StarTech IDE to SATA Converter Review - Use SATA HDD ODD and SSD with Retro PC
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- Опубліковано 7 жов 2024
- There are various Converters that let you use SATA HDD ODD and SSD with Retro PC, but the StarTech adapter has a good reputation and many of you asked me to test it. It is the most expensive adapter, so is it worth the premium?
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Damn, I'm not sure what happened, but I forgot to add the BIOS screenshots to show Master / Slave / Cable Select in action. I have uploaded them here: i.imgur.com/Iv9LWhC.png i.imgur.com/DbrEEa7.png
IcyDock makes a 2.5 plastic box in the same shape as a 2.5 drive.. inside you can put an m.2 SSD just make sure its SATA format and not NVMe .. now if you also need SATA to IDE conversion, you may not have enough room.. you will have to add an adapter for that. But in such a small space you might also try one of those silly mSATA to IDE conversion kits.. they exist too.. i think that same Sintech website still sells them. They boutique make "anything". Its a white plastic box with the chips on the same card and an IDE pin set coming out the back just like a 2.5 drive.
@@vardekpetrovic9716 Get a mSATA to IDE 44 pin enclosure.
@@philscomputerlab Super cool Topic by the way.. let'em know over on Vogons and you'll be swamped with viewers.
@@philscomputerlab do you have any recommendations? I just got an IBM T42. On one forum thread they were saying don’t buy one with the controller JM20330 because it causes BSODs.
No problem. We already knew you cheated, since the drives had no power cables attached, when you confirmed "yep, they work!" ;)
For real though how great are Startech? They make everything and have consistently high standards. What a bunch of heroes.
I did a bunch of testing a couple years back with these cards and The Startech is worth every cent. As others have mentioned if you are into modding old game consoles, OG Xbox especially, these are amazing, with the no name the Xbox would boot properly about half the time when I tested it on a couple different models. In Windows 98 I noticed on some motherboards the no name adapter would work well, other than it being a little slower, but on some chipsets, can't remember which ones, I would have a lot of blue screens or very slow boot up, etc. Great video as usual.
I use a SATA adapter for the 1TB HDD in my fat PS2, works amazingly.
@@TechWithSean me too, I converted an official adapter to sata and it works great with a 1TB SSD, I know there's not real speed difference with SSD on PS2 but the quiet operation was worth it to me.
The startech adapter's work reliably with the new UDMA 4 mode on cerbios firmware for Xbox but the no name adapters are a total mixed bag on whether they will work with the higher UDMA modes.
big THANKIES
Startech does seem to truly make great stuff. I have a DAC of theirs (not for audio) for my CRT monitors. It reaches upto 375Mhz and pretty much all units do this consistently. It's otherwise a massive problem in the CRT scene to try and find a adapter that works well enough. But the Startech just works. Only slight "issue" that it's Displayport only. So HDMI users are left out.
As someone who has a ton of old computers, I thank the Gods daily for the existance of your channel!
I love StarTech products. They always seem to have whatever obscure card, converter or connector I need. So yeah, I would be inclined to get their SATA to IDE adapter even if the no name version is just fine, if only to help them make money and continue existing. That, and red PCBs are just pretty.
What I like the "most" about Startech.. is they provide "Datasheets" with actual Chipset details about the products they sell. They're no dummies.. I think they learned it from the early NewEgg days.. nerds love to know what goes into the product and publishing a "chipset name" as part of the Specification.. equals a repeat sale.
Well their slogan is "Hard to find made easy" (or something like that) so yeah...
Ut oh looks like the BIOS screenshots for the primary/secondary/CS got missed, but I still believe you!
Yeah.. I noticed too.. I was wondering about CHS and LBA emulation.. and there is a time delay when the software in the overclocked 8051 are still starting up after power up. The cheaper adapters can end up being too slow on some systems and fail to enumerate in the BIOS list. Some BIOS let you add a delay to address slow HDD but its kind of rare... its critical for Booting however.. some BIOS will rollover and start trying other controllers hunting for a boot device.. even PXE Rom.
Damn, I can't believe I missed that...
My experience with the two adapters was that the no name adapter's controller slowed down dramatically over time as the drive filled up (I would assume weird timing issues with the SSD so your experience may vary), where as the StarTech's continued to work about as well as expected with the same drive.
thank you for the valuable information, the long run instability sometimes really hard to test out the exact cause.
Nice, I haven't noticed this but usually only work on small projects with just a few games, so this is good to know!
It’s weird that the *adapter* would slow down, since I’d anticipate the wear leveling on the SSD would have a bigger impact. That said, in another review i’d seen about the generic adapters the reviewer said the solder quality was pretty bad, maybe if they’re thermally stressed over time the connection starts flakey?
@@Eyetrauma Can't remember what all I tried since it was probably 6 or 7 years ago at this point. What I do remember is that Windows 98 install went well, got drivers, games, and after a while of playing with it, it started taking Windows if I recall correctly multiple seconds to open folders. I can't remember if I tried an HDD with the adapter, but I think I did and found it to be fine. In any case switched to the StarTech adapter with the SSD and everything has been fine since. Have bought multiple of them since and haven't had any issues with them. (SSD at the time was 120GB MLC with DRAM cache if you're wondering.)
I'm sure some people are using the no name adapters without issue, so like I said results may vary. In my case I feel the the extra money to get the Marvell controller is justifiable to not have to worry about it.
I use these adapters to replace old failing IDE HDDs in original Xboxes. I have both that green one and the startech one. The green one will often take so long to initialize that an Xbox won't recognize there's a drive in the system. They also go offline when the Xbox is rebooted every time. Mine did come with double-sided sticky foam on the pcb to adhere/insulate from the drive chassis, at least. The startech one doesn't have any of the slow init issues and works great, I put some double-sided tape on that one too. I almost exclusively use them with 2TB HDDs.
Thanks Phil. Another super Friday short. Your video from a few years ago on the various media options for our retro PC’s was very good and helped me a lot. I am using 6 StarTech ide adapters for my SSD’s. They were much more expensive, but they work very well. I hook these up via a raid controller on the PCI bus. The SATA connection tends to be the loosest link so once attached the ide cable link is not a problem.
I have recently bought some m.2 encloses (I have yet to try them out) that have a a 2.5” ide connector, along with a 40 way IDE 2.5 inch drive adapter cable which converts it to regular ide. This a cheaper way of implementing an m.2 SSD rather than a regular SSD drive and StarTech adapter, and the electronics required for the conversion is much simpler, so it could be very effective. I haven’t bought the m.2 drive yet for a test but it looks like a good solution.
Nice, thanks for sharing your experience with RAID.
I've been using a much older StarTech SATA2IDE connector for over 10 years. I plugged it into my IDE2USB cable so that I can connect SATA drives to USB2.0 and I get 50Mbps rates out of it, as expected, which was actually pretty good performance for notebook SATA drives back then.
Does the older one look different?
Hi Phil, nice to see both of these adapters had a similar performance. Months ago I needed a couple and the startech were out of stock so I order two different no name ones and one of the two had the pins exposed, the second unit had some black foam but very thin... I used the one that looked the best and hotglued it to the back of a hot swap SATA bay so now I can use on my old S462 Athlon SATA drives.
I will look for these Startech ones again they look way better built.
Thanks.
By the way, on top of the adapters you slot in on the hard disk and optical drives, there's also adapters that slot in to the mobo and can turn 1 IDE port into 2 SATA ports! One such adapter is the Lindy 51024, with two JMicron JMH330 controllers. Does even UDMA-6 at 133MB/s! Do check them out, they're insanely economical, and for two hdd-side adapters, you can simply slot in one mobo-side adapter and save up on both money and the need to stock on things like IDE adapters and Molex cabling.
Looks like these are unobtainium online. What store can you order them from?
@@kunka592 The specific model, yes. But I found generic derivatives for relatively cheap on local markets where I'm from. Best you can do is trawl the web for a "IDE to 2x SATA adapter", you should be able to find a generic.
@@qpwoeiruty668 as i remember it, these where just the shelled version of a stock design marvel put out at one point when this started to be a thing, (wanting to use sata drives on ide), i have used several and if you took the shell off, the pricy one and bare board ver, were the same unit sometimes pcb color differed but.. im betting that was just batch to batch.. whatever pcb materials they could get cheap.. anyway, these are great wish i kept a few, there was a rare as fuck one that looked similar but was VERY dif inside.. it had 2 switches... one.. let you daisy chain drives using sata cables.. still could only do 2 but you could use one of those and a cheaper adapter and hookup 2 drives without pluging a box into your board, so it was attractive for some uses.
As for compatibility I've been using that same Startech adapter in PowerMac G4 systems and even an original Xbox. Works great in both!
StarTech gear is more expensive than the no name stuff but their quality and performance is always top notch. I've done IT jobs at corporations and StarTech was always where they would source any adapters or obscure pieces of tech that were needed.
Agreed.
I work in the metro system of a major european capital and we are using those no-name adapters to retrofit reliable SSD's to all kinds of old point of service computers to make them more reliable than the old mechanical drives we have and I can say the no name works very well, we haven't had any issues
Philday converts my OK day into a GREAT day!
I like the Startech PATA2SATA3 adapter. It has a plastic enclosure, and plugs straight into the motherboard. No need for an ugly IDE cable, and no risk of a short circuit.
Love startech kit. Got a few of these adapters from them and never had a problem. Their cables too are brilliant.
Ive been using the little black enclosed StarTech adaptor that plugs into the motherboard and uses SATA cable. Works great, no complaints and I prefer the SATA cables, but means you cant have a slave drive on the channel.
Startech has a load of interesting and sometimes obscure tech.
I would put the tape on the hard drive, it would stick better than over the pins of the adapters themselves. But that's just me :)
I am installing Mechwarrior 2 3DFX on a Socket A Semprom 3300+ (Same as Athlon XP 3200+) with DGVoodoo DLLs on a SATA SSD and the StarTech adapter as I watch this video. 😁 I use the StarTech adapter because I cannot easily find the no-name adapter WITH the Master/Slave jumper. But I can get them at a good price so I don't mind. Thanks for all your retro videos, Phil! They have been a GREAT help.
I usually put thick double-sided foam tape between these adapters and the hard drives. It insulates the pins and prevents them from flexing or pulling out easily.
Great Video, super useful. I am cleaning up my dads old AMD 3200+ pc, i remember helping him build it. However, need one of these adapters. This video has helped me restore my late fathers PC, which still comes with the original Win98SE installation from back in the day! Thanks Phil!
I'm going to stick with using the StarTech adapter as it has shown to be reliable for me. I've had issues with the no name ones not working reliably with fast SSDs. I occasionally get read/write errors on the drives.
I only use the StarTech in my modded OG XBOXes. Not only do I not want to chance it with a generic part, especially with capacitors that can fail, its smaller and fits better.
😁 today I was the first! I have two of those non branded adapters and they work really well on every PC i Put ir on. I think that on these old PCs you dont need something Faster than that. Thanks for the vídeo Phill. 👍
I've done my own experimenting with the startech adapter vs the no-name - and the startech adapters are completely worth the extra cost IMO. Not only have i not found a generic adapter that works with the OG Xbox, many generics also take up both master and slave settings (or have no way to set a drive to slave, which equates to the same thing) meaning if you use it in a retro PC then you get only one drive per bus, quite a problem.
Thanks Phil! I recently came across a couple of these kind of adapters but my choice was very easy since only one of the two worked with my configuration. Now I don't feel like I need to evaluate any further to look for more differences. The one I settled on is very similar to the Startech one you've got but not identical.
Great to hear!
no surprise that the StarTech is better all around. it "just works" and there are no unpleasant surprises like with the generic adapter. the StarTech uses a superior Marvell chipset, which seems to be the key difference between the two. i have been using the StarTech for years, and it's the only IDE-to-SATA adapter i trust. worth every penny.
I have 2 of them...Agreed!
I’ve been running a cheap dram ssd in my dual pentium iii dell precision and the startech adapter has been extremely fast and reliable
Yea I'm using it now in my projects and working great!
I bought the ones being sold as cerrexian or something like that. They have a master/slave jumper that is just pin 28 grounded or not grounded as seen by the adapter drive circuit. Like many have figured out, who bought any of these adapters, is how well they stay connected. They can have a real chance of coming out of the sata device real easy if not secured. Then there is the much taller footprint of some of these.
Thanks for sharing!
Man these designs are a bit careless on the short circuit issue. I shorted an sd to ide adapter with the PC case, I even cought it on video in a scary moment. Learned my lesson, I put tape under all of them now.
I've noticed with an og xbox and an ide modded dreamcast, although these are consoles and not retro pcs, the startech adapter loads games so much faster especially if there's lots of little files in comparison to the no name adapter (which looks identical to the one in the video) and also it's so much more reliable as well. Boot times were always consistently quicker with the og xbox using the startech adapter and it never had the error code 7 or 8 (no hdd/hdd timeout error for the xbox) unlike the no name adapter which had this problem once in a while turning on the xbox (wasn't an everyday thing but a once a month thing and it'd still work just by turning the xbox off and back on again, but it's annoying).
It's also not just a one off bad no name adapter, I had 3 and I have a few more startech adapters and it's the same story for all of them.
I hope this bit of info also helps out others, as the saying goes, you pay for something cheap, you pay it twice and I'd much rather get the good startech adapters any day of the week as opposed to the no name adapter.
Although it'll probably affect a pc less, just get the startech adapter, save the headaches and shave the load times.
Your "sort of" noticing what I noticed a few years ago.. the 8051 based adapters went through "code modifications" over the years. The firmware is burned in when the chips are made.. but there were different versions. The early chips were clocked slower and didn't offer as many features.. the newer versions got a little faster.. but I think they just used faster crystals on the pc board. The devil is in the details.. cheap.. always costs the customer more .. later.
Great info, thanks for sharing!
You're awesome Phil Thanks a bunch For the Super informative Video
My Startech adapter was like 25€ many many years ago. They have been around for a while. :)
I like that the startech is thinner. Might have to try it out
I had one of those green ones smoke. The soldering was terrible and there were bridges all over the board. I sent it back and got another one and it looked just as bad so I didn't try using it. Returned that one and got the StarTech and have purchased two more since. They work great.
I really need some of these. I haven't been playing around as much with my old hardware because it's just a pain to get sata drivers slipped in to what I need.
I picked 2 compact adapters that had a M/S jumper. Is still have a supply of IDE drives that I take care of so these are just in case. I have had drives fail, but that was because they were used in Arcade games, or were used by other businesses. Generally if IDE drives have a power saving measures applied they will last alot longer. I found the drives that get hotter are sata spinners in my case, even if data is not being accessed.
The reason I've heard about the StarTech is the Xbox Modig scene. The StarTech works with the xbox whilst the noname don't (or is a gamble). so yeah, speed matters but compatibility is king here.
And I have yet a different IDE2SATA adapter. My brother gave me a couple that were used for process control systems, and they take SATA laptop (2.5") drives instead, and have a frame that fits into a PATA/IDE 3.5" drive bay (screw holes in the same locations). Of course I don't have a system to test them in at the moment,
I use IDE hard drives and an optical drive in the first place in my windows 98/XP pc and i am satisfied with it. It has two magnetic drives one for operating systems and one for long term storage.if you do not give any physical shocks to them,they will work pretty well for a long time,but because of that physical shock factor,SSD drives are much better choice for portable devices.
2:46 I sometimes use hotglue to cover the pins.
A lot of Adapters like those form Addionics came with little strips of "foam" to provide insulation.. but then the chips performing the bus emulation also "heat up" while in use.. so air flow becomes a problem.
@@joey_after_midnight Well. I just mean the obvious through-hole pins
I'm low income, and I still try to pony up for the Star*tech versions of things like this whenever I can. I have some of their stuff from well over a decade ago, and it's still working fine, while other no-name stuff I bought has proven unreliable or just not as flexible overall. In my view, the premium is worth it because I'm more likely to *still* be using it 5, 10, or even 20 years from now.
Just an idea for you Phil, I came across some old Dell adapters that allow you to use 1.8 micro drives inside of a 2.5 PATA adapter. It’s a PATA drive shell with a little ribbon cable adapter to go from the micro drive to the PATA interface. Might be something interesting to make a video about.
i have the first one. works fine.
I've had a few things around my own lab that needed the backs of the PCBs taped up. I actually used the liquid version of electrical tape - looks better and works just as good.
BTW I love the way you say "Mega boytes" :D
When using these for a TiVO Series 2 or 3 the Marvell chips generally work, but not the Sintech/Sinotech "no-name". I also found this the case when using them in DVD recorders to upgrade from IDE to SATA hard drives. The Sintech "no-names" also seem to have a lot of third party knockoffs which confuse the issue and the build quality varies a lot. Its also notable that Marvell chip is out of production, so the Startech are becoming more rare to source. They also get use in PS/2 or PS/3 game consoles which can drive up their costs. I "believe" the IDE emulation by the Marvell has a more complete ATA command set than the Sintech which is based on 8051 emulation of an ATA bus controller. So there are a lot of "Edge" cases where the Marvell is more flexible.
Thanks for sharing, interesting to hear about use cases outside of Retro PC!
I'm pretty sure all PS3s use sata and not ide. Fat model PS2s and og Xbox definitely use ide though.
I remember years ago people reorted problems with the Marvell adapter chips (i think on the MSFN forum), thats’s why I’ve avoided them. Bought some no name adapters with this DOT or something chip and had problems with CD-ROMs. Finally bought a Jmicron JM20330 chip and this one works without problems.
I've never had any problems with the cheap ones. For the exposed pins on the back, I cut out a piece of plastic from some packaging and stuck it on with double sided foam tape.
i had one and sticked on a peace of rubber that had glue on one side, over here they use this for doors etc.
or i use some high temp resistant selicone
Used the StarTech one for a modded original xbox as it was the only adapter that worked. Cheapo ones just didnt work properly. I think StarTech is far more compatible with hardware.
This was really useful! I might grab one for both of my xboxes.
@@MarcoGPUtuber Go for it! I recommend upgrading the ide cable to 80 pin one as well if you havent done already. Think it needs to be 22" length ones. Search about it and youll find your answers. Have fun!
Literally the exact same experience, also with the ide modded dreamcast as well.
Never had to deal with errors 7 and 8 with the startech adapter on the xbox.
Component legs poke through electrical tape verry easily so I recommend to cut down all legs as far as possible first then covering them with uv epoxy or regular epoxy. There is little to no chance to make repairs so solder access is not needed.
I have a really old adapter encased in plastic that can actually work both ways (separate SATA connector for input or output). I haven't tested it in years, ever since I used it in an upgraded system. I wondered about TRIM but after googling it seems there are even DOS programs that can send TRIMcommands to an SSD. I'm gonna try an SSD on my Pentium system later on.
There are 2 things you should know about TRIM in DOS. The BIOS of your computer needs to forward the TRIM commands and the adapter also needs to forward them. The StarTech adapter does this (I have one in my system), but my BIOS didn't, so I opted to get a Promise Ultra133 tx2 IDE controller. One down side of the Promise controller is that it can only handle CD-ROM drives if nothing else is connected to the card. So you'll probably still need your motherboard IDE controller to connect a CD-ROM / DVD-ROM drive. You can get the TRIM program for free nowadays (sadly, the developer passed away) and there's also a TRIMCHK program to verify if your setup supports it.
I'm using the no name brand one in my win98se PC. I'm only using it with a laptop hard drive though. It works well. I may get the startech one thought.
the startech one is the best quality one compared to others, i may get a startech sata to ide for a SSD to go in my pentium iii reverse sleeper win98 rig
I've had mixed results with the no-name in some builds I've done in the last few years. I do remember having put tape on some of them. I think I am using one in my personal Win98 machine though! In particular, my friend had trouble with the no-name in an iMac G4, but the StarTech did work for him, so I think compatibility is probably overall way better with the StarTech.
love it love it love it
Been using this for years. Works really well! Strangely not with every SATA SSD I have tried, but I have found it works with cheap 120gb kingston drives which is good enough for me.
Been hearing for a while now (and the comments seem to reflect this) that the generic adapters can be extremely hit or miss in terms of compatibility.
Really sucks ‘cause in applications like these I’m really not looking for performance but I definitely don’t need *more* aggravation beyond the type you already get with vintage hardware.
If the Startech version really is going out of stock I’d hope we’ll eventually see an open source hardware version instead.
Yeah, vintage hardware is not like modern hardware. My first computer with a 486SX at 25 Mhz would be a little bit tricky to configure by today's standards. Back then they had jumpers for a lot of settings and the manual for the boards mattered a whole lot more because of all of that. Installing a sound card was a bit of an adventure too with the jumpers to set DMA and IRQ. It is easy to take those things for granted since Windows now handles a lot of that behind the scenes. Of course I don't remember the last time I ever had a BSOD, they seem to be a thing of the past for me.
This my my experience as well, that the no name adapters are hit and miss. They might work ok for awhile, may not support higher speed modes etc or might be just fine for the application. The startechs are consistently reliable in everything I have ever seen someone throw at it.
My experience with the no name adapters (i tried two of them) on an iMac G3 2001 was a boot delay of about 40 seconds, with the Startech adapter there is no delay.
I use the startech, I have had a few issues with optical drives.
i use the no name adapter on OG Xbox. No issues.
Slightly disappointed that StarTech didn't have the housing on the IDE connector. That means the only thing preventing wrong-way-around insertion is the missing pin. But just as some cables don't have the bit that fits into the notch, some don't have that one pin blocked.
On the old cables the Red wire is #1 and you look for same # on open pinned connectors. Learned the hard way years ago when I fried a Bigfoot drive.
For protecting possible shorts of the soldered pins I am using the (Pattex) Heißklebe Pistole 🔫
When I was replacing the original Xbox's hard drive I needed to use the Startech adapter for the initial cloning. For some reason the no-namebrand adapter wouldn't take on the role of slave (necessary for the cloning process). After the cloning was done the Xbox was able to use the no-namebrand adapter (in the master role) without any problems.
Maybe mine was defective somehow (shrug) but it doesn't seem to comunicate slave status to my xbox.
In case anyone is infamiliar/wondering, the original Xbox's hard drive is encrypted with (I believe) console specific keys so just plugging both drives in and copying the files isn't an option.
YMMV, but I've had the green ones I got killed two large SSDs dead and corrupted data on smaller SSDs.
These might work OK with hard disks, but don't risk your SSDs. The StarTech is worth it.
While I didn't have such issues, yea the StarTech gives you peace of mind!
@@philscomputerlab Yeah.. the voltage regulator problem.. those Caps tend to go bad and short and then the regulator goes and the SSD. Or you get one with a solder bridge right out of the package.
If you're going to go with the no-name ones be wary, I've had a few that have had traces burn up on the PCB, potential concern, only happened on two so may just have been mfg defect in the copper trace causing high resistance but something to consider with these devices, otherwise they work great.
I bought one of these for my OG XBOX, weirdly hard to get in AUS, cheapest I could find was on eBay and from the UK.
I've been using adapters like this for years. Startech makes great tech, no doubt. However for this particular type of adapter, unless you really need/want the cable select or Berg jack, Startech doesn't have the advantage. Performance is margin of error difference and the price factor is important. Also, I like the socket on the IDE connector much better. Adding a spacer on the back to prevent direct drive contact with the pins is trivial.
Own both ... syartech is mot ideal if yiur using on o g xbox to concert drive from ide to sata due to space extra power cable takes up
What's up Phil!
Specs of my Ultimate 1999 Gaming PC that I just recently got up and running of which most if not all of the parts are from 1999. I even have not just a LITE ON 52x CD-RW Drive installed but also a Creative PC-DVD ROM Dxr2 installed. I even have a HP CD Writer Plus 8200e External USB CD-RW Drive plugged into the system. Looks simillar to the HP CD Writter 9200 Plus that was on my dad's AMD K6-2 build which was clocked at 450 Mhz with a ATI 3D Rage 128.
Motherboard: Abit BE6-II Revision 1.0
Processor: Intel Pentium III clocked at 650 Mhz (Originally I wanted to either go with a Pentium 3 clocked at 550 Mhz in order to have something that was close to what I had with a Dell Optiplex GX1 or a Pentium 2 clocked at 266 Mhz so that I could slow the system down significantly)
RAM: 256 MB
Hard Drive (had): 60 GB QUANTUM FIREBALL PLUS AS (Extremely loud)
Video Card: 3Dfx Voodoo 3 3000 (AGP Varient)
Sound Card: Creative Sound Blaster AWE64 Value CT4520 (Used this in a Gateway Essential ESS 450 SE from 2015 to 2017 that I used to have and even though I have Yamaha OPL3-SA as well as ESS AudioDrive this card being the only Sound Blaster 16 compliant card around makes it a really good choice)
Network Interface Card (NIC): Linksys EtherFast 10/100 LAN Card Version 2.0 (I use this primarily for playing online video games)
Re-enabled the HighPoint (LowPoint) HPT 366 Ultra DMA 66 controller that is onboard and hooked up a 2 TB Western Digital hard drive as the replacement for the Quantum drive. I am using a StarTech IDE to SATA Hard Drive or Optical Drive Adapter Converter that was not playing nice with the Intel i440BX chipset. I recommend at least a minimum of Ultra66 in order for this adapter to work properly.
I'm having problems with a no name I don't think it has jumpers, everything works fine I copy WIN98 folder fine but SETUP wont run. I'm about to try it on an intel 845 chipset see if it makes a difference.
EDIT: Okay this is one of those HXSP-0908 adapter and i tried it on the 845 and it worked fine but the no DMA thing and the system would freeze after enabling not sure if its worth messing around with further
Thanks Phil your channel is literally a god level resource
i've been testing 44 pin ide to msata adapters and had interesting results. my powerbook g4 titanium boots fine with a 256 gb nvme ssd. so does a dell d600 with a pentium m. but attach it to a hp omnibook with a pentium 3. and it acts like it has bad ram. unplug ssd but not adapater and it does post. attach a 120gb 44 pin hdd. and it also works. so no size limit.
i'd definitely be interested into seeing some videos on that/
Thanks! maybe you can do more test with some DOM (disk on module) units. Bye!
I honestly don’t feel there is a big enough difference between them to be noticeable as I have used both. In the end, it’s faster than using IDE drives, and being able to use SATA drives resolves the larger problem of drive longevity where old, healthy IDE drives are becoming harder to come by.
Muy interesantes ambos aparatos. Exelente trabajo!
Doesn't 98se initially run at a failsafe standard DMA speed of around 16MB/s during installation, and only allows higher UDMA speeds when you manually turn it on afterwards? It's just that speed testing during installation is kind of a misnomer with the way 98se works it seems.
Interesting. If that’s the case it’s an important consideration for the test and would explain why the results are fairly close.
So many variables with IDE bus emulation over ATA - DMA, UDMA, 16 bit, 32 bit words, CHS, LBA support, Optical drive support, Hardware Device ID emulation or Uniqueness.. many adapters.. if they support a HW ID.. will give out the same ID everytime for every adapter. That's like having an Ethernet card that hands out the same MAC address for all cards on a subnet.
That's why I did both, Windows installation and ATTO benchmark after the drivers were loaded. The Windows 98 installation is just a simple real life test that is good at showing differences. I tried other tests, like mounting ISO and installing a game, but just happens too quickly LOL
@@philscomputerlab So many other types of devices (also) used the ATA bus.. I seem to recall a Sound Card that used it, Tape Drives, Video Capture devices, an Ethernet card.. the IDE/ATA bus is basically a SCSI subset that could go nuts with more than just Master/Slave .. it got dumbed down in someways.. but got out of control there at the end. Thank god we went to sata, pcie and usb and all other other serial technologies.. the parallel cables would have choked a horse by now without serial technologies. I think I have an LS120 Floppy disk drive that even sat on the ATA bus.. I put it in an IDE to USB external case I think.. I still got it somewhere. LOL remember Floppydisk FLASHPATH ? adapters.. your Floppy drive becomes the Memory Card Reader? Before USB 1.1
I have the no name in the mail now. Im hoping it will fix issues i have been having with cd rom drives on my win 98 machine. My theory is a sata drive will perfom better? I hope.
Well it came and did not help with what i was hoping it would. But it allowed me to add an ssd to my 98 machine with great results.
at 3:40 I think you missed to put in the screen capture
Oh no! How the heck did that go through QA 😱
The StarTech adapter is about 2.5 x more expensive than the No-name adapters, but I have bought enough for my needs for the reliability they provide. StarTech also brings the benefit of support if something goes wrong and although I have had no problems, this and the longevity is what I am paying the extra for. I don’t know how the No-name adapters perform and they may be OK, but I value the assurance of stable performance with the StarTech’s and they look prettier. The Marvel chipset works very well for me.
I can share the same experiences now that I tried more machines...
I have 2 Noname adapters and I found if I use them as Master and Slave at the same cable sometimes the PC doesn't want to boot because can't recognize which is master and slave, sometimes only the master drive appears in the bios and windows. I've tested different cables and the cables are fine, just the Chinese adapters sometimes don't work properly.
I've had good luck using cheaper unbranded ones. I'll probably keep doing that until I get one that doesn't at least do better than the OG hard drive.
I would stick a piece of good foam in there to protect those pins. Maybe even a piece of plastic cut to the right size would be better,
Would be nice to see 1998 benchmarks - K6-2 vs Celeron vs Pentium 2 and Voodoo 2 vs TNT1 vs Banshee :)
Shouldn't use tape but foam tape as that is thicker and prevents the pins from touching as reg tape the pins can still puncture
I have 2 of each and could not get 2 hard drives to be shown as master and slave. The no name worked perfect on a DVD drive and not so well with a hard drive. I know there is 1 drive per sata port and I'm wondering if that is why I can't get 2 of these "HDD or SSD" to show together in bios as Ma and Sl. I have 1 WD 10k V Raptor that runs very well with the Star Tech adapter. I love playing around with this Tech!
Would be interesting to get a comparison using a SSD drive
What do you mean? I did use a SSD 😊
@@philscomputerlabOk, it seems i got distracted as i swear i just saw a mechanical HDD. Will check the video again. Will see if i can get one of those for an old ASUS desktop that want to install a SSD.Apologies for my mistake and thanks for sharing.
You need 2 or 3 layers of tape, those pins are sharp!
I actually was checking those two adapters just a couple of days ago, StarTech is flipping expensive. My main doubt is if I should get a female or male adapter, meaning I connect the adapter to the IDE connector of the motherboard and turn it into SATA, or connect it to the SATA HDD/SSD and turn it into IDE, not a big fan of IDE cables, even the round ones are annoying to manage.
Be aware that the Startech "Marvell" chip version is not the only version Startech sells, Startech also sells one based on the Sintech 8051 based no-name chip.. its expensive because the Marvell chip is used in many things other than PCs that need an IDE to SATA adapter and those will not work with a Sintech. It may "look expensive" now.. but later you may not be able to get a Marvell based adapter.. if you need it. Their value will only go up. Marvell discontinued a critical chip for the Framemeister Retro game console line doubler and that thing now sells for near $700.
@@joey_after_midnight Nice info! How can you tell it has the Marvell chip? There's no labels or mention of it on any description I've seen on eBay. Some seller in the UK is selling one with a black case.
@@farben_ Easy.. the Marvell chip is distinct and a large square.. vendors proudly showcase it in photos if they ponied up for the cost of the chip. Startech IDE2SAT2 puts the Marvell - 88SA8052 on their Red PC Boards exclusively. Startech IDE2SAT25 puts the JMicron JM20300 chip on their Blue PC Boards. JMicron has a much smaller subset of the ATA command set. JMicro isn't Sintech but its close, but the chip is half the cost of the Marvell. The Sintech (or Sinotech?) are bargain basement, same basic design as in the SD and microSD card to IDE adapters. Using the same 8051 microprocessor core.. they can reprogram the chip at the fab and make it do different translations for different storage types upstream of the IDE/ATA bus. They just overvclock the hell out of the poor tiny 8051 until its little brain melts, or the solder holding it to the board.
@@joey_after_midnight Dang your reply doesn't show up on the main thread, only on the notification bell, try checking in incognito and see if your reply still shows up, it probably doesn't.
The ones with the cases are the blue ones so they should be the Startech IDE2SAT25, guess I'll have to pony up and get the red one, then do the electric tape method to avoid shorts. I also have a Promise TX4 Sata 300, wasn't able to make it boot from the SSD, in the end I just bought a compatible SATA I HDD and it booted right away. My issue are with the VIA controllers, they have issues with drives that aren't SATA I, a SATA II drive won't even be detected in bios let alone boot, anyway hopefully the Startech red will give me more drive options.
Less than 6 minutes to install Win98??? Man... we TRULY live in the future!
StarTech & Japanese SATA-TR2535 (2.5 SATA to 3.5 IDE) are the best ones that I've used before. I know of one more I've used that just as good as the StarTech one but I don't know that it's name is, I think it used some of the same parts too.
Thank you for the information. Exactly, what I was looking for. Purchased a few StarTech SATA to IDE adapters, but also interested in other especially Japanese options.
Thank you for your videos and your sharing your knowledge for supporting retro hardware and software.
I would like to ask for confirmation whether SSD's can be safely used eith Windows 98 (e.g. via such an adapter) and Windows XP. Do we only have to pay attention to partition alignment or is there something else influencing lifespan, please ? (-:
Yea align partitions and don't use the entire capacity and it should last a very long time! I will look at disabling page file in 98, but IMO if you have 256 or 512 MB RAM it shouldn't use the page file heavily.
First time hearing about these so thank you. Not having the large capacitors on the Startech would be a + in the long term?
Thank You for the test, now my Amiga can run Crysis in 4k. 🤣
I am curious if the Cable Select can be achieved by removing the Jumper? Maybe Cable Select is the default mode?
Retro greetings from Germany.
Maybe, but I haven't heard a definite yes or no in the comments at this stage.
Make sense, but the cheap one seems good enough for old pc uses.
Happy philday. Interesting topic I always viewed Startech as a super generic unreliable brand
In days past yes.. but after the era of the "Orange and Black" packaging.. they went "Yellow" and started raising their prices and publishing actual datasheets on the chips in their products. I'm old enough to remember their "cheap" import days.. those are long gone.. but you can revisit them on eBay.. old Startech stuff still sells on eBay.. buyer beware.. never go Startech "Orange and Black label".
I just cover exposed pins with hotglue,
I wonder whats the drive capacity limit on these adapters, it would be great to use again my external Medea Videodrive Raid with modern disks!