pacemakerdevice.org

Hi all! This is my first post in the forums. I recently replaced the harddrive in my 120GB PMD with a Compact Flash card using the Delock 61578 ZIF to CF adapter. http://amzn.com/B002V9VENK

The adapter has about the same dimensions as the original harddrive (a little bit bigger) so you can use the rubber fittings to keep it in place by just placing the adapter on top of the rubber fittings and the pressure from the backside of the PMD will keep it in place.

It works perfectly and it makes the PMD very light.

I believe the images says it all. Be careful when handling the ZIF cable

holy crap, my PMD is only 2 days old and I'm itching to do that to it!

Any idea how the speed of the Compact Flash compares to the SSD replacement? What about reliability?
I'm going to replace my HDD but I was going to use an SSD. I hadn't considered Compact Flash, what are the benefits?

An SSD has an identical interface to a HDD and although solid state it emulates a disc drive and so can be a direct swapout.

I believe compact flash is a type of interface and is used by memory and other add in cards (wifi, modems, etc) but does not act like a drive. Therefore would not swap for a HDD.

Internally they probably both use some type of flash memory so speed may be similar if the cf interface doesnt limit it

Wow I like the idea!

I don't dare not open mine again after breaking the ZIF cable.
http://cubicgarden.com/2013/05/05/upgra ... ard-drive/

Looks the way to go!

Nice post Cubic. We shoild add a link to that from the Hiw To thread

Thanks for the post cubic. I've been meaning to do this for a while, and now I've got myself a spare device I'm ready to try on my old one. I wanted to do it before I take my Pacemakers into the desert for Burning Man, but I'm running out of time!
Do you plan uncompressed files? I was wondering if SSD improves the time-stretch performance on AIFF files. I sometimes find they skip a bit and it doesn't do it with MP3s. I thought a faster drive might help.

After using a CF card for a while now I can say that it is working well. I have not made any scientific analysis but transferring data to the device is definitely faster using the CF card and playback appears to work as before. At least for MP3. I have not yet tried AIFF files. It is really nice not having to wait for drive spin-up when browsing the library etc.

Regarding the CF+adapter vs. ZIF-SSD question I can add that the CF memory cards have two native modes of operation. Memory mapped mode and IDE/ATA mode. When using the ZIF adapter the card automatically boots into IDE/ATA mode and acts as a regular HDD. There should be no difference between using a ZIF-SSD or a CF card + adapter as long they have comparable performance. Make sure you use a good CF card!

I attached a picture of the CF card I'm using for reference.

Thanks for the info. It was news to me that you can get an adapter to connect CF to the interface the Pacemaker has. Looks like there isn't that big a difference in price between say a 32Gb CF and an SSD. I assume a CF card would be lighter. Haven't lok at specs for power requirements

Does anyone know what the max CF size you could use is? I have the original 120gb version.