#294782 - 09/03/2007 14:59
CF empeg
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 30/10/2000
Posts: 4931
Loc: New Jersey, USA
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I converted one of my players to run entirely from CF cards for no particular reason. The inspiration came from this device. I would love to use 4 SD cards in a laptop hard disk form factor, but $260 per device without cards is quite steep. I eventually found these CF to IDE converters. These were perfect since they're 44-pin IDE and they have jumperable master/slave settings. It would appear that the mounting holes would line up with a standard laptop IDE drive, but they don't. Pics below...  empeg drive tray modified for CF adapters.  CF to IDE adapters mounted. The adapters didn't ground-out on the drive tray, but it was very close. Electrical tape was placed on the drive tray as a precaution.  Drive tray mounted back in empeg with dual 8GB CF cards. I will upgrade to 16GB cards and beyond as the prices come down.  8+8GB of fury!
_________________________
-Rob Riccardelli
80GB 16MB MK2 090000736
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#294783 - 09/03/2007 15:21
Re: CF empeg
[Re: robricc]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 19/01/2002
Posts: 3584
Loc: Columbus, OH
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Sweet. Where'd you purchace the adapters from and what was the total cost?
_________________________
~ John
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#294784 - 09/03/2007 15:36
Re: CF empeg
[Re: robricc]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 29/08/2000
Posts: 14493
Loc: Canada
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I use these adapters, which do have all of the right holes in all of the right places. Cheers
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#294785 - 09/03/2007 15:38
Re: CF empeg
[Re: mlord]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 29/08/2000
Posts: 14493
Loc: Canada
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Quote:
I use these adapters, which do have all of the right holes in all of the right places.
Note: those come pre-configured as IDE master devices, with solder pads for a jumper for slave mode.
-ml
Edited by mlord (09/03/2007 15:39)
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#294786 - 09/03/2007 15:40
Re: CF empeg
[Re: JBjorgen]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 15/08/2000
Posts: 4859
Loc: New Jersey, USA
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Hmmm... That does look nice...
This makes me think of an interesting little side project. A lot of the internal volume of the empeg is devoted to the shock tray for the drives. If you were just dealing with the main board with a remote display (see other projects), it might be possible to modify an empeg into a "slimline" version, completely shockproof and easily mountable anywhere...
_________________________
Paul Grzelak
200GB with 48MB RAM, Illuminated Buttons and Digital Outputs
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#294787 - 09/03/2007 16:27
Re: CF empeg
[Re: pgrzelak]
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pooh-bah
Registered: 13/01/2002
Posts: 1649
Loc: Louisiana, USA
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Neat project! I guess we would never run into write limitations at a million writes or so life expectancy?
Stu
_________________________
If you want it to break, buy Sony!
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#294788 - 09/03/2007 16:27
Re: CF empeg
[Re: JBjorgen]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 30/10/2000
Posts: 4931
Loc: New Jersey, USA
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I bought them directly from the manufacturer linked in the first post.
I think they were about $16 each.
Just took a drive with the CF empeg and it's up and playing before the boot animation is finished displaying.
_________________________
-Rob Riccardelli
80GB 16MB MK2 090000736
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#294789 - 09/03/2007 16:30
Re: CF empeg
[Re: mlord]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 30/10/2000
Posts: 4931
Loc: New Jersey, USA
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Quote:
I use these adapters, which do have all of the right holes in all of the right places.
Cheers
I saw those on a couple of sites but couldn't really make out exactly how the master/slave worked, if at all. I eventually assumed I would have to jumper those two blank pads. I took the easy way out with something that takes jumper caps.
_________________________
-Rob Riccardelli
80GB 16MB MK2 090000736
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#294790 - 09/03/2007 16:54
Re: CF empeg
[Re: robricc]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 29/08/2000
Posts: 14493
Loc: Canada
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Quote:
Quote:
I use these adapters, which do have all of the right holes in all of the right places.
Cheers
I saw those on a couple of sites but couldn't really make out exactly how the master/slave worked, if at all. I eventually assumed I would have to jumper those two blank pads. I took the easy way out with something that takes jumper caps.
The simple/crude method is to just take an exacto knife and cut off the tiny surface mount resistor -- instant slave.
I just desoldered it on mine, and installed a two-post jumper block in it's place, using the pads / holes provided.
Cheers
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#294791 - 09/03/2007 21:18
CF+Harddisk Hybrid..
[Re: robricc]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 29/08/2000
Posts: 14493
Loc: Canada
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I cannot find the original thread from last November (?), but there was discussion and interest at one point in having Hijack support for a combo CF + disk empeg system.
The idea being, to boot off the CF, and not spin-up the hard drive unless absolutely needed (eg. for playing a tune that's not buffered in the CF).
This would allow use of the tuner/aux inputs without wear and tear on the hard drive, especially during extreme (very hot or cold) temperatures.
Well.. I've been working on that now, for the past couple of hours, and the code is nearly ready to try out.
I'll be the lab hamster this time around, but I'm just wondering who else might be interested?
Doing this requires a hard drive that supports the Power-Up In Standby feature set, as reported near the bottom of hdparm -I output.
You can test your drive for this feature by grabbing the contents of /proc/ide/hda/identify from your player, and pasting it as input to a hdparm --Istdin command on another system. Or just post it here (256 16-bit words in hex/ascii) and I'll decode it for you.
In addition to a capable hard drive, you'll also need a CF card of suitable size, likely 128MB or larger (TBD).
The approach I'm taking is to just connect the CF card as the SLAVE drive, and have Hijack automatically manage it. No formatting/copying of files required, and the CF can simply be removed at any time to revert back to disk-only operation.
Cheers
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#294792 - 10/03/2007 06:15
Re: CF+Harddisk Hybrid..
[Re: mlord]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 10/06/1999
Posts: 5916
Loc: Wivenhoe, Essex, UK
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If you silently mapped the real drive to a remote NSF share (containing the normal contents of an empeg drive) as well then it would make for the perfect silent home Rio Receiver replacement...
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Remind me to change my signature to something more interesting someday
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#294793 - 10/03/2007 11:29
Re: CF+Harddisk Hybrid..
[Re: andy]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 13/07/2000
Posts: 4180
Loc: Cambridge, England
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Quote:
If you silently mapped the real drive to a remote NSF share (containing the normal contents of an empeg drive) as well then it would make for the perfect silent home Rio Receiver replacement...
The v3 Receiver Edition firmware is already perfectly silent: once it's booted, it spins the disk down.
Peter
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#294794 - 10/03/2007 16:12
Re: CF empeg
[Re: robricc]
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member
Registered: 28/08/2003
Posts: 149
Loc: Isle of Wight, UK
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I've been reading this thread with some interest. I've found a supplier of Mark's adaptor here in the UK at a reasonable price. I'm curious as to how much faster an Empeg would be booting from cold with the master drive replaced by CF + adaptor.
I have a 10GB master and a 40GB slave. I was debating replacing the 10GB master with an 8GB CF + adaptor to gain a faster boot. Would this configuration work?
Also, with a USB card reader, would I be able to copy the contents of the 10 gig HDD across to the CF before installation thereby negating the need for a complete software / music installation?
_________________________
Steve
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#294795 - 10/03/2007 16:20
Re: CF empeg
[Re: Major_Sarcasm]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 29/08/2000
Posts: 14493
Loc: Canada
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Yeah, you could do that. It will be a little faster booting, but by default it's still going to have to wait for the hard disk to spin-up, which is the slowest part of the boot cycle.
The project I'm working on, is to eliminate the need to wait for that spin-up, and to avoid even doing the spin-up.
My idea, again, is to just connect the CF card as *slave*, and tell Hijack to use it. The rest becomes totally automatic. No file copies, no fuss, just works.
With luck, I'll be trying it out here later this weekend.
Cheers
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#294796 - 10/03/2007 17:17
Re: CF+Harddisk Hybrid..
[Re: peter]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 10/06/1999
Posts: 5916
Loc: Wivenhoe, Essex, UK
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Quote:
The v3 Receiver Edition firmware is already perfectly silent: once it's booted, it spins the disk down.
True, but once you install the Receiver Edition the empeg isn't usable as real empeg until you reflash it again and reading the readme the Receiver edition suffers from some of the same issues as the Receiver itself.
_________________________
Remind me to change my signature to something more interesting someday
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#294797 - 10/03/2007 17:24
Re: CF+Harddisk Hybrid..
[Re: andy]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 29/08/2000
Posts: 14493
Loc: Canada
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Quote:
If you silently mapped the real drive to a remote NSF share (containing the normal contents of an empeg drive) as well then it would make for the perfect silent home Rio Receiver replacement...
You don't need me for that. Just rebuild the kernel with NFS support configured-in, and then add a mount command for it to the startup sequence, and make /drive0/fids/ into a symbolic link pointing at the appropriate NFS directory.
I think.
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#294798 - 10/03/2007 21:57
Re: CF empeg
[Re: mlord]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 29/08/2000
Posts: 14493
Loc: Canada
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Quote:
With luck, I'll be trying it out here later this weekend.
Cheers
Okay, it works. Sort of.
The drive I have is a Travelstar, which has an external pin (not a pair, just one pin, damnit!) that must be grounded to achieve "power-up in standby" operation, meaning "don't spin up until needed".
So, I've grounded that pin to the chassis, and it works.
But, this drive seems to spin up on *any* command, rather than the standard of "first media access". Which is a bit of an issue.
I've hacked my kernel to not send it any commands until a real media command is needed (reading a tune, or writing back player config data).
And that all works fine. The player does a little over 400 disk accesses at poweron, totalling about 5MB of disk data. That's an easy fit into pretty much any CF card.
Cheers
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#294799 - 10/03/2007 22:15
Re: CF empeg
[Re: pgrzelak]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 24/12/2001
Posts: 5528
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Quote:
completely shockproof
Not really. The VFD is still pretty fragile and you wouldn't want to knock that about too much.
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#294800 - 11/03/2007 07:57
Re: CF empeg
[Re: Major_Sarcasm]
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veteran
Registered: 01/10/2001
Posts: 1307
Loc: Amsterdam, The Netherlands
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Quote:
I've been reading this thread with some interest. I've found a supplier of Mark's adaptor here in the UK at a reasonable price.
Would be interested to know where you found them.
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#294801 - 11/03/2007 11:14
Re: CF empeg
[Re: robricc]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 18/06/2001
Posts: 2504
Loc: Roma, Italy
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This is very very interesting.
As soon as large enough CF hit the market, I rellay think I'll switch to them (or any other card format), too.
Thinking about it, it seems reasonable to expect 32GB or lager CF in one year form now, at relatively accessible prices.
Now, if only it was possible to easily remove the CF from the empeg, backing up would become mch faster, too...
_________________________
= Taym =
MK2a #040103216 * 100Gb *All/Colors* Radio * 3.0a11 * Hijack = taympeg
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#294802 - 11/03/2007 13:44
Re: CF empeg
[Re: Taym]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 29/08/2000
Posts: 14493
Loc: Canada
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Quote:
As soon as large enough CF hit the market, I rellay think I'll switch to them (or any other card format)
CF is the only format applicable here.
Cheers
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#294803 - 11/03/2007 13:53
Re: CF empeg
[Re: Taym]
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pooh-bah
Registered: 19/09/2002
Posts: 2494
Loc: East Coast, USA
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For a removable CF card install, take inspiration from this plexiglass lid and CF drive mod empeg from kildal.dk, from before 10/2004. Now I wonder, could a slaved CF drive work as a huge music buffer for the player and/or storage for the FID database? In other words, use the CF drive as RAM instead of a memory upgrade. Sure, we know the player chokes trying to fill a huge buffer, but maybe there's more to be gained here.
_________________________
- FireFox31 110gig MKIIa (30+80), Eutronix lights, 32 meg stacked RAM, Filener orange gel lens, Greenlights Lit Buttons green set
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#294804 - 11/03/2007 14:03
Re: CF empeg
[Re: FireFox31]
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pooh-bah
Registered: 13/01/2002
Posts: 1649
Loc: Louisiana, USA
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Quote:
use the CF drive as RAM instead of a memory upgrade
Surely the write limits of flash memory would come into play here unless you somehow changed the write locations each write.
Stu
_________________________
If you want it to break, buy Sony!
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#294806 - 11/03/2007 15:23
Re: CF empeg
[Re: FireFox31]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 29/08/2000
Posts: 14493
Loc: Canada
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Now I wonder, could a slaved CF drive work as a huge music buffer for the player and/or storage for the FID database? In other words, use the CF drive as RAM instead of a memory upgrade. Sure, we know the player chokes trying to fill a huge buffer, but maybe there's more to be gained here.
It's not wired up that way -- not possible, nor desireable.
Instead, we could just have Hijack ignore the mlockall() call from the player, and then the same effect would be achieved by a standard Linux feature.
Cheers
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#294808 - 11/03/2007 16:38
Re: CF empeg
[Re: julf]
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member
Registered: 28/08/2003
Posts: 149
Loc: Isle of Wight, UK
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Quote:
Would be interested to know where you found them.
I believe these to be the same product that Mark linked to. They certainly appear similar if not the same.
I was mildly irritated to see that the price was esentially double the price in Marks supplier link (£15 vs $15). Still, they're in the UK and postage shouldn't be too much.
_________________________
Steve
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#294809 - 11/03/2007 16:53
Re: CF empeg
[Re: maczrool]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 20/12/1999
Posts: 31597
Loc: Seattle, WA
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Quote:
Surely the write limits of flash memory would come into play here unless you somehow changed the write locations each write.
Which makes me wonder about how a CF-converted empeg will handle things with regards to its dynamic data partition? Doesn't that get written to a lot?
(And don't call me Shirley.)
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#294810 - 11/03/2007 16:56
Re: CF empeg
[Re: tfabris]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 29/08/2000
Posts: 14493
Loc: Canada
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Quote:
Quote:
Surely the write limits of flash memory would come into play here unless you somehow changed the write locations each write.
Which makes me wonder about how a CF-converted empeg will handle things with regards to its dynamic data partition? Doesn't that get written to a lot?
Some, but not enough to matter.
In fact, the player consistently writes out two sectors more or less immediately on every single boot. I'm not concerned about, though.
Cheers
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#294811 - 11/03/2007 17:02
Re: CF empeg
[Re: Major_Sarcasm]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 29/08/2000
Posts: 14493
Loc: Canada
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Quote:
Quote:
Would be interested to know where you found them.
I believe these to be the same product that Mark linked to. They certainly appear similar if not the same.
Yup, those are definitely the same thing.
Cheers
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