DMS, PhatBox, and cradle.

[S80_UK]

Terry,  Many thanks for the clarification.  It all sounds feasible if the parts can be made to fit.  Any thoughts on likely costs?

[judb]

I would be down for trying this with one of my phatboxes..

I could use the space since right now I can't put my whole CD collection in FLAC on a 120 gig DMS and a 160 isn't big enough for the move to all FLAC anyhow.

[todd1010]

I'm listening!

Would the Phatbox be any faster than it is now with a SATA drive?

[Terry_Kennedy]

Would the Phatbox be any faster than it is now with a SATA drive?

I doubt it. Even a raw CD is only 1.6Mbit/sec, a fraction of the transfer speed of even a PIO ATA drive.

[judb]

now another interesting idea might be trying to overclock the phatbox and come up with a heatsink for the CPU... hmm

[Terry_Kennedy]

If this is something you might be interested in, or have any suggestions / comments, please post them here.

Just to close this out, the WD2500BEVE is a 250GB PATA drive that works fine in the PhatBox DMS with no hardware modifications needed - just the LBA48 kernel available from this forum. So there doesn't seem to be any need to proceed with the SATA conversion. Hopefully the success of this drive in the market will cause other manufacturers to re-think making drives larger than 160GB available in PATA.

shopper.com prices for the WD2500BEVE.

[VorTechS]

I'm certainly interested in SATA conversion, but, think it would probably be better if we started looking into the solid state disks?

[Terry_Kennedy]

I'm certainly interested in SATA conversion, but, think it would probably be better if we started looking into the solid state disks?

Hmmm. That's going to be very expensive and the PhatBox doesn't need the performance gains that SSD provides. The only reason I could see for this would be to improve the shock / vibration resistance of the PhatBox. Even with the terrible roads here in NYC (which snapped a rod end in my Atom's suspension), I haven't had any skips w/ my BMW PhatBox.

If you want to try it it should be pretty simple - use a 2.5" hard disk to CF adapter card like this one and any CF card. I think the largest available now is 64GB, but you could certainly test with something smaller / cheaper. The adpater is only $19.95 (qty 1).

The other alternative would be a native PATA flash drive like the ones from SanDisk. However, those are likely to be more expensive than converting a CF card, since it is a niche market compared to the huge market for CF cards in digital cameras.

[VorTechS]

Certainly now they are more expensive... and we have to remember that when PN started out - they started out with 10 & 20G versions.
Over time the costs will come down and the size will go up, although Hard disks will always have greater sizes.

For me, vibration is an issue as at present I have to have my PhatBox under a seat in the front of the car because I wouldn't trust the disk in the boot (trunk) with the 3 subs I have running.

I might give this a try with a reasonably priced SSD just to prove the concept though.