Add a cable like this: male-male 44-pin : http://www.mittoni.com.au/44pin-25-ide- ... -2467.html
However, the earlier linked adapter is 1.5cm high!
Just unsoldering the SATA-PATA bridge and installing SATA connectors is probably your best bet.

The "new" item http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 0508236238 is only 8.3mm high and is the solution for those looking for a 1.8" micro sata ssd to connect to an IDE laptop.

The T43 is a weird animal that may be better served by a different solution but fitting a 1.8" ssd into an IDE hard drive bay should be fairly easy with the "new" adapter which has male IDE connectors, female micro sata connectors, and dimensions that fit.

I don't want to bring a risk of damage to my perfectly working T43p motherboard. That's the reason why I'm finding solution how to install my Hitachi Travelstar 7k500 into main HDD bay using an converter. It seems there is no way for this solution

Not sure if this one was directed to me, but this one can definitely help if the adapter ends up ending in a wrong position once installed. I have already thought about it, and I have an even shorter cable like this back home, that came from an old laptop drive. This goes for both kind of adapters, but the smaller 1.8 drive gives more left over space to accommodate an "extra" item like this than the 2.5 will. And if the adapter is too big to fit in the bay at all, it won't help anyway.

There is a person on this forum that once offered to do the PATA/SATA unsoldering operation for the T43, but like Lukee I am also a little afraid that an operation like this can screw up my otherwise good working T43.

For what it's worth, here's my experience with T42 and a 2.5" PATA SSD here:

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=92473

If you want to risk it, we have some great 15" R52 machines in The Board Room (see my sig.).
They are cheap enough to 'practice' on.

Greetings, all!

I find this thread highly interesting, since I would very much like to replace my currently used 2.5” PATA HDD in my 15” T42p with an Intel X18-M (the SSD properly configured with a correctly sized 1.8” SATA to 2.5” PATA converter to fit inside the internal T42p HDD bay without any hardware modifications to the T42p itself). I wish to continue running Windows XP, and also I want to retain the internal CD/DVD drive in my T42p. My main objective is to achieve an as-fast-as possible (XP) system, (especially in terms of disk reading speed), without having to buy a very expensive 64 GB Transcend PATA SLC SSD, which (in my view) seems to be the best “native” alternative, if the desire is to achieve a fast T42p with sufficient disk space and using the SSD to hold both the Windows XP (NTFS) operating system along with programs etc. I understand that XP does not support TRIM.

In this post GACrabill made reference to a such SATA-to-PATA adapter (available here on eBay) and in particular GACrabill also very interestingly referenced an eBay-buyer (“debaitmonitor”), who….:

… and previously also:

Now, THIS is surely interesting I thought, but I was yet hesitating a bit, because I couldn’t quite decode how “debaitmonitor” used this adapter in his Dell; as the primary boot-drive holding Win XP or perhaps as a second HDD, like the UltraBay in ThinkPad’s? So, what I therefore did was to contact “debaitmonitor” via the eBay messaging system:


Then, very soon after…:

As I don’t know much about Dell laptops I just Google’d the model mentioned (“Dell 5150”) and I guess that it must be an “Inspiration 5150” (brief specs found e.g. here). So, all the above seems to be very good news… except the remark: ”…but is very slow with XP?!?!

Although I don’t understand what is meant by this… it yet makes me hesitate in jumping out and buying a fairly expensive 80 GB X18-M (which cost approx. USD 250 here in Denmark).

So, fellow ThinkPad'ers, would anybody perhaps be able and willing to participate in the following international experiment: If you have both an “old” ThinkPad using a 2.5” PATA HDD (preferably a T42/p, but not necessarily), and this Thinkpad is running XP, and if you also already have an Intel X18-M available, or perhaps another 1.8” SATA HDD, then I would be happy to buy and have shipped to you (as a free donation!) one of the above-mentioned adapters. If you then could test it out, in your T42p (or whatever 2.5" PATA-ThinkPad), under Windows XP, using an already-available 1.8” SATA SSD, then the expenses would be minimized for us folks who would otherwise have to go out and buy an expensive 1.8” SATA SSD, perhaps just to discover that it is too slow in e.g a T42p under XP to be worth the substantial investment.

Feel fee to let me know if this is of interest, and also if anybody else have perhaps had success on his/her own whith this or other adapters (such as e.g. perhaps this one or something like this one if they are suitable at all?).

Thanks all for sharing your experience!

Best regards,

Johan

I may have interpreted the scary sentence differently ... do I really care that "Intel SSD Toolbox" performs the "optimize" function slowly on XP vs. Win7 ?
Will I be scheduling it to run more than once per week ?

The second "other adapter" that you link to is the old version of the one being sold on eBay ... the newer version has the silver electronics piece (capacitor?) attached to the bottom of the circuit board since it interfered with any attempt to attach a 1.8" SSD when it was mounted on the top of the board.

The "optimize" function of the Intel Toolbox is simply a manual TRIM - it scans every block on the drive, and clears any which contain deleted files.

He's saying that this function performs very slowly in Windows XP - you don't need to worry about it. The drive will perform OK just using it's internal garbage collection - after some use, it won't be quite as quick as a TRIM drive or an "optimized" drive, but it will still be plenty fast !

Hello everybody,

Johan asked me to give some feedback about an IDC to microSATA converter i recently bought on eBay (it employees the JMicron chip JM20330).
I'm using it with my ThinkPad X31 and a OCZ Onyx drive (32GB value SSD) running Windows XP.
It works absolutely flawless. In my opinion the one and only thing limiting the disks perfomance is the DMA controller of the X31 (sequential read should be 130 MB/s and seq write 70 MB/s according to the disk's specs). The only "issue" is, that the HDD activity LED is not lighting up, when the disk is accessed.
Below is a report of CrystalDiskMark. It's way to early to say something about performance degradation due to the missing TRIM support of Windows XP. But this shouldn't be a big problem. Garbage collection techniques of current SSDs are said to be very effectiv and there are enough ways to wipe a disk manually (e.g. microsoft command line utility sdelete). But something you should care about is aligment. You don't have to do anything if you make a fresh install (including creation of the partition) with a Windows 7 (or Vista) boot medium. But if you want to use Windows XP you have to create a partition with a dedicated tool to be sure, that the partition is aligned with the earase block boundarys. Just google for "alignment ssd" and you will find a solution. With a correctly aligned partition I gained 25 % random write speed (and IOPS), all other speeds are not effected. Moreover you will dramaticly increase the life time of the flash cells.

Regards, enrico

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
CrystalDiskMark 3.0.1 (C) 2007-2010 hiyohiyo
Crystal Dew World : http://crystalmark.info/
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
* MB/s = 1,000,000 byte/s [SATA/300 = 300,000,000 byte/s]

Sequential Read : 83.632 MB/s
Sequential Write : 59.570 MB/s
Random Read 512KB : 78.802 MB/s
Random Write 512KB : 59.288 MB/s
Random Read 4KB (QD=1) : 22.689 MB/s [ 5539.3 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=1) : 6.560 MB/s [ 1601.6 IOPS]
Random Read 4KB (QD=32) : 25.789 MB/s [ 6296.1 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=32) : 6.647 MB/s [ 1622.8 IOPS]

Test : 100 MB [C: 20.6% (6.1/29.8 GB)] (x5)
Date : 2011/01/31 16:42:48
OS : Windows XP Home Edition SP3 [5.1 Build 2600] (x86)

Hi berlibaer,
thanks for the reference. Could you post a link where is possible to buy that microSATA converter? I don't know, if HDD in X31 is originally upside down or not but do you think the adapter will fit into 15" T4x series with normal 2.5" SATA drive?

Thanks!
Lukas

Hi,

the converter is the one that johan refered to above (http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=290508236238 or http://microsatacables.com/catalog/i196.html). I don't know the t4x series, but the converter plus a 2.5" drive will definitly not fit into a standard 2.5" slot. The converter adds about 2 cm (don't know exactly) in length to the drive and the drive is raised at minimum by the height of the IDC connector plus the strength of the converters PCB.
Don't 2.5" drives have standard SATA connectors? since this converter has microSATA plugs (less power pins) it might not work with a common 2.5" drive!

Thanks berlibaer, understand now... New 2.5" drives have a standard SATA connector but I am interested in a solution of problem how to fit SATA drive into T43p, where is used ATA connector for hard disk drives. And in 15" version of T43p there is about 2 - 3 cm space in the HDD bay which would be very good to use it for an SATA adapter. Then it would be possible to use newest high-capacity SATA drives in this machine. That's the problem which causes my bad sleeping

Get your sleep back, by ripping out the SATA-PATA bridge, as done by that guy in China.

RBS: I feel that my skills are not sufficient to do the mod My planar is in pretty good condition and I don't want to send it into the silicon heaven...

You have to do something very bad if you screw up the planar when removing SATA bridge on T43.

But nice find! This adapter would be excellent upgrade to all T40-T42 users though, who want to use 1,8" drives.

But for 2.5" drives, perhaps this would fit to 15" T4x: http://cgi.ebay.com/44-Pin-Male-IDE-SAT ... 255c420a50 ?

As I already wrote somewhere here, this adapter would fit perfectly (size seems to be OK) but only problem is that ATA connector on this adapter is designed for normal HDD orientation so it can't be used in ThinkPads where the HDD is originally upside down.

Yeah, noticed that too. What a bummer.

@ GACrabill, Nomgle and berlibaer:

Thank you all very much for your feedback – and especially a big thanks to berlibaer for taking the time and effort to become a user on this forum, simply to reply to a question I asked via the eBay messaging system – because berlibaer is one of the buyers of the IDE 44 Pin to 1.8" Micro SATA Adapter which we amongst other things are discussing here. Your helpfullness is much appreciated, berlibaer!

@ everybody else who are following this thread: I have been collecting a bit more information lately about this adapter; info which I believe other ThinkPad’ers could be interested in and which I therefore wish to share. By ”collecting” I more precisely mean that I have been fortunate to meet some both were knowledgable and very friendly people via eBay; users who have all purchased this specific IDE 44 Pin to 1.8" Micro SATA Adapter and buyers who I therefore contacted hoping that they could perhaps shed a bit more light on how good or bad this adapter could be expected to function on e.g. a ThinkPad T42. Also, I have a received information - from the seller of these adapters - about the compatibility of these adapters (information which I couldn’t quite figure out from the eBay listing). Below are the comments that I have received so far.


In reply to this question...

Then to the comments received from the eBay-buyers of this adapter, who have very friendly replied me, and who have shared their experience. First:

... and then:

... continued by the following eBay’er ”roycearnold”:

... followed by the following expert-user, eBay’er, "ekoperda" (Indiana, USA):

.. and then I have finally (so far) received the following top-expert reply from the very knowledgable and very friendly eBay'er, ”debaitmonitor” in Arizona...

So, that's all for now - quite a bit of information to absorb, I'd say!

I have ordered a couple of these adapters (although they haven't arrived here in Denmark, yet), so when I get an Intel X18-M I'll simply start playing with this SATA-SSD in my good, ol' 15" FlexView/IPS PATA-T42p!

Until then: Please report back if any of you out there who has actually tried to use this IDE-to-SATA adapter with a SSD in a PATA-ThinkPad (a T42 or something else), and have some actual real-life experience. I am in particular "worried about" whether it may perhaps be a better idea to take the (big, and basically unwanted) jump and switch from my stable, completely satisfactory XP to Windows 7, since I would guess that an Intel X18-M would be able to take advantage of TRIM under Windows 7 (in despite of the above comment by paoloberno83, who claim that TRIM commands cannot be sent through this adapter??). It is my "understanding" or "anticipation" or "assumption" that the Intel SSD Toolbox runs internally in the X18-M and is not dependant of, say, this adapter? I however admit that I don't know what is the truth on this matter... TRIM via this adapter? The adapter datasheet is very brief.

All for now. Will update if there's anything to add. Feel very free and welcome to comment!

Best regards,

Johan

Update! See the below (the part in red is colored and emphasized by me; this part is in a comment to this, my post above):


I have no reference to where the above information originally comes from, if it does not come from this (want-to-remain-anonymous) eBay user. If Googl'ing e.g. after this piece: ... then several e.g. shows up, e.g. TP T43p w/60 gig Hitachi, slow access (although not specificly related to SSD's). Perhaps the thread Slow performance and Read/Write errors with SD cards, and SSDs or Speed up XP for 16gb 900 is a bit more relevant? This is a bit too technical for me!

Anyhow, surely veeeery interesting!!

Will update, if/when I receive more user-feedback.

Johan

Although this thread is not generating much response (??), the reader-count nevertheless seems to steadily increase, so I hope users/readers won’t mind if I continue with the third-in-a-row post, reporting the latest information which friendly and helpful eBay-buyers/users of the 1.8”-to-2.5” SATA-to-PATA adaptor (referenced numorous times above) have kindly shared with me most recently:


... and then...

- and finally I received....

That’s all for now. Should anybody (of the many reading/following this thread) actually start using this adapter, as always: Feel very free to share your experience!

PS: I just posted a related thread; see Speed optimization/garbage management in PATA SSD’s under XP.

Johan

Followers of this thread might want to see How to use SATA SSD as main boot drive for T42... it is strongly related and contain good news!

Johan

Johan, thanks a lot for bringing up this subject again and for the posts and all the information you have gathered. Due to the fact that I recently moved and started in a new job, I haven't had much time left over this year to play around with my Thinkpads or for this project. Hopefully things will calm down the next months, and I can actually set aside some time for them again.

Johan, you can count me as at least one person watching this thread with great interest. Please do continue to update us!

Actually, I'm trying to find a way to put an SSD into a 10 year old a22m. (Don't ask - money is not a factor (to an extent), and this thing has a ton of nostalgia value.)

I've more or less determined that the 1.8" SATA to 2.5" PATA solution is my best bet, though I'd never been able to find an adapter that I thought would work. (I just don't trust any of the native PATA parts I've looked into. As far as I understand it, the mainstream parts like the Transcend SLC drives don't have much in the way of garbage collection, and the supposed TRIM capable parts like the Photofast and Runcore drives all seem to have significant issues.) And between this being a Linux machine, and the adapter, I'm fairly sure TRIM will ever be an option for me anyway, so the X18-M seems like a good choice, as I read they're one of the best to have in the absence of TRIM. (Of course, I also have to decide how scared I am by debaitmonitor's issues with the Gen2 Intel SSDs....)

To the point: the linked microsatacables part (http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=290508236238) seems very promising. I just have one thing I'm not sure I've got a handle on:

- So your T43s mount the HDD upside down, apparently? My a22m does not. Is that microsatacables part specifically designed to accommodate your situation, or will it work for me too?

You said on February 9th that you had ordered a couple of the adapters. Have you had a chance to put them to the test yet?

Since a 1.8" SSD is so much smaller than a 2.5" HD, it makes no difference whether it's upside down or not, there's plenty room in your A22m HD-bay for either way.
In other words, yes, it will work for you too.

Well then, it looks like I may be the sucker that pulls the trigger and gives this a try.

Now the question is: Gen1 or Gen2 X18-M? It may seem like a no-brainer at first, but between debaitmonitor's reports that the Gen1 was so much more trouble-free, and this article - http://www.anandtech.com/show/2829/11 - which suggests that the Gen1 drives actually have better resilience in a TRIM free environment (scroll to the bottom)... it becomes less so.

Of course, we have some folk in here who probably know more about all this than I do suggesting that it may be possible to pass TRIM over the adapter, and Linux 2.6.33 and later have TRIM support, so in the spirit of trailblazing, maybe I should just dive in and try to figure it out. Plus having TRIM support would allow me to deploy the drive in another box in the future, and there aren't even any Gen1 drives on eBay...

Just a brief remark here: The Intel X18-M 1st generation ("G1", being 50 nm devices) does not support TRIM, according to No TRIM support for X18-M (80Gb) with 045C8820 firmware? and likewise as described in the Intel Solid-State Drive Toolbox 2.0 User Guide whereas the Intel 2nd generation ("G2) X18-M's (being 34 nm devices) support TRIM, at least under Windows.

I have to confess, however, that I am unaware of the TRIM issue for Linux. Anyhow, under Windows (XP and/or 7) I would certainly get a an X18-M 2nd generation ("G2"), regardless of debaitmonitor's feedback.

Please keep us updated, if you go ahead with this... thanks!

Johan

Hi Johan,

I designed a caddy for internal use of the 1.8" SATA to 2.5" IDE converter within thinkpads (approved for T42 14" and 15"). If anybody needs one, too, you can order it from shapeways. A rather extensive report can be found here (sorry, only in German, but after all with a couple of shots).

[update] Just noticed, that the pics are only visible to registered users, so put them in here, too [/update]

I installed a Crucial C300 64GB this way in a 15" T42. Works like a charm so far. However, I can't read the temperatures from the ssd. Does anybody has the same problem?

Thanks, Thomas

Welcome to the forum, Thomas!

... and thank you very much for joining and sharing such super-interesting information! I am going to order a couple of these caddies later (because the minimum order is $25), and I already look forward to have a more stable setup for my 1.8"-to-2.5"-SATA-to-IDE-adapter and my Intel X18-M in my T42, compared to if not having this caddy! My present "installation" is made by tapering the SATA-to-IDE-adapter and the 1.8" X18-M SDD to a normal metal harddisk caddy, and that is far from as stable as I am confident that your caddy will enable.

Thomas, one question: If you e.g. look at IBM T40 T41 T42 T43 14" Hard Drive Caddy w Screws/Cover, and thenn see your caddy, then how do you mount the HDD front cover onto your caddy... there does not seem to be any holes for this purpose in your caddy??

Great information posted there, Thomas - much appreciated! For those readers of this forum who are perhaps not fully fluid in German here is a link to a (Google) translation (into English) of that thread.


I can't answer this question, but maybe some other readers can? Is this a "feature" of the SSD itself of is it owing to the adapter? Are you sure that the SSD actually provide this information? (see e.g. this post). From the above you will see that the 1.8" to 2.5" SATA to IDE-adapter discussed in this thread is reported not to provide any disk-access information (on the front LED on the ThinkPad), so maybe the absence of the temperature information is yet something simply "missing by design"? I don't know...

Thanks, again, Thomas, for making this caddy available. i am certain that this is an interesting business oppertinity of interest to many users - and I suggest you put it out on eBay as well, perhaps in cooperation with the sellers of the 1.8"-to-2.5"-SATA-to-IDE-adapter? Good luck!

Johan

Hi Johan, just edited my post (put in the pics here, too). As you can see on the last one, the original caddy is not needed any more. It's designed the way, Lenovo did it for their Micro-SATA to SATA Adapter (has kind of screw head imitations for mounting the hdd cover).

My first try was to rip off an old IDE HDD and mount the adapter and ssd inside, but it simply didn't really work. Coincidentally, I read an article about rapid manufacturing, learned about Shapeways and then started designing a caddy on my own. This was really exciting.

Thomas