Apology for non-pi post - but this group has some really hardware
knowledge in general

It is getting harder to get a Pi, so I tried Ebay - and got two
thin clients.

The first did not have a hard drive, it has a DOM-thing (Eprom/flash)
but it also has a SATA port - so I installed a 2.5" SATA disk.
Works well.

The second - not arrived yet - has no hard drive, nor a SATA port,
but a CF-card. I read that CF-card are very much like P-ATA or IDE drives.
I do have a 1.8" IDE drive and a 2.5" one too.

I see _lots_ of adapters for replacing an IDE drive with a CF card.
I can find _no_ adapter for replacing a CF-card with an IDE drive

Is there such a thing?
Or should I just buy a bigger CF card - or a SD-to-CF-card adapter and
use an SD-card? (it will come with 1 GB CF-card - which is too small)

--
/Björn

Björn Lundin <bnl@nowhere.com> wrote:
> The second - not arrived yet - has no hard drive, nor a SATA port,
> but a CF-card. I read that CF-card are very much like P-ATA or IDE drives.
> I do have a 1.8" IDE drive and a 2.5" one too.
>
> I see _lots_ of adapters for replacing an IDE drive with a CF card.
> I can find _no_ adapter for replacing a CF-card with an IDE drive
>
> Is there such a thing?
> Or should I just buy a bigger CF card - or a SD-to-CF-card adapter and
> use an SD-card? (it will come with 1 GB CF-card - which is too small)

CF cards are really small form-factor PCMCIA cards - at one time you could
get a passive adapter to fit them in a PCMCIA slot. Traditional PCMCIA
carried the ISA bus[*], and IDE is related to the ISA bus, hence you could
use a CF card as an IDE drive in a PCMCIA slot.

But IDE is just one mode CF cards can talk - there are others. Generally a
camera or similar is not using the IDE mode. So this means you couldn't
plug your IDE-to-CF adapter into a camera or other CF device and expect it
to work - it would only work if the CF device was only using the IDE mode in
the first place. The rest of the time the IDE drive wouldn't respond.

This is why you can't buy them, because in most cases they wouldn't work.
Selling something that doesn't work in most of the use cases is not a road
to riches.

So either of your options of buying a bigger CF card, or an SD to CF adapter
would be worth trying. I'd guess you can buy bigger/cheaper SD cards
nowadays than CF cards, but beware in case there are size limitations (I
think SD has protocol limits at 4GB and 2TB, and IDE at 8GB and 128GB) - it
may be the adapter is only good up to a certain size.

Theo

[*] More recent PC Cards were CardBus which carried PCI, and later
ExpressCards which carried PCIe

On 2023-01-27, Bj?rn Lundin <bnl@nowhere.com> wrote:
>
> The second - not arrived yet - has no hard drive, nor a SATA port,
> but a CF-card. I read that CF-card are very much like P-ATA or IDE drives.
> I do have a 1.8" IDE drive and a 2.5" one too.

Personally I'd wait until the unit arrives before opening it up
and seeing what there is to work with. I wouldn't be remotely
suprised if there is a space on the board just waiting for you to
put a 40 or 44 pin IDE socket in it and solder in place. I know
I've had a few Neoware terminals in the past that were the reverse
of what you describe - 44 pin IDE socket on board but space to
solder in a CF card socket if you were so inclined.

Couple of points to bear in mind: IDE is 5V only for signalling.
2.5" drives on 44 pin connectors are 5V for power too, 3.5"/40 pin
drives need 12V as well which may not be around in a thin client.
CF cards can be either 5V or 3.3V, if your machine comes with a
3.3V card you have further research to do as to the viability of
any swap. Doesn't necessarily make it a show stopper but it's
something to consider carefully before you proceed.

Secondly is that CF cards use a lot less power than even laptop
drives. Are you sure the power is there for a hard drive? Many
thin clients only have supplies in the 60W range for the entire
system, sometimes less.

Finally, is there even space in the case to mount a hard drive
anywhere?

--
Andrew Smallshaw
andrews@sdf.org

On 2023-01-27 17:11, Theo wrote:
> Björn Lundin <bnl@nowhere.com> wrote:

> This is why you can't buy them, because in most cases they wouldn't work.

Ok, that sounds reasonable

> So either of your options of buying a bigger CF card, or an SD to CF adapter
> would be worth trying. I'd guess you can buy bigger/cheaper SD cards
> nowadays than CF cards, but beware in case there are size limitations (I
> think SD has protocol limits at 4GB and 2TB, and IDE at 8GB and 128GB) - it
> may be the adapter is only good up to a certain size.

I'll go SD-to-CF-adapter first

Thanks for the details

--
/Björn

On 2023-01-29 20:59, Andrew Smallshaw wrote:
> On 2023-01-27, Bj?rn Lundin <bnl@nowhere.com> wrote:
>>
>> The second - not arrived yet - has no hard drive, nor a SATA port,
>> but a CF-card. I read that CF-card are very much like P-ATA or IDE drives.
>> I do have a 1.8" IDE drive and a 2.5" one too.
>
> Personally I'd wait until the unit arrives before opening it up
> and seeing what there is to work with. I wouldn't be remotely
> suprised if there is a space on the board just waiting for you to
> put a 40 or 44 pin IDE socket in it and solder in place.

That would be nice

> Couple of points to bear in mind: IDE is 5V only for signalling.
> 2.5" drives on 44 pin connectors are 5V for power too, 3.5"/40 pin
> drives need 12V as well which may not be around in a thin client.
> CF cards can be either 5V or 3.3V, if your machine comes with a
> 3.3V card you have further research to do as to the viability of
> any swap. Doesn't necessarily make it a show stopper but it's
> something to consider carefully before you proceed.

Noted

>
> Secondly is that CF cards use a lot less power than even laptop
> drives. Are you sure the power is there for a hard drive? Many
> thin clients only have supplies in the 60W range for the entire
> system, sometimes less.

Hmm, this one has lees. 30 w I think I read.
I did think of a 2.5" drive, but I also have 1.8"
It was an replacement for an ipod gen 4

> Finally, is there even space in the case to mount a hard drive
> anywhere?

Good question. I do not know.

It should arrive in the week.
Exiting

--
/Björn

On 2023-01-30, Bj?rn Lundin <bnl@nowhere.com> wrote:
>
>> Secondly is that CF cards use a lot less power than even laptop
>> drives. Are you sure the power is there for a hard drive? Many
>> thin clients only have supplies in the 60W range for the entire
>> system, sometimes less.
>
> Hmm, this one has lees. 30 w I think I read.
> I did think of a 2.5" drive, but I also have 1.8"
> It was an replacement for an ipod gen 4

I'm very dubious. I tried using those 1.8" Microdrives perhaps a
decade ago. Kind of worked, but drives for the likes of an iPod
are very aggressive when it comes to power saving - they'll spin
down after a few seconds of inactivity, and then take a few seconds
to spin up again.

--
Andrew Smallshaw
andrews@sdf.org

On 2023-01-31 00:16, Andrew Smallshaw wrote:
> On 2023-01-30, Bj?rn Lundin <bnl@nowhere.com> wrote:

> I'm very dubious. I tried using those 1.8" Microdrives perhaps a
> decade ago. Kind of worked, but drives for the likes of an iPod
> are very aggressive when it comes to power saving - they'll spin
> down after a few seconds of inactivity, and then take a few seconds
> to spin up again.

Is that within the drive, or is it the iPod firmware that requests the
spin-down?

Did anyone here use an 1.8" drive with the Pi? Via USB?
Experiences would be interesting to know of.

However I am also a bit hesitant now - mostly because I realise adapters
are difficult for them.
And of course since I don't know yet if there is a way to solder on an
IDE port at all on the motherboard.

--
/Björn

Björn Lundin <bnl@nowhere.com> wrote:
> On 2023-01-31 00:16, Andrew Smallshaw wrote:
> > On 2023-01-30, Bj?rn Lundin <bnl@nowhere.com> wrote:
>
>
> > I'm very dubious. I tried using those 1.8" Microdrives perhaps a
> > decade ago. Kind of worked, but drives for the likes of an iPod
> > are very aggressive when it comes to power saving - they'll spin
> > down after a few seconds of inactivity, and then take a few seconds
> > to spin up again.
>
> Is that within the drive, or is it the iPod firmware that requests the
> spin-down?
>
> Did anyone here use an 1.8" drive with the Pi? Via USB?
> Experiences would be interesting to know of.

There were also these:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microdrive
but they only got as far as 16GB, which is a bit disappointing today.
Would be enough to boot a Pi (or thin client) for laughs, though.

Theo

On 2023-01-31 11:33, Theo wrote:

> There were also these:
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microdrive
> but they only got as far as 16GB, which is a bit disappointing today.
> Would be enough to boot a Pi (or thin client) for laughs, though.

Interesting.
I headed to ebay and got 2 6Gb. delivery early March though
6gb will cover my needs for this one.
Thanks

--
/Björn

Björn Lundin <bnl@nowhere.com> wrote:
> On 2023-01-31 11:33, Theo wrote:
>
> > There were also these:
> > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microdrive
> > but they only got as far as 16GB, which is a bit disappointing today.
> > Would be enough to boot a Pi (or thin client) for laughs, though.
>
> Interesting.
> I headed to ebay and got 2 6Gb. delivery early March though
> 6gb will cover my needs for this one.
> Thanks

I would expect performance to be absolutely, diabolically, awful :-)
Even the cheapest nastiest flash CF card would be a lot quicker.

But there's something to marvel at fitting a full HDD mechanism inside a CF
card, even if the result is not very useful today. I wonder if you could
replace the lid with a clear cover and watch it thrash...?

Theo

On 2023-01-31 15:43, Theo wrote:
> I would expect performance to be absolutely, diabolically, awful :-)
> Even the cheapest nastiest flash CF card would be a lot quicker.
>
> But there's something to marvel at fitting a full HDD mechanism inside a CF
> card, even if the result is not very useful today. I wonder if you could
> replace the lid with a clear cover and watch it thrash...?
>
> Theo

So,
The cpu is slow
The disk is slow
there is only 1 Gb of RAM
Naturally I expect the system to run slow on it.

I develop Warehouse Control systems for a living.
I like to try to fit it into small devices.
I'll use the thin client for compiling the system.

I prefer a hard-drive, since I think daily compilation of 1.2 locs
will kill the flash soon.

Yes, I could go with a usb 2.0 but where is the fun in that?

The advantage of testing on a very slow system is that it might reveal
timing issues that would not appear otherwise.

I did port the system to the Pi, but I cannot run it properly, since
both MS-sql-server and Oracle still lack non-java drivers for ARM
platforms. It runs on postgresql - but then our client does not support
pg :-(

Now, I get to test it for real

Thanks for your input

--
/Björn

On 2023-01-31 15:54, Björn Lundin wrote:
> I prefer a hard-drive, since I think daily compilation of 1.2 locs

1.2 Mlocs that is

--
/Björn

On 2023-01-31, Bj?rn Lundin <bnl@nowhere.com> wrote:
> On 2023-01-31 00:16, Andrew Smallshaw wrote:
>
>> I'm very dubious. I tried using those 1.8" Microdrives perhaps a
>> decade ago. Kind of worked, but drives for the likes of an iPod
>> are very aggressive when it comes to power saving - they'll spin
>> down after a few seconds of inactivity, and then take a few seconds
>> to spin up again.
>
> Is that within the drive, or is it the iPod firmware that requests the
> spin-down?
>
> Did anyone here use an 1.8" drive with the Pi? Via USB?
> Experiences would be interesting to know of.

The drive's firmware so you don't have control over it. This was
in a Neoware thin client.

--
Andrew Smallshaw
andrews@sdf.org

On 2023-02-01 12:08, Andrew Smallshaw wrote:

>>> they'll spin
>>> down after a few seconds of inactivity, and then take a few seconds
>>> to spin up again.

> The drive's firmware so you don't have control over it.

Ok, I'll then try to

echo $(date) > /tmp/date.dat

every other second or so, to keep it spinning

--
/Björn

On 31 Jan 2023 10:33:57 +0000 (GMT), Theo
<theom+news@chiark.greenend.org.uk> declaimed the following:

>but they only got as far as 16GB, which is a bit disappointing today.
>Would be enough to boot a Pi (or thin client) for laughs, though.

In one of my photo bags is a small drive with rechargeable battery
(after all these years, probably won't hold a charge -- good thing the
drive can be used from charger plug). The unit had slots for all 5 major
memory card formats of the period.

One would insert a card, press the copy button, and the card contents
would be copied to a (newly created) directory on the drive.

Problem these days? It is a 40GB (unformatted) drive -- and the camera
in that bag now has 32GB CF cards! (Maybe a few 16GB, but I think I moved
those to the other camera [8Mpixel vs 15Mpixel], and moved that one's 8&4GB
cards to the even older 4Mpixel P&S camera [I'd been using a 256MB card in
that camera, had a 64MB card for secondary, and the factory provided card
was a whopping 32MegaBytes -- could only hold about 12 photos!]). Could
only back-up one filled CF card (and you don't want to do multiple backups
while filling the card, as each backup copies everything).

--
Wulfraed Dennis Lee Bieber AF6VN
wlfraed@ix.netcom.com http://wlfraed.microdiversity.freeddns.org/

"Dennis Lee Bieber" <wlfraed@ix.netcom.com> wrote in message
news:0phlthpvelgdjhhsudseif3fmf3oj0fdsd@4ax.com...
> On 31 Jan 2023 10:33:57 +0000 (GMT), Theo
> <theom+news@chiark.greenend.org.uk> declaimed the following:
>
>
>>but they only got as far as 16GB, which is a bit disappointing today.
>>Would be enough to boot a Pi (or thin client) for laughs, though.
>
> In one of my photo bags is a small drive with rechargeable battery
> (after all these years, probably won't hold a charge -- good thing the
> drive can be used from charger plug). The unit had slots for all 5 major
> memory card formats of the period.
>
> One would insert a card, press the copy button, and the card contents
> would be copied to a (newly created) directory on the drive.
>
> Problem these days? It is a 40GB (unformatted) drive -- and the camera
> in that bag now has 32GB CF cards! (Maybe a few 16GB, but I think I moved
> those to the other camera [8Mpixel vs 15Mpixel], and moved that one's
> 8&4GB
> cards to the even older 4Mpixel P&S camera [I'd been using a 256MB card in
> that camera, had a 64MB card for secondary, and the factory provided card
> was a whopping 32MegaBytes -- could only hold about 12 photos!]). Could
> only back-up one filled CF card (and you don't want to do multiple backups
> while filling the card, as each backup copies everything).

Presumably you would use the copy-from-CF-to-HDD device just for making a
safety copy while you are away from home (or freeing up space on the
camera's CF card), and you will empty its drive once you get back home and
save all/most of the photos to permanent storage. Given that, how often will
you fill up 40 GB while you are away from your permanent-storage computer?

They were/are a good idea: more portable than taking a laptop and maybe an
external USB hard drive, though a laptop does give you the ability to
preview pictures and determine whether there are any problems that may need
you to re-shoot photos. A camera's back-screen is OK at a pinch, but not as
good for showing exposure/focussing errors.

Can it take SDHC (the high-capacity version of SD) cards? Since your camera
uses CF rather than SD, it may not matter, but it's always worth having
something that cam copy SD in case you need to back up contents of a
cellphone etc which uses SD. I also carry around in my cellphone case a
micro-SD to normal-SD adaptor so I can read a micro-SD card (from a phone
etc) in a computer that only has a normal-SD slot.

On Fri, 3 Feb 2023 09:27:47 -0000, "NY" <me@privacy.invalid> declaimed the
following:

>
>Presumably you would use the copy-from-CF-to-HDD device just for making a
>safety copy while you are away from home (or freeing up space on the
>camera's CF card), and you will empty its drive once you get back home and
>save all/most of the photos to permanent storage. Given that, how often will
>you fill up 40 GB while you are away from your permanent-storage computer?
>

Hard to state -- For the dSLRs I'm configured to save both RAW and JPEG
in parallel. Without digging up the camera, I think that comes to about 900
images (from the 15Mpixel) per 32GB CF card.

>They were/are a good idea: more portable than taking a laptop and maybe an
>external USB hard drive, though a laptop does give you the ability to
>preview pictures and determine whether there are any problems that may need
>you to re-shoot photos. A camera's back-screen is OK at a pinch, but not as
>good for showing exposure/focussing errors.
>
It was useful back when my CF cards were in the 1-4GB range (I actually
have a mixer/recorder -- BOSS BR-600 -- that won't work with a CF card
larger than 1GB!). I could fill a card with images from a day out, then
back it up to the portable drive.

>Can it take SDHC (the high-capacity version of SD) cards? Since your camera

I suspect not -- it is ancient <G>

>uses CF rather than SD, it may not matter, but it's always worth having
>something that cam copy SD in case you need to back up contents of a
>cellphone etc which uses SD. I also carry around in my cellphone case a
>micro-SD to normal-SD adaptor so I can read a micro-SD card (from a phone
>etc) in a computer that only has a normal-SD slot.

The SD card in my phone is barely touched...

--
Wulfraed Dennis Lee Bieber AF6VN
wlfraed@ix.netcom.com http://wlfraed.microdiversity.freeddns.org/