How big a CF card could (theoretically) be put into a Rio Carbon - or rather - how much memory could the firmware in a Carbon address, were <insert absurdly large number here> available?

I figure that 1)memory card prices fall continually 2)memory card capacities increase continually and 3)CF seems to be staying around as a standard - primarily due to its use in professional photography. It seems reasonable to assume that at some point, I'll be able to (cheaply) install some CF card with a good deal more storage capacity into my Carbon (especially now that it sports the 'developer's cut' - thanks guys!).

If so, what's the maximum it'd take?

-Zeke

ISTR there's no particular limit (well, that you can currently exceed with a CF card). The only problem is the database build time and playsforsure performance, if you use it. If you stick to plain mp3s and non-p4s-wmas you should be fine probably to 20GB or more.

Ideal for those perpendicular recording 1" drives coming up

Hugo

Thanks Hugo. I was thinking directly about the 8GB CF cards that are now out, but that Seagate drive you mention looks very interesting. Especially this bit (excerpted from press release link above):

Quote:
RunOn Technology: Reliability Under High-Motion Conditions
People often bring their mobile phones, PDAs and PMPs with them when walking, running or during other physical activities. Seagate's ST1.3 Series differs from other hard drives because it is designed to compensate for the issues caused by such high-motion activities. The drive incorporates Seagate RunOn technology, which enables the drive to automatically keep the read heads on track while the device is in motion. Consequently, the RunOn technology can increase the reliability - and customer satisfaction - of a handheld consumer electronics device.

G-Force Protection: Designed to Protect Against Everyday Bumps
When many hard drive-based devices face the trauma of everyday use, the read/write heads remain over the media and a hard drop could lead to a microscopic dent on the internal components and can suffer additional damage if it's still running when the device is dropped. Seagate understands that accidents can happen with handheld gadgets, and has built the ST1.3 Series hard drive with G-Force Protection, which protects the hard drive against shock by sensing when the system is in a free-fall situation, moving the heads off the platter, and turning the motor off - all within 3/10 of a second. Thus, during the day-to-day mishaps of using your favorite portable device, no parts make contact with each other inside the drive.

G-Force Protection makes any handheld device using the ST1.3 Series hard drive more robust and more reliable.

Here's hoping for reasonable pricing!
-Zeke

Victory is mine!(*)

(*)Not completely.

Last night I installed at 16GB Transcend 133 card into my Carbon. I installed firmware 3.04 successfully.

The card formatted to 8GB. Initially it would shut down every time I attempted a write operation, but I think that was due to a touchy USB connector. The 3.04 firmware would only allow MTP connection. I believe I have 3.02 at home (a two hour drive away at the moment) which does allow MSC and MTP connections.

So, here's a question - is there any method of getting the firmware to set a larger partition or should I just drop back to an 8GB card and call it a day?

Best,
-Zeke

edit: Oh yeah, the boot time also decreased from around 20 seconds to about 8 seconds.

I've solved the XP MTP-only connection issue by reassigned the device driver to USB Mass Storage with Windows Device Manager.

Next step is to connect the CF card via IDE connector and do some MBR surgery to correct the number of sectors.

-Zeke

Any more luck on this. I stuffed the 8Gb Transcend card in mine. It seems to be about 90% there.

I have tried 1.95 and 3.04 but it seems to be having that shutdown buffer error mentioned on Riovolution. It restarts and then will not do much unless I paperclip it.

No real luck in the end- general instability w the Transcend card. It would play for a while then hang. Once the original drive was back in place it worked fine once more. I gave up and will be repurposing the CF card. In the end I got a Touch.

-Zeke