IDE to CF Adapter, with Bracket

I've purchased about a dozen StarTech CF-IDE adapters for various retro computers but I decided to try the Syba since it was half the cost and I didn't need a drive bay. I'm happy to say it works perfectly in my 20 year-old retro computer (an old AMD computer from 1997). I'm using this card with a SanDisk 16 GB CF and, unlike some of the super-cheap cards, this DOES send the HDD activity indicator to the motherboard so the LED does work properly. The overall build quality seems good and the CF card rails are deep enough so I don't feel like I'm going to bend the pins. Inserting and removing the card is smooth. The slot opening does come rather close to the edge of my case's back bracket but I didn't run into any clearance issues with my particular PC case.

Easy to install, works without any jumper changes or modifications. You just put in a CF card and format the card like you would a new hard drive. Windows 2000 works great on CF cards since it doesn't run background processes the way Windows 98 and XP + do. MS-DOS is great on one of these too. You can just install different operating systems on different cards and switch them out as needed. I needed to keep the internal floppy drive on the computer I was using so that I could write disk images to disks for my Atari ST, so I bough a molex -> 4 pin floppy drive adapter. (search for IDE 4 Pin Molex to 4 Pin Floppy Disk and 4 Pin Molex Power Cable ) here on Amazon.

Absolutely refuses to work in slave mode. Also, won't work with it set to master and another drive set to slave. Otherwise, seems to be okay. I was hoping to do a direct copy from one hard drive to this, but this device wants to be the only device on the IDE bus. Cannot get any other slaves working with it at the same time.

I installed this in an Intel SE440BX-2 MOBO, Pentium iii computer, running Windows 98 SE. It is replacing an older mechanical hard drive that hit it's end of life. I was comparing my options, install a SATA controller card, buy another IDE drive, install a DOM, or go the removable route. I chose this one and I have this setup as the primary master. The BIOS accepts this with no problems at all. In combination with a 32GB UDMA CF card running at 200X this is running comparable to the ATA-33 drive I pulled out of the computer, actually faster since the old drive was dying. My tests came back with transfer speeds consistently at 30MB/s with the highest being 34MB/s and the lowest being 26MB/s. This is consistent to UDMA-2 standards and right on par with ATA-33 interface. Newer interfaces would probably not see much of a performance increase unless the CF card is rated 400x or higher. Additionally, I have another 32GB 133X CF Card showing transfer rates of on average of 24MB/s. Booting is pretty snappy for Windows 98, application and game loading is acceptable and writing to the card appears to be smooth without any unnecessary delays. I chose the slot adapter because I have another CF card for Windows 95, and yet another for just MS DOS 6.22. If you are looking to go this route, do not get cheap on the CF card you put in. There is no bottleneck created by the adapter itself, the performance you will be seeing is directly related to the actual CF card. A decent UDMA enabled CF card is not that much more than the earlier, slower, generation cards. Shop around, even on EBay people are selling brand new ones for very little. I would recommend this for anyone looking to add CF card functionally to a desktop with a full expansion slot open. Don't expect the SSD performance, these are inherently just a CF card, and nothing more. You're expectations should remain realistic.

It's been 6 months about. The computer with this in it has been running 24/7 for 6 months! Still working great! Yes it reads from the CF card constantly and super fast no issues. I'm pretty sure this device will outlive the CF card.

I bought this unit so that I could use a CF card instead of my IDE hard drive on a Windows 98 Retro Box. As you can tell, all you have to do is easily add in the card within the PCI slot. There are jumpers if you need to configure this drive as secondary/slave. However, in my setup only thing primary was this reader. No problems in getting the card recognized and with my CF card, this thing boots quickly into Windows 98. I also set up a RAM drive to minimize wear.

I couldn’t get this to work with any CF card, industrial rated or otherwise. The PC wouldn’t recognize it no matter what. I gave up and sent it back for a refund. I really don't know if it was a bad unit or what but I'm glad I could send it back.

Does exactly what I wanted it to. Makes taking the CF card out for writing disk images or adding software super easy and it's already saved me a ton of time.

First off, I ordered both the Syba and Startech version of the same product. To my surprise they are exactly the same. See in the photo. My guess is they're made by the same manufacturer and the only differentiator is the company's sticker on the back. As such, both work equally -- DMA mode cannot be enabled in Windows 98 SE, however, UDMA mode works by default in Windows 2000. My guess is W98 is just more picky with regards to mainboard drivers for the IDE BUS. No hassles otherwise. Works as advertised.

used a few of these on old msdos machines with 2g ino disk cards, work well

Utilizado para usar CF como disco duro en máquinas antiguas. Si se desea se puede quitar el braquet metalico y colocarlo dentro del gabinete.