🔌 Syba SD-CF-IDE-A: IDE to Compact Flash Adapter with UDMA Support for 3.5-Inch IDE Host Interface Review

I installed this on an Intel SE440BX-2 MOBO, Pentium iii computer with Windows 98 SE. It replaces an old mechanical hard drive that has reached the end of its useful life. I compared my options: install a SATA controller card, buy another IDE drive, install DOM, or go the alternate route. I chose this one and I have this setup as my main master. The BIOS accepts this without problems. Combined with a 200x speed 32GB UDMA CF card, this works comparable to the ATA-33 drive I pulled out of the…

This item is great and I've had it for many months many months. Before I fully installed it in the old PC, it traveled around trying to get the old PCs to work and see how they worked. It is currently on my old computer. This computer does not support SATA and only has IDE, but I have a SATA card. Since I'm using Linux, it can't access the SATA card via the BIOS, and on top of that there's a software RAID setup. So I just created a 4GB partition, installed grub on it and made sure the initrd…

Small size. Ready to unpack. I use these adapters in retro computer builds. They are small, comfortable and above all quiet. They draw a tiny fraction of the current compared to traditional HDs, which often draw in excess of 1 amp under load. This is the best alternative to SSDs since IDE bandwidth doesn't let you take full advantage of SATA speeds anyway. The only downside is that the CF format itself is slowly becoming obsolete. A better option might be to get the IDE SD version of the same…

I tested this on a 1996 Pentium desktop PC. The adapter recognized the adapter as an IDE drive. There were some difficulties while formatting the CF card. I had to manually configure the hard drive type in the BIOS. Eventually, Windows 95 installed without any problems. However, after the installation completed and the PC restarted, the computer got stuck on "Loading OS". and never got any further. Tests have shown that all necessary files are on the CF card. Recent research has shown me that…

I bought about a dozen StarTech CF IDE adapters for various retro PCs but settled on Syba as it was half the price and I didn't need it slot for hard drive. I'm happy to report that it works great on my 20 year old retro computer (an old AMD computer from 1997). I use this card with a SanDisk 16GB CF and unlike some super cheap cards it sends an HDD activity indicator to the motherboard to ensure the LED is working properly. Build quality seems good overall, and the CF card guides are deep…