SYBA SD-CF-IDE-A IDE to Compact Flash Adapter

Pros: I have been using the CF adapter in a small Linux computer for a while. It is 100% silent and gives me no issues, although for some reason my motherboard doesn't blink the HDD activity light when using the card (but the LED on this board does blink just fine).

Cons: Lack of DMA support causes problems in Linux - so make sure to disable DMA in the boot options. Not taking off any stars since this can be my CF card maybe not adapter.

Other Thoughts: This is not a replacement for a proper "fast" SSD, but is much cheaper.

Pros: I bought 2, thinking to use one as master, one as slave. Master worked flawlessly. Slave - see cons.

Cons: For one of these to work as slave, the #28 wire in the 40-conductor IDE cable must NOT connect to it. Turns out that the IDE standard specifies that #28 must only connect to plugs at the two ends of the cable, not to any intermediate plugs. This spec is honored more in the breach than in the observance. My solution was to break off pin #28 of the IDE socket on the Syba board. Then it worked fine as slave.

Pros: No Fuss , Plug and Play.
Used this as a boot device for a FreeNas installation.
Rock Solid so far

Cons: none

Pros: worked with stock jumper setting. I used a Transcend 4GB Compact Flash (CF) Flash Card Model TS4GCF133 to boot freenas on my home server. no problems.

Cons: none

Other Thoughts: the red led is very bright. I had to make a mount to screw it on the bottom of my case

Pros: Used with a Transcend 2GB Compact Flash (CF) Flash Card Model TS2GCF133. Booted to BIOS configuration and card was detected correctly the first time. No tweaks needed in a Dell Optiplex GX240 desktop.
Stock jumper settings were used, and they worked flawlessly.
Silent and uses a fraction of the power of a regular hard drive.
Reading and writing speed is as fast as the card and bus can handle!

Cons: The only thing I can nitpick about is the exposed and rather long circuit junctions on the back of the board. You will definitely want to mount this with screws and offsets (using the two provided and grounded holes) or wrap it in non-conductive material. Dangling it uncovered in the case would be a bad idea, especially with smaller cases like mine.

There is a built in HDD activity light, but there is no way that I can see to connect it to a case HDD activity light without modding. No big deal, these devices should have very little "HDD" activity anyways.

Other Thoughts: I installed this with a 2GB Trancend card so I could boot GeeXboX 1.2.3 and for this purpose it works like a charm. Any system that runs in RAM ought to be able to use this, and it won't kill your card due to frequent read/write cycles.
Setup was just as easy as the old regular hard drive I was using for testing purposes.

By the way, this uses a small floppy power connector so make sure you have one coming from the Power Supply, or use an adapter.

This isn't the fault of the adapter, but it probably isn't a good idea to run a modern full sized OS, like Windows XP or something from it. Use a SSD for that. Typical CF cards aren't going to stand up to the abuse for very long.
For OS's that run entirely from RAM such as GeeXboX, FreeNAS, etc..., these are perfect!

Pros: Worked with Ubuntu 9.04 and a Transcend 8Gb CF card. Reasonable speeds.

Cons: None.

Other Thoughts: Using this setup as a cheaper (and slower) alternative for a flash based hard drive in an HTPC build.

Pros: Cheap, as stated, cheap SSD, works and it's bootable!

Cons: DMA questionable, i dont know

Other Thoughts: I didn't buy this on newegg, wished I had, but i needed instant gratification since it was the only piece i needed for my NAS server. IT works well, I'm using the floppy power adapter but going to try using the pin 20 setting to see if I can free up the floppy adapter for my CD rom power connector. Be careful with the floppy power plug, it sticks alot and i almost bent mine off pulling the plug off.

Pros: I think over all this is a very decent device. However, I had some trouble with it at the beginning. I will highlight those in a bit.

- perfect for cheap solid state drive
- cheap (cost wise)
- small

Cons: I bought a trancent CF card which when installed in this adapter the computer bios did detect but I was unable to write to the card. Bought a Kingston CF card and worked right away. I used this adapter as a solid state drive for a fan less media PC to load my OS.

- not compatible with some CF cards

Other Thoughts: If I hadn't had issues with this CF card I bought I would have given it 5 eggs. I am happy with this device. I can't speak to the speed to much. I think it is slower then a normal HDD. But once my the OS is loaded things go quick. So buy good CF card and you won't have issues.

Pros: Works well. No real problems.

Cons: none

Pros: It supports 3.5" IDE cable and has a spot for external power (through the floppy power cable).

Cons: It does NOT support DMA, as it says. It is so slow, I really can't do anything on this thing. I mean, it's unbearable. Took about 3 hours to install XP. I'm working on drivers now, and I've decided I can't take it anymore, as each driver takes 30 minutes to install. Honestly it's insane!

Other Thoughts: The reason I got this was because the previous one I got from newegg said it was ready to go for 3.5" IDE ribbon cables - when it showed up with only room for a 2.5" cable.

So, I went to a local store to get this one. This one says it supports DMA, but it does not. I wasted a good sat. waiting to install things on this, I'm just going to get something new now.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Customer,

You need a Compact Flash card that is UDMA enabled, please check with your CF card manufacturer if your memory card has this feature. All of our products come with at least 3 years warranty. Please don't hesitate to contact us at support-us@syba.com if you have any problem or question.

Regards,
Syba Customer Service