Compact Flash Card Reader ATA interface ?

slamslam Brussels
edited February 2004 in Hardware
hello, this is my first question on this forum, and I hope it is in the right section ?

I'm looking for an internal CF card reader adapter that can be connected to a standard IDE cable which gives much faster data transfer than USB.

I'm talking about a print with 2 connectors and some chips between them (put simply), seen it before on the WEB, but can't remember where !

Anybody knows ?

Comments

  • Straight_ManStraight_Man Geeky, in my own way Naples, FL Icrontian
    edited February 2004
    Actually, you would get better results out of a USB2 reader on a machine that is USB2 capable, as far as actual time for an amount of data flow into box plus your human time doing what needs doing to let this happen with USB2 versus IDE. If you have USB 1.1 or 1.0 reader that is why things are very slow compared to IDE. Getting Windows to work with an IDE connected reader is complex, the drivers needed would take a lot of other system resources also, and that combo would just about equal out (cancel out your advantage of pure bandwidth flow possible on IDE bus) overall for what you want to do. What I do is simpler, I connect the camera to the computer, and grab all the pictures off the camera. Those that are obviously poor get deleted before I do this. BUT, the camera feeds USB2 and the cable used is USB2 and I hook it to a USB2 port.

    Try USB2 and IDE adapters both, and you will see the speed difference. The USB2 will be detected better too, and get lost less often. USB2 is made for things to be connected and disconnected, IDE does not like spontaneous disconnection and reconnection-- in facxt supporting spontaneous disconnect and connect was left out of the IDE spec, and the BIOS handles most of the detect for IDE at startup and windows relies on that for connection, which is why when an IDE device is lost you often have to reboot computer. The disadvantages outweigh the bus throughput advantage for most folks, that is why USB or Firewire is used for this.

    I could just say DON'T DO THIS, figured you might want to know why also. The bus used for devices you need to connect and disconnect devices from that is alos used for storage is SCSI, but SCSI is expensive because you usually need a very expensive motherboard or a expensive card to support SCSI for most computing uses. USB2 cards for computers cost much less than a SCSI card-- they cost 1\10th or less than a GOOD SCSI card. Use USB or Firewire, PLEASE.

    John D.
  • slamslam Brussels
    edited February 2004
    I agree with your arguments and I think I had to mention that my project is to build a very small PC for my car with the operating system loaded on a CF card, it would be the sole device on IDE and I don't need USB devices.
    Anyway your comments are welcome,

    Greetings from Brussels ! :wave:
  • teflemingtefleming
    edited February 2004
    I see several of them on Ebay from British sellers...

    Can't think of any e-tailers that sell 'em, even if I could, they probably wouldn't be helpful since they'd be US-based.
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