This 3 slot CF SSD adapter looks kinda neat. It is pretty expensive but still cheaper than finding a real SSD though... Not very useful for the empeg however since its SATA. They did sell a PATA version that used SD cards but I can't find it.

Yeah, that's a cool product. I've thought about doing that in my laptop.

When I first read your post, I was going to post an Engadget article that I remembered being about the same topic. Then I read your link. What is that site, and why are they completely ripping off other people's stories without any credit? They simply took the entire story off Engadget (headline, byline, image, body, even the source credit). I thought that was a blogging faux pas...

Ah no idea. I actually found it via some online shop and was searching for it to find a more generic link. Lemme fix it.

Ha, sorry, I was just surprised is all.

Now, my sense of size is all off here. What form factor is that adapter? It looks like a 2.5" disk size, right?

Yeah. Looks like a laptop 2.5" drive.

Note that single slot versions (CF or SD card slot with a SATA interface) are also available for less than $20 for those who want to try this kind of thing without the expense of the full RAID version.

Cheers

Links? I don't see it on the store linked from the Engadget story.

The READ link leads to geekstuff4u.

Something like this this (under $15, *delivered*) ?

Very nice! Cheap! I might pair that with a cheap 8GB CF card from Newegg (I need next to zero space on my laptop). That would run me a total of about $50.

Yeah. I've got one on order to play with here in various systems.. it ought to arrive here a week or so from now.

Cheers

Do you know what kind of power savings this kind of setup would have over your standard 5400RPM laptop hard drive?

That would all depend upon exactly which CF card were used. And not all makers give full specs on that.

But.. A typical modern mobile hard drive uses 1-2W when spinning, whereas a CF card might use perhaps 50mW (0.05W) max.

So, it will save 1-2W of power in continuous operation, less so if one normally allows the hard disk to spin down when idle.

This might add a few minutes, up to say 10-20 total, per battery charge on a notebook.

Cheers

Cool. I figured it wouldn't be much, since it's the screen that does most of the draining.

I think the biggest appeal to me would be if it created less heat than the drive would.

I just like the idea of a reasonable spec laptop that is totally silent...

While clearly not as nice as having 3 slots, this 2-slot adapter is a little nicer-looking, FWIW. It's hard to say if the $99 price is a better or worse value than the $188.65 for the 3-card adapter. But if they lowered it to $75 I'd probably snatch one up right now.

Does anyone know if there's a 1.8" form factor CF adapter? Or is a CF card too large for that form factor? I've never seen an actual 1.8" drive before, so I have no idea of size comparisons.

This picture from Wikipedia shows drive sizes next to each other from 8 inch form factor to 5.25, 3.5, 2.5, 1.8 and 1. That 1 inch drive is a compact flash microdrive, so it would be possible to have a 1.8 inch adaptor.

Yes, for $5.30 delivered. I have one here (and have used it; works fine).

Excellent! I might need that in order to replace the dead drive in my MP3 player. Shock-proof would be nice...