I don't have any recent experience with newer CF cards, but if you stick with name brand they'll probably be fine. Sandisk, Lexar.

Many of my own empegs have no-name or A-Data CF cards in them from more than 10 years ago.

So, look for a "CF" type card (not CFexpress, not CFast, not XQD), and stay at 128GB or less. Anything larger will be troublesome for the empeg with its limited RAM.

The largest sandisk I could find in a regular CF was 128 gb. The adapter has a master and a slave slot. Tony said it would be wise to use one card instead of 2. I have high quality mp3(bit rate of at least 320 or flacs, I may try and use some WAVs. All which use a lot of hard drive memory, but use less song names to use less file indexing. I figured buying a 256 gb card, which seems to be hard to find unless its a type B Compact Flash, which has larger dimensions. I think I found a lexor that is 256 gb though. I am still looking. If you know of any please let me know.

A pair of 128s should theoretically work, as long as the master/slave thing functions correctly on the IDE connector.

The reason to recommend one drive rather than two is that one drive is simpler than two, it simplifies some of the steps and reduces chances for things going wrong with the installation.

Is a CF and IDE adapter still the recommended way to go? I have a spare 60G SSD (SATA) and an IDE adapter I had been considering swapping in, but after finding this thread it sounds like picking up a 128G CF and an adapter might be a less problematic solution. I would have already tried the SSD, though I misplaced my null modem cable in my move west, so now waiting for one of those to be delivered, so reading while I wait and wondering if I need more items to make this a success. This is what I'm considering:

SanDisk Extreme 128GB CF (SDCFXS-128G-A46)

and then either,
This adapter with straight thru IDE header
or
This adapter with up turned IDE header

Any thoughts or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Goal is to maximize space and then never have to mess with storage again. I like that the second adapter has mounting holes that perhaps could be used for securing it, but wasn't sure if the orientation of the header would be an issue. I have some 3M VHB tape which should work for mounting either.

UPDATE: Third choice for adapter (as mentioned earlier). Has this one been confirmed to work well? <-- Looks like Tony is already confirming he has this and it works, so I'm leaning toward getting this one and a single 128GB SanDisk CF.
Dual CF to IDE adapter

Yes.


Unfortunately, SATA won't work, even with a fancy adapter.


I think that's the one in my "Daily driver" empeg and it's been working well. The other two might work fine too, but they don't have any "support" around the casing of the CF card, so vibrations will wiggle the card. I liked that Syba one because it was shaped exactly like an IDE drive and so it mounted perfectly into the spot inside the empeg. (though it takes up more physical space than is strictly needed.)