CF Cards as IDE Drives
Is anyone else out there using their CF cards as IDE hard drives?
I've mounted a CF-to-IDE adapter in my PC just under drive A:. In fact, you have to look twice to notice that it is not another floppy drive.
Now I have two ways to get information to and from my CF cards; i.e., ImageMate and IDE.
I've suggested to SanDisk that they look into producing such an adapter with hardware for mounting it into a 3.5" ported drive bay. Since I received no response, I assume that there is no interest. Too bad, because the .jpg photographs sent to SanDisk show the mounting arrangement along with a spring-loaded door and a prominent red SanDisk logo.
I understand that the idea might not be very good from the business perspective, but I do think that some acknowledgment from SanDisk would have been in order.
I have not done extensive testing of the CF drive, but it appears to beat the USB ImageMate in speed.
This CFHD is automatically detected during bootup, so it doesn't matter what size CF card is in the adapter.
Although inserting CF cards is just as easy as inserting 3.5" floppies, the downside is that hot swapping cannot be done, the computer hangs up. I would think that this could be overcome with some circuitry on the adapter, or with a software driver.
The adapter, which contains no active components, cost me about $20; the mounting hardware, another $8.00.
NHP |
