I have an old (8 to 10 year) Gateway that I want
to install a 2.5 Samsung SSD into.

I apparently need an adapter to go on my new 2.5 SSD
that lets it get plugged by my old IDE cables. My
old cables have two connectors, a 4 pin power
connector, and a 39 pin connection. The 39 pin
connection looks like it is sized to be a 40 pin
connection with one of the pins not installed,
so it might be called a 39 pin or a 40 pin connection.
I am guessing that the later 44 pin IDE just moved
the power connectors onto the same cable as the
other 39 connections, just a guess.


This sort of adapter:
http://www.amazon.com/2-5-Inch-3-5-I...n+IDE++adapter

Looks like it is the sort of thing I need, but
I cant be sure. What are the odds this thing
will work?

My connections on my old IDE drive only has 39 pins,
so it looks to be a match for this 40 pin connection.
Then there are 4 more pins for power.

Looks to me like I could plug the SSD into this adapter,
the back end on that photo in above link,
then plug my cables into it, front end on that photo above.

I have the hardware adaptor, for mounting the smaller drive
into the larger bay in the computer.

I don't know the ins and outs of the speeds but is this even worth it? As I understand it the IDE interface will mean that it's not much faster than the spinning rust it replaces?
An uneducated guess is that money would be better spent on a cheaper spinning disk and more RAM for caching but I await correction from the more knowledgeable.

Well, yes and no. More specifically, no, at least somewhat.

One of the problems with speed is that there is speed and speed. The biggest problem with Ye Olde Fashioned Harde Diske Drive (I'll stop now) for many purposes is the seek time. That is, you have to wait for a while, during which time nothing happens, and then stuff happens at a reasonable rate (actually, there is a worthwhile argument that every time the interface gets close to limiting disk performance, the industry comes out with a faster interface, so if you keep to contemporaneous components, the interface will be just fast enough...putting a later, faster, component into the system is asking for bottlenecks, though). Now the consequence of this is, even if the interface is limiting (close to limiting, more likely) the SSD will feel faster - will actually be faster, in at least one useful sense - due to the decrease in latency, even if the maximum interface bandwidth is the same in both cases.

Well, the first question is whether you still have to pay the money? Or, do you already have it, in which case it is essentially free.

You can buy IDE SSDs - they tend to be small, not that fast and relatively cheap and not that common, but you can get them. Now, if this were to be a boot drive and there was another drive for storage, that might be a good solution (although, solution to what? It only speeds up access to the data that is held there, and that might not be the problem).

@EldonCool
Tried asking the manufacturer?


I'm sorry, but so far you only have me.

I admit I forgot about spinny latency.Seems you've enough more knowledge to make some good points.

Just a reminder of my original question, will it work with the adaptor
mentioned?

Now as to speed and advisability, it may be not so smart to do this,
the computer is very old. Also you can buy new ones for a dime a dozen.
You can get pretty well unused ones ones on craigs list for even less.
Smart wise it probably is not all that smart to do this, but it still
seems workable to me.

I don't know about asking the manufacturer. What manufacturer? The
one for the mother board, the one for the adaptor, the one for
the SSD? Somehow I don't think I would get a straight answer from
any of them.

I already have the SSD and the hardware tray/adapter to install it. The only
pending problem is the cabling, and whether this adapter is going
to do it.

I can't believe this original disk drive is still working. I can
remember when you only got about a year out of drive. This one
could give up anytime now. It would be nice to move all my software
on to another drive in anticipation of this happening. Also,
if the computer gives up, I could just install the SSD into
another newer computer and still have all my stuff. However,
if the computer itself fails, while the hard disk is still
working, I don't think I could put that old drive into a
newer computer very easily, probably the cabling would all
be more modern specifications, like SATA.

Okay, so original question, what are the odds this cable
adapting is going to give me a working computer?

I see no reason why the adapter wouldn't work. I've used similar in the past to attach a 2.5 inch laptop hard drive to a USB to IDE adaptor -- as you mentioned it's just passing through the pins to a smaller sized connector.

"2.5-inch notebook hard drive on your desktop PC with this 2.5-inch to 3.5-inch 40-pin IDE adapter!"

This should allow an IDE solid state drive (and they are rare) to be attached to an IDE(eide) channel.

I ordered it. Should arrive in a couple days. We should see
pretty soon if it is a success.

Kinda apples and oranges from me. I have a M&A Companion Netbook that came with a IDE 4200 RPM 30gig Hitachi 40 pin zif cable platter 1.8" drive.

It was dying (clicking noises). I replaced it with a 64gig 1.8" Kingspec 40 pin zif connect drive.

I improved booting speeds. AntiX 13 rc1 (I have yet to backup and install latest Final release of 13 i386) boots in seconds to slim login screen. Everything (apps, youtube,etc....) works better than it did with the Hitachi platter drive.

This is a Atom Netbook (pretty much like a eeepc 901) with 2gig of ram and a intel graphics chip. I did not need a adapter. Hence the apple and oranges reference.

Good luck with the improv. I'd like to hear if it improves things on your end. I have a couple of IDE Hard Dive IBM Laptops that would like to know.

Edit: read and write speeds specs on the drive I bought.

I will let you know if it works. The read/write speeds of this samsung 840 128Gigabyte
ssd is 530MB/sec 130MB/sec.

Most of my concern is just to keep this system operating. I don't want to
have to setup a new computer, network cards windows and linux , serial port,
etc.

Just the serial port is a minor pain in the A. I need a serial port to
get my digital camera, old one, to download pictures. New computers don't
have the serial port, so you have to do an add on with the software to
get the computer to see it. The odds that my preseht ohe will work is
probably low. The networks are set up on this one with two network
cards, I think one uses windows, and the other does linux. I suspect
I have that extra serial card because once upon a time I could not get
the on board card to work with linux. Anyway, if I can avoid all
these set up problems by not changing computers it is worth it to me.

IMO if an older system is running fine, dont mess with it unless you want to risk it going wrong.

You would do better to have a regular backup schedule for your data. Dont change drives on the expectation that a SSD will be last as long or longer than a mechanical HDD. It could well be true with newer SATAIII SSDs with TRIM, 1,000,0000 read/write cycle ratings, etc.. But older IDE models without TRIM, 100,000 (or lower) read/write cycle ratings, would be far risker for your data.

Samsung 840s are SATA SSDs. You will not get them running with a 2.5''-> 3.5'' IDE Adapter.....

You can still get computers/motherboards with serial ports if you know where/how to look. I probably wouldnt bother though, any camera old enough to use a serial port is obsolete. If its a cheap one, just replace it, even if it was good back whenit was new it would be outclassed by newer cameras that are quite cheap.

Sounds like my trouble is in vain. It won't be the first time, I suppose.
My whole question was
Sounds like the short answer all along was you can't get
a newer SATA drive to work in an old IDE computer.
Although, I did see an adapter for doing SATA to IDE,
and IDE to SATA.

We have to waste out time doing something though, so
why not waste it fooling with these old computers.

You are probably right about not fooling with a computer
that is working. This is just a variation of the saying,
if it ain't broke, don't fix it, probably good advice.
I have ignored good advice a number of times though, so
this is not new to me. Anyway I appreciate the good advice.
Only trouble is I may not be smart enough to follow it.

My digital camera is certainly old, still I use it only
seldom and just have not come up with the need to do enough
photography to justify getting anything newer. I do have
this thought in the back of my mind to do some videos, so
maybe a newer camera/recorder would be a sensible solution.

Stay tuned to the next installment, Idiot tries to fix
unbroken computer.

I thought you must have a samsung IDE SSD like this one-

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/sto..._state_drive/1

It might be possible to get a SATA drive going with a SATA->IDE converter, I have no idea (but I do have this nagging 'not a good idea' feeling).

I did say this.

"This should allow an IDE solid state drive (and they are rare) to be attached to an IDE(eide) channel."

They do make universal ide to sata adapters to fix this issue. They are pretty cheap.

Just throwing this into the thread.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/290678288861...84.m1439.l2649

This is what worked in my M&A netbook that had a 4200 rpm zif interface ide pata drive.

I guess for installing into a regular ide laptop you will need

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1-8-HITACHI-...item4d0d668cb0

When I ordered this, I sweated it.

Zeos reply

Notice the part about system bios recognizing the drive or not. I guess you will find out if a sata to ide adapter
can fool a bios into making it think a sata drive is a ide drive and enables it. I am afeared you may be disappointed.
I really Hope I am wrong and that bios will see your new drive.

That was in real small writing in the product description for what I bought. Lucky for me. The Vendor did not know what
he/she was talking about.

The complete thread is at http://forum.eeeuser.com/index.php?/...anion-netbook/

If I go with what you are trying to do. My approach would be to buy another one of the Kingspec ssd I bought from that Hong Kong
Dealer. Because I know a ide bios will see it. Then use
http://www.ebay.com/itm/1-8-HITACHI-...item4d0d668cb0

one of those to plug it into the laptop.