*HP 2510p Owners Lounge*

Since the optical drive and hard drive are on the same IDE channel, the optical drive being the slave, I wonder if the caddy needs to be changed to slave via jumper or somesuch? ...As a test you could see if the caddy works with the internal hard drive removed.

 

Good point ! It's working with 1.8" internal drive being removed.
I didn't find any switch on the caddy to select master/slave ...
So right now I would try to install a fresh OS on the caddy hard drive and make some HD Tune benchmarks...
Stay tuned.

 

Sorry guys, but up until now I haven't been able to have a working Vista installation on the caddy hard drive...

Obviously I can't use the DVD drive to install (the external USB DVD caddy from notebookelite is not working) and I'm using a USB key to install.
The install itself is fine, but when I'm booting Vista I get some Windows file not found errors or BSOD. I think I'm facing some bcd issue and even cloning my existing partition with Acronis TI is giving the same result...
I saw this : http://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=185731 and I'll try to do a new partition cloning after these commands...

Update: ok, I'm giving up... No way to get a working Vista install despite several tentatives with disk or partition cloning. I definitly miss a working external USB DVD drive.

To conclude on notebookelite caddys, it's cheap and you've got for your money... Most is made of plastic even for screw holes, meaning that you have no so many chances to assemble/disassemble things.
On the USB DVD caddy itself, it's not recognised either by BIOS or Windows, despite double USB plug for proper power supply. Also the original 2510p DVD faceplate is blocking for installation.

At the end, if someone would find a solution for master/slave select on drive/caddy I may still have a go.
By the way, I don't know how to identify pins on the JAE connector

 

INFO: Setting Master/Slave on 1.8" ZIF and 2nd-drive caddy with 2.5" HDD/SSD

If the 1.8" ZIF and 2nd-drive caddy are not configured correctly you may a symptom such as
My new slimline drive is not detected by my notebook or: I get an IDE #1 (or other numbers) error

Setting 1.8" ZIF HDD as slave

This tells us the 1.8" ZIF drive will *always* wants to be master. Toshiba Storage Device Division of Toshiba Europe's response to a setting the MK8009GAH as a slave was:

If you want the MK8009GAH to act a slave you will need to connect Pin1 with Pin2. That is the two pins on bottom right corner of this photo.

Forcing Master or slave on the caddy (if there is no jumpers)

To get the 1.8" and 2.5" to work together, would need the caddy to be slave. Here's an idea of how to go about it given that the caddy doesn't have any jumpers. This is assuming the bridge chip does have PIN47 connected and reads it to set itself up to operate as master/slave.


Left: PIN 47 on JAE50 front shown here in forced MASTER mode by grounding against the chassis.
Right: Pin 47 on JAE50 rear. Connect pin 45 and pin 47 as shown to get Master mode (easy with the caddy)

PIN 47: Device Config.(CSEL) OPEN=Slave, GND=Master

To force IDE master, open the caddy's case and short pin 47 (cable select) to pin 45 (ground) of the JAE-50 port as shown above. Use solder, pencil lead, a silver trace pen or use a wire without opening the case as shown above.

To force IDE slave, cut a very thin slice of cellophane tape. Use it to insulate pin #47 from making contact with the systemboard. This will look like the image below:



When the caddy is set as SLAVE, your 1.8" drive should be able to boot Vista and the the HDD in the 2nd drive caddy be recognized. Here is google translated a page that shows the JAE 50 pins if you require more details.

 

thanks nando4 for your help!

Even with PIN 47 insulated, I cannot boot with both drives inserted...
As my 1.8" is Samsung now, maybe it's also not responding to CSEL from the BIOS (I've had an error at BIOS boot since I've switched from 4.200 rpm Toshiba to 5.400 rpm Samsung drive...) because PIN 40 is not handled at all?
I've only managed since then to boot an USB key with a Windows PE environment and run HDTune from there : I'm getting a very slow 14.5 MB/sec result - maybe Windows PE is slow on drive access without any driver - or the SATA bridge is really bad ?
I'll try to make some photos of the caddy soon.
Regards.

 

Yes I've looked carefully to the caddy and logic board : no jumper at all
Back to performance measuring, under Windows PE my 1.8" Samsung is 37.7 MB/sec.
So I'm afraid that this notebookelite caddy is definitely a no go for us...

 

It seems to either be a SATA bridge problem or an issue with HP's interface because I'm also getting 14-15MB/s in my 8710w with the caddy I purchased from newmodeus.

 

Here are the pictures from the notebookelite caddy!

the caddy :




The caddy mounted into the 2510p :

 

Hey nando4! Let me play a little with my 2510p !
In fact I was quite curious about the performance boost I would get from a 2.5" hardrive and also looking for a safe multiboot/OS solution with a second harddrive that I can occasionaly boot with.
By the way, notebookelite is sending me a new PCB for the DVD caddy.

 

Bought one of these:
http://cgi.ebay.com.sg/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=220266443757
SATA 2nd HDD caddy for DELL 9300/9400/ XPS M1210 from smk312
Too thick, so removed metal top-plate and took a dremel to the plastic to thin it down. Also removed bottom metal plate.
Same problems with not being recognised as reported, but intermittently it would work... very odd.
Then I noticed the casing on the 2510p is mg rather than plastic as I'd assumed: the drive was shorting out. Put a bit of plastic under drive and it works fine. It looks like the other caddy in this thread has a metal plate that would likely cause the same problem.


Western Digital WD5000BEVT - HD Scorpio/500GB 2.5'' SATA 5400rpm 8MB
Drive benchmarks fine (avg. 50MB/s), considering it is the OS drive. I did benchmark it in an external sata enclosure with the cardbus card referred to earlier in this thread and it was about 10MB/s quicker, and much more consistent.

Only problem is, I cloned the drive across using acronis and hibernate seems to now be buggered. I don't know if this is related for certain though. Sleep works OK, but upon hibernate the screen goes black, hd flashes but 30 sec later it wakes up. It never shuts off.

Tried various powercfg /h on, off etc to no effect.

Tom

 

Picture of circuitboard attached -- looks like the same chip as pictured earlier in this thread.

 

Obviously if I had known the caddy was too thick I would not have bought it. I purchased it upon the incorrect (albeit well meaning) recommendation earlier in this thread, which predates the guide to which you refer.

Re. insulating the drive from the chassis, I am referring to shorting the drive itself. The ribs of the chassis casting were bridging the exposed circuitry on the base. I doubt a flat metal plate would short it out anyhow.

 

@thomas.hoo : did you test with the 1.8" drive connected or not ?
if so, did you solve the master/slave issue ?

 

I've been following this thread quite closely and while I'm not sure I will have the technical expertise to pull off whatever solution is found....I have a sneaking suspicion I'll end up trying.

BTW - Anyone here have a 2510p/2530p 4-cell or 9-cell they could do without and looking to sell. The prices on eBay and varying resellers are just exorbitant. I have a 6-cell I wouldn't mind trading. Apparently you can't receive PM's (or at least I don't think) so E-Mail and maybe we can work something out.

 

maybe a new option for us : http://www.ocztechnology.com/products/flash_drives/ocz_minipci_express_ssd-sata_
and http://www.ocztechnology.com/products/flash_drives/ocz_minipci_express_ssd-pata_
... and hoping that HP didn't locked the mini-PCIe to WWAN options only

32 GB SATA version is available at 99.99€ and PATA at 90.99€ (request to materiel.net webshop, delay 2-3 weeks) (thanks to them...)

 

I have bought the MTRON 1.8" 32GB ZIF SSD (MSD-PATA3018-32-ZIF2) and I get as much as 70MB/s read/write. The machine is pretty fast now. Unfortunately I have some issue with it... see http://blog.jay2k1.com/2009/04/20/hp-2510p-notebook-w-mtron-ssd-issue/

 

Hi
I've recently bought a 2nd hand not working 2510p. The owner before me told me that he thought the harddrive was defect. At the time he bought it he had changed the original 4200rpm drive to a new 5400rpm Samsung - it worked for a time until it became defect. Well I bought it anyway!

I started of buying a CF to ZIF adapter, but that didn't work. Then I discovered that the connector cable to the motherboard was defect. I had some trouble finding a new one, but then I came across this thread and learned about pchub.com. Luckily they had a replica of the cable.

So I received the cable and the harddrive started perfectly - almost! It seems like there is a master/slave conflict between the harddrive and the optical drive. When the harddrive is connected the optical drive won't boot, but if I pull the harddrive out it boots fine. The boot order is set to optical before HDD.
Have anyone experienced anything like this? Could it be the new connector cable?

I would really like both the harddrive and the optical drive to work at the same time. Not really a fan of installing XP from USB

By the way I tried the above post on my optical drive - no succes (but it could be the pin not being fully isolated)

 

Guys, can you please stop quoting huge posts and/or images, this way the thread will be easier to browse and read, it's just a good forum etiquette.

Thank you

 

Sorry about the quoting..

Well i got the 2510p for a nice price with 2yr remaining HP warranty (but since the HD is not original and the cable is broken by the user it won't cover). I think it's a great laptop with nice build quality compared to most netbooks - I have been using it with Ubuntu booted from an USB key before I got the harddisk cable. So I would still recommend it! And I like making broken stuff work

I can make it work without the optical drive inserted, but would really prefer if it worked. And then i don't have to buy an external optical drive (thats really the nicest thing about the 2510p compared to the Thinkpad X-series) and a cover for the bay

Here are some pictures of the harddisk, the new connector cable and the ZIF->CF adaptor

http://peecee.dk/upload/view/166600
http://peecee.dk/upload/view/166601
http://peecee.dk/upload/view/166602
http://peecee.dk/upload/view/166603
http://peecee.dk/upload/view/166604
http://peecee.dk/upload/view/166605

I wrote to pchub and asked if they had heard any similar experiences with the cable. They wrote back and told me that they had sold many cables with no complains. Could it be the optical drive maybe? or a problem with the motherboard?

 

This info may be useful to resolve a Master/Slave issue between the Samsung 1.8" HDD and the optical drive assuming your ZIF cable is OK. To force Master mode on your Samsung HDD:

From the Hitachi 1.8" HDD specs:
DEVADR (pin 40) - The device is configured as either Device 0 (Master) or Device 1 (Slave) depending upon the signal level of 40 pin DEVADR signal.
- When used as Device 0 (Master), DEVADR is open
- When used as Device 1 (Slave), the host shall have pull-up resistor. Recommended pull-up resistor is 10K ohm based on +3.3Vcc.

The link suggesting some Samsung and Hitachi ZIF drive ignores the signal on pin 40 and always work as Master. Perhaps try again, this time placing cellophane tape over pin 40 on the ZIF cable. Your CF->ZIF adapter may have a master/slave jumper on it, in which case perhaps try it set to Master, or again isolate pin 40. Failing that, perhaps it's time to log a service call with HP?

 

I've been playing a bit with the Samsung HDD today. I installed it in another computer with a ZIF->IDE converter. The other computer gives me an error: "internal hdd soft error: fixed by retries". So I guess the HDD is dieing after all. All the test programs I've tried says it's fine though No bad sectors.

I was able to install XP on the other computer, but it gives me the same error at every boot. The HDD spins up for 2-3secs and then turns off for 5-10 before it starts again - thats probably what confuses the 2510p BIOS.

So I installed the ZIF-CF adaptor again, and it works fine now together with the optical drive. Don't know what happened the first time I tried

Now I only need a new SSD, to bad they are so expensive - will keep following this thread

By the way thanks for the help nando4

 

INFO: The newmodeus sata-to-pata (Sunplus) or pata caddies
Linked from INFO: Using a optical bay caddy to install a 2.5" SATA or PATA SSD/HDD

I received US$42+shipping newmodeus 2510P sata-to-pata caddy, plus an additional supplied pata board. Swapping the circuit board makes it the same as the US$38+shipping newmodeus 2510P pata caddy. It weighs 85grams.

Look and Feel

The chassis is a direct snug fit so can support itself without falling out if not secured down with screws for a hot-swap configuration. The faceplate an excellent match to the original optical drive's contouring and texture finish.



1: sata caddy's master/slave jumper with Sunplus SATALink sata-to-pata bridge chip on 60051 Rev_C board.
2: sata caddy with additional supplied pata circuit board that can be swapped in
3-5: sata or pata caddy as appears mounted in 2510P

Interface Performance

How fast can the 2510P go? The best way to determine performance limits was to do HDD read buffer across the 2510P's ICH8M UDMA5/ATA100 pata interface, quoted maximum of 100MB/s as applies to all Intel ICHx chipsets. Found below to deliver 83MB/s read performance with the SATA caddy and 87MB/s with the pata caddy.



1. Older 80GB Fujitsu SATA Hdd in SATA caddy as slave 37.5 MB/s
2. Everest buffer read - older 80GB Travelstar IDE in 2510P/pata caddy as slave 87MB/s, 1.8" ZIF as master 84MB/s
3. Everest buffer read - older 80GB Fujitsu SATA in caddy as master 81MB/s, 1.8" ZIF as slave 84MB/s
4: Everest buffer read - older 80GB Fujitsu SATA in caddy as slave 83MB/s, 1.8" ZIF as master 81MB/s

Based on the read performance, the best matched performer for the SATA caddy would be the latest 250GB-per-platter 2.5" SATA HDDs. Read from the buffer will be capped to 87MB/s, rather than > 118MB/s with a native SATA interface so there would be minor buffer read performance dropoff.

Power consumption of newmodeus SATA caddy

Running powertop under Ubuntu recovery mode bootup I was able to identify how much power the sata-to-pata bridge consumes by measuring at idle (A) HDD spun up (B) HDD spundown using hdparm -Y /dev/sdb) (C) caddy pulled from the bay. With a 0.7W idle harddrive, this means the the sata-to-pata bridge circuit consumes 0.8W of power and it does it even when the HDD is in spundown mode. The sata-to-pata chip doesn't go into a low power standby mode along with the harddisk.

The alternative notebookelite/accessory-less using Marvell 88SA8040 sata-to-pata, as used in the Lenovo Ultrabay adapter, has higher 1W power consumption as shown here.

Performance/Installed photos/pros+cons see Comparison: ebay versus newmodeus 9.5mm sata-to-pata caddy.

Future adaptability

If newmodeus offerered the pata, sata-to-pata and sata circuitboards as additional $5-$10 optional extras then would have one caddy that could do all. Could even be used if updating to a 2530P. I have asked newmodeus to make this an option for 2510P users and will update this post if they're marketting decides to make it so.

 

Does the Newmodeus caddy normally come with both the SATA and PATA circuit board or was that a special request?

 

So, it looks like you're getting 80MB/s transfer speeds. Is this with both hard disks installed, i.e. the internal 1.8" hard disk and the optical bay drive?

 

It was a special request. Though I can't see why it couldn't be included as a freebie or a very low cost option to differentiate their product against competitors. It simply rewires JAE50 to 2.5" IDE. 3 top cover scews and 2 screws holding the circuit down is all that is required to undo and swap out the sata board for the pata board.

 

Great thread, great ideas *thumbs up*

I tried to do some of the upgrades mentioned here, my sata-caddy is already on its way.
I also tried to overclock by setfsb, but everytime I try to "set fsb", the FSB remains unchanged...

But I've got another issue which is much more severe. I bought a "Dell Wireless 5520 Generic L Mobile Broadband (3G HSDPA) Minicard Network Adapter", hoping it would run in my 2510p. But I thought wrong...

HP BIOS-checks every wireless-card inserted in the mPCIe slots, and it stops with

Code:

105 - Unsupported WWAN Device Detected System Halted. Remove device and restart

I think there are now like three options.

1. Buy a HP supported wireless WAN card (and support those ****** again? NO!)
2. Change VID and PID of the WWAN card to a white-listed one (and probably brick the card)
3. Add the VID and PID of the WWAN card to the white list, saved in BIOS (and probably brick my notebook)

Option 2 includes driver modding, because the original strings will be changed to bypass BIOS.

Anyone already tried to do hacks like that?

Edit: Quite strange... I got email subscription to this thread and I received a new answer to it... but I can't see this answer here...

 

Best is to just try after a cold boot so you don't get the frozen PLL prob that occurs after a prolonged hibernate/standby (workaround by another quick standby/resume). Works for me and confirmed by another 2510P user. Both running [email protected] overclocks with standard CPU voltages. With CAS=5 in for 100% stability have option to go higher, but 1.5Ghz is plenty for normal running. Noticably brisker performance.

BIOS modding might be tricky since the bios is encoded and HP HPQflash/Rompaq flashers seem pedantic.
Option (1) and (2) might be a better bet. This thread gives some idea of VID/PID changing to match get a mc5725 module working on a 2510P:

i buy sierra wireless U595 modem for 35$, and get from it mc5725 module.
also my frends rewrite module pid/vid from sierra pid/vid to hp pid/vid

so, i resolve my case, and all working.

I'd be curious to know modding WWAN successes as may go for a WWAN module later too. Especially if it's a $35US option

 

Encrypted bios, quite true I guess. I looked for some vids from several wlan cards (which are known to be selected by hp as well), and I also changed the bit order (little endian, which means you have to swap some bytes).

For example, if your ID looks like VID_1199&PID_6813, you'll have to look for 99 11 13 68 in your hexedit.

I didn't find any of known supported devices, therefore I think it's really encrypted (great HP, really great -.-).

The other option is to mod my wireless card to the correct vendor, which includes modding the driver inf-files as well. I doubt if it works...

I'm gonna get a Sierra MC8775 wwan card. Some models are supported by hp, some are not. But in this case it will be quite easy to mod the vendor and especially device ID, because the vendor itself is supported.

 

Today I received the caddy from notebookelite. Like oward's one, it doesnt work.
Unfortunately I read about those issues _after_ I received it :/

Which caddies are now know to work in 2510p, I don't want to buy another caddy and find out afterwards it isn't supported.

Edit: Strange thing... I just tried the notebookelite caddy in my mum's IBM T23, it gets recognized at once (soldered master).
Can someone explain, I don't get it...

 

I removed the internal 1,8" drive and soldered the caddy master, just as shown a few pages behind.

Edit: Am I right that there are three possible caddies:

*the one from notebookelite which doesn't work
*the one from newmodeus.com which does work
*and the one from yewelong on ebay; working or not?

 

Anyone know if this one (Kingspec) works?

http://cgi.ebay.com/1.8%22-ZIF%2FPATA-SSD-32GB-MLC-kingspec-%2FDELL-XT*-sony-ux37_W0QQitemZ270391602953QQcmdZViewItemQQimsxZ20090516?IMSfp=TL090516124001r33412

 

They've got a 128GB version I've seen for ~$500. Although for that price I'd be inclined to save up my pennies and buy a 2530p...

 

Today I received the sata caddy from newmodeus. Works quite well, but sometimes it takes long to boot in bios phase. Perhaps I'd hard-select master/slave to solve this.

I also received a working WWAN module, it's a "HP HS2300 SIERRA MC8775 WWAN MINI PCI-E 3.6 UNLOCKED" click

I spent like 2 hours of troubleshooting, because neither windows nor linux recognized it at first, altough the card is visible in bios setup.
Then I found out, bios automatically hides the wwan card if the battery isn't attached. So please, if you want to use it or install drivers, insert the battery...

Edit: My 2510p keeps hanging at bios check, right after power on. Then it says "1781 - Disk1 failure" and continues booting. Quite annoying, because it takes some time.
I hard-wired the 1,8" slave and the 2,5" caddy is master by factory.
What's the problem here?

 

I don't get it... I just tried like 10³² hours to get it working, but it still doesn' work reliably.
At first I removed the 1,8" drive. Then I tried to boot with the original optical drive, slave, just for testing. works...
Next I tried to boot with the optical drive jumpered master. works, too...
After that I tried to boot with the newmodeus caddy, master. boots, but with like 1min delay at bios screen (1781 drive fail)...
And last, I tried to boot with the caddy being slave. boots, but with like 1min delay at bios screen (1781 drive fail)...

Just two simple questions: Why the hell, and how to fix

 

Have you gone into the bios <F10> and loaded the setup defaults? I'd disconnect, remove the battery for 10 seconds and try again. I can confirm seeing that error at the odd occasion flash by during bootup but it does not come with a delayed startup.

I haven't had a delay of more than 5 seconds with either the SATA or PATA caddy. My boot order is set to boot Notebook Disk first (master). Optical drive (slave) goes to something other (second/third..).

 

I have the current version, don't know the number atm. Am I right, for bios the "master" driver is always notebook disk and the "slave" is optical drive, no matter on which port they're attached?

 

May I know if below MultiBay Caddy can be installed in 2530p notebook as the secondary harddisk(replace the optical drive) ?

http://newmodeus.com/shop/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=2_5&products_id=143
http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/us/en/sm/WF06c/A10-51210-329227-329249-329227-423808-423809-423811.html

 

[ deleted ]

 

C:\Users\pocket_geek>winsat dwm
Windows System Assessment Tool
> Running: Feature Enumeration v1.0.0.0 ''
> Run Time 00:00:00.58
> Running: WinSAT Direct3D Assessment v1.0.0.0 ''
> Run Time 00:00:10.89
> Graphics Performance 24.31 F/s
> Video Memory Throughput 1286.48 MB/s
> Run Time 00:00:13.18
> Total Run Time 00:00:14.40

This is my 2510p running Vista Business x64 sp2. I'm currently running on battery, I'll post running on AC later. I am running the latest video drivers available on HP's support site.

 

pocket_geek, your sig says you use a 1.8" SSD; which one?

 

It's the Samsung that HP offered with the 2510p for awhile, so it came with. Shows up as MCCOE64GQMPQ in the device manager.

 

Would you mind posting some performance data on it. Still a bit pricey on ebay, but still useful to know.

 

Here's some benchmarks on my 2510p and it's Samsung SSD

 

Well, I have a PATA one I got off eBay early last year (looks the same as the accessories-less photos), and it still has a bridge chip same as the SATA version I got.

So can anyone confirm there is a specific PATA caddy that doesn't have a bridge chip, since obviously it doesn't need one.

I want to try one in an 8710w, like chrixx, I have found there seems to be a hardware limitation somewhere forcing MW-DMA mode 2 (15MB/s) which is useless on a mobile workstation, let alone anything made in the last 10 years.

 

Had to join the forum just to get some answers to using an ssd with the 2510p.

Has anyone tried another ssd besides the samsung ssd that Hp sold?
I have 1 nc2400 that my girlfriend uses and I have the 2510p.
I have found several different ssd´s but can´t find any info on people using them with an 2510p...
Runcore, kingspec, photofast etc..
As I only use the computer for surfing the internet and watching some dvds I really don´t need the fastest harddrive available.
But i would like my system tp be a bit more snappy.


Anyone tested one of these or could recommend an ssd that works?
I Really woould prefer to keep the optical drive. Not that i use it but I would really be bothered with the fact that the bottom right part of the caddy would stick out.

I could allways buy a caddy and just cut of the bezzel and glue it on or something.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

/ Santzia

 

Personally I'm waiting for the 128GB Photofast G-Monster V3 zif drive. I thought about saving up my pennies for a 2530p instead but it's just not faster/better enough to warrant the expense.

I have one of the newmodeus caddy's with both the master/slave selectable sata circuit board and the pata circuit board. It works well but I found it was just too inconvenient to not have my dvd drive built in. So if anybody is interested in it make me an offer.

 

ooooo shiny

Yup, I'll take one of those.

 

I contacted dvnation and here is their response.

> Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2009 06:50:42 -0400
> Subject: Re: 1.8" Photofast G-Monster V3 ZIF
>
> We plan to carry the V2 when we can get that model, and V1 otherwise. The
> reason is that V3 has a "compatibility list." We really need to sell
> products that are compatible with EVERY COMPUTER that supports ZIF. With
> FOUR different types of connectors that can be on a 1.8" SSD, it is hard
> enough for the user to select the RIGHT SSD for their computer, let alone
> get the RIGHT type and find out it is incompatible for some reason. All
> Photofast ZIF SSDs feature the same 100MB/S read speed. The 64MB cache
> they brag about I don't think has any impact in performance. Otherwise
> they would be outperforming Intel SSDs in random performance, and they
> don't. Also, some capacities aren't available in V3, like 128GB.
>
> So, my pledge is that any ZIF SSD you buy on our site will be the fastest,
> most compatible model. If they resolve the compatibility issues, we will
> slip the V3s into the ZIF page, but ONLY then.
>
> We DO have the 128GB ZIF shipping today (only available in V2 anyway).
> Make your selection here - http://www.dvnation.com/ZIF-SSD.html
>
> And if you order the 128GB, it will ship in one week.
>
> Jason
> DV Nation
> http://www.dvnation.com
> phone: xxx-xxx-xxxx
>
>
> Jason
> DV Nation

Didn't know that there were compatibility issues with the drive. I'm wondering if this is the same issue plaguing the Runcore Pro series. The above benchmarks clearly shows the V3 having better random writes. Anyway I guess we should not expect these drives from dvnation anytime soon.

 

Interesting, so that brings up two questions:

Where did they get this compatibility information?
and
Does anybody know what controller the V2 drive uses?

<EDIT>
From what I can find the Photofast V2 drive has two JMF602 controllers arranged in a raid0 configuration, in my opinion that would make it not an option for a primary drive.
Here is an internal photo of the 2.5" sata version of the photofast V2 drive, I'm thinking it's a safe assumption that the 1.8" zif V2 version will use the same internals.

</EDIT>

 

Reply to my quizzing Milton at photofast.com.tw about dvnation's comments above:

> Hi Nando
>
> Yes, we’re still working on the compatibility of the bridge we used.
>
> Here’s a list of Panasonic we fully tested, and they works fine with G-Monster 1.8” IDE V3.
[ removed CF-xxx listing ]
>
> We’re still getting more machines to test. But it’s not possible for us to test it on ALL machines.
>
> I saw you posted Jason’s email completely on the Forum, and I wonder if you’d post mine too (or you
> already have). Anyway I understand Jason’s point of view, he doesn’t want to import stuff that’s not
> fully compatible.
>
> My answer to you questions are:
>
> 1) Jason from DV Nation is our exclusive distributor in US
> 2) He’s not giving false information, but a negative one. We don’t know if it works on HP laptops.
> 3) 1.8” V1 and V2 used SMI controller, which gives great compatibility >(native IDE). It’s nothing
> like 2.5” V2. the 1.8” V3 has great performance because it’s Indilinx controller + SATA to PATA
> bridge. And the compatibility we need to improve is on the bridge. We’re working on new firmware
> with the company; hopefully we’ll have good news soon.
>
> Milton
> Service: http://photofast.com.tw

EDIT: Milton from photofast.com.tw explaining 1.8" V3 power consumption using sata-to-pata bridge:

> The bridge chip is from SunPlus, and it’s built on the same PCB. Not separately, which replies. I don’t
> think the power consumption is going to increase a lot since it’s within the same PCB. I’ll re-check
> again and let you know if it’s incorrect.