CF-to-SATA hardware interface for RAW recording (fork)

[dashv]

X-Ray, thanks for that!

G3gg0, sounds promising.

I have tons of older IDE drives under 2 gigs from various manufacturers.

Unfortunately I threw away all my AT power supplies a year ago. Kicking myself now.

So I'll have to get something like this:

http://www.amazone.com/wall-in-jack-4pin-Molex-Adapter/dp/B00AG679NO

To power the drive.

[eduperez]

If time is not a constraint (their shipping is terribly slow), there are a couple of sites where these adapters are easy to find: http://dx.com/ and http://focalprice.com/; I also have several 10GB and 40GB PATA drives laying somewhere around here...

[bumkicho]

Has anyone suggested Compact Flash Ethernet Card?

[Grunf]

Has anyone suggested Compact Flash Ethernet Card?

Fastest speed is 100Mbit, which is a magnitude slower than needed for raw.

[Grunf]

I mailed them on 15th and they repled, that it is decontinued.

I'll try to call them, may be if there will be a substential interest say 100 pieces, they would be interested.

It should be in their interest that this works as we imagined. If it does, they might sell rather more than 100 pieces

P.S. I found a 500GB Seagate Barracuda PATA drive that woyuld be perfect for this. Only ATA-100 though, which means max 100MB/sec.

[squig]

I just hooked a Lexar expressCard CF reader up to my macbook with an internal samsung extreme SSD. It's recording a 4Gb file from a Toshiba 1066x card to the SSD in 28 seconds. That's roughly 142.8MB/s.

[deleted.acct.20132206]

Hi there,

first, big respect and props to all the devs of this forum here. An amazing work has done. Thank you!
Now to do my best part I just called ESS Cables in Germany. They were very friendly but don´t know if a cf to sata adpter will reach the speed of lets say 100 MB/s and higher. Also, they have to build an adapter to connect the both devices -
ADA-COMPACTFLASH-SATA and ADA-COMPACTFLASH-EXTENDER-0430FPC-DMA.

The Sales Manager told me he will give his best to support this project and will give us the possibilitiy to try it out. Sending Testing-Hardware. But he and their engineers need time until next week to get best solution. So lets see what happens.
By the way:
Yesterdays ML Testing Video with Canon 5D MIII - Komputerbay 1000x 128GB, 1920x720, 25p:

Best regards
Daniel -

[zachnfine]

I had thought maybe this item:

Micro SATA Cables - mSATA SSD to 40 Pin ZIF Adapter Card as Toshiba or Hitachi ZIF HDD
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B009BA5JU6/ref=ya_aw_oh_pit

Looked as though it might accomplish the bridging between SATA and IDE, and then this item:

Micro SATA Cables - 40 Pin ZIF to 50 Pin 1.8 Inch CF Toshiba HDD Adapter
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B009BG1ETA/ref=ya_aw_oh_pit

...could go from the previous adapter to the cf connector.

So the net effect would be the ability to connect a sata ssd drive to the cf slot in the 5d3. I ordered both items, but unfortunately I don't recognize the actual connector on that msata to ZIF adapter and am not sure how to connect anything to it.

I also grabbed one of these, thinking it might come in handy for powering the ssd and going between a couple of common sata connections.

I still figure the first two items above may be promising, but have hit a wall for a moment with the msata connector.

[zachnfine]

The last link should be:
Syba SATA to Mini SATA Cable with Molex Power Adapter (CL-CAB40042)
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B005BCNAWM/ref=ya_aw_oh_pit

[xaled]

@kopfsalatmedien

Just as I wanted to give esscable a call...

[deleted.acct.20132206]

...this could be another way for an external recording solution:

i.e. first we need the the shortest (i.e. 30mm) Esscable Extender - but only the cf-card adapter with the ffc cable, asumed that this connection could be dissolved from board!
The board with the male connectors isn´t needed. 
http://en.esskabel.de/adapter/datasheet/ada-compactflash-extender-0430ffc/

Than we need the Flexset (http://www.esskabel.de/adapter/datasheet/ada-flex-45p-050-set/186/)
to connect the cf card and the ffc cable to it.

Next is a mini- ide to ide adapter with molex for power supply, i.e.

http://www.m-ware.de/adapters-and-converters/sintech-mini-ide-to-ide-hdd-adapter-44pin-to-40pin-id5600-st4044a/a-5600/

to get the fastest 2,5 inch ssd pata disk at work. This could be this one:
http://www.urano-shop.de/Shop/DE/Product/Details/2165/963292/false/
This PATA SSD writes up to 90MB/s with a buffer of 64MB.

Anyone knows faster ones?
Another question: Is the writing speed that essential or could the buffer compensate that?

The SSD goes Fat32 - hit record!

What do you think about it?

[Andy600]

Have you thought of something like this: http://davidhunt.ie/?p=2641 ?

OK, it won't alter CF write speeds but it might negate the need for multiple (expensive) cards by pushing raw files to an external HD once they have finished writing on the CF card and maybe the Raspberry Pi SBC has enough power to compress or even convert in the process to whatever codec is installed. Just a thought


Update: I made a post about this as it's different in principle to what is being discussed in this topic.
http://www.magiclantern.fm/forum/index.php?topic=5592.msg38841#msg38841

[dashv]

Be careful with the zif adapters. There are some that look like they might work but I have read on a few vendors sites specific disclaimers that they are not intended for straight cf-IDE. A couple of the pins are wired differently and you can brick your drive.

If you try it, use a drive you don't care about loosing!

The link I posted was for an adapter that was specifically intended to go from cf-IDE.

[zachnfine]

I think I'm on track.

If I had an ssd with msata connector, and could figure out a way to power the ssd, I'd be able to test all this gear out right now. But what I've got as a testbed is a crucial m4 sata SSD, so I need a way to connect it to that mSATA to ZIF adapter. And I found it:

Micro SATA Cables - mSATA to 7pin SATA Adapter
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B009UDAINW/ref=oh_details_o00_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

So that device will go from my ssd drive to the msata connector on the adapter, where it's also bridged to IDE. Then the ZIF to CF adapter connects to the camera's slot. Power? Maybe that SATA to Mini SATA cable with power adapter I'd bought will help, maybe not. I'm still investigating.

I had thought maybe this item:

Micro SATA Cables - mSATA SSD to 40 Pin ZIF Adapter Card as Toshiba or Hitachi ZIF HDD
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B009BA5JU6/ref=ya_aw_oh_pit

Looked as though it might accomplish the bridging between SATA and IDE, and then this item:

Micro SATA Cables - 40 Pin ZIF to 50 Pin 1.8 Inch CF Toshiba HDD Adapter
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B009BG1ETA/ref=ya_aw_oh_pit

...could go from the previous adapter to the cf connector.

So the net effect would be the ability to connect a sata ssd drive to the cf slot in the 5d3. I ordered both items, but unfortunately I don't recognize the actual connector on that msata to ZIF adapter and am not sure how to connect anything to it.

I also grabbed one of these, thinking it might come in handy for powering the ssd and going between a couple of common sata connections.

I still figure the first two items above may be promising, but have hit a wall for a moment with the msata connector.

[zachnfine]

The fact that reviews for the adapter I've chosen mention success at using it to connect 256Gb mSATA SSD drives to iPods gives me hope --as far as I know all the iPod classics use PATA IDE drives. So this would mean the adapter is successfully bridging from mSATA to PATA IDE and allowing access to the mSATA drive's full capacity.

Be careful with the zif adapters. There are some that look like they might work but I have read on a few vendors sites specific disclaimers that they are not intended for straight cf-IDE.

[hirethestache]

Im sure it's been discussed, but would a CF>SD adapter card, with an SD-USB adapter be an option? Im not sure the transfer speed, but I know I've seen SD-to-USB carts out there. The specific setup I've seen before was SD port>SD-USB>Thumbdrive. It was being used with a PDA, but regardless, I've seen it.

[ptunstall]

I see you guys had posted links to these earlier: http://en.esskabel.de/adapter/datasheet/ada-compactflash-extender-0430fpc-dma/77/ but were not sure if they could handle the correct speeds. Has anyone found any cable extenders that work/maintain optimal speeds? I only ask because I have been testing a few cards by simply putting them in the freezer for a very brief amount of time and I am able to squeeze quite a bit out of them and I'd like to try marrying a Peltier wafer, http://www.shop.customthermoelectric.com/00711-5L31-06CB-Thermoelectric-Peltier-Module-00711-5L31-06CB.htm;jsessionid=84C65D1ACCFCCBBDCC0A9CB276A75BF5.m1plqscsfapp01?gclid=CNPXu-_4qLcCFYLm7AodqSYA1w, to a card outside the camera to see if I can test some more.

[Grunf]

I got back a short mail from ESS kabel that they don't sell to private customers.
Also, my questions about which combinations of adapters/cables would fit went unanswered.

It's a pity really, they don't understand that they are missing potential market if it works.

[g3gg0]

i also wrote them and got an answer - 75EUR  per cable + 10 EUR shipping. (i am from germany where the company is from)
i can order it as a company if needed.

they cannot guarantee that it will work with these transfer speeds, which isnt a big surprise to me.

[AnotherDave]

I got back a short mail from ESS kabel that they don't sell to private customers.
Also, my questions about which combinations of adapters/cables would fit went unanswered.

It's a pity really, they don't understand that they are missing potential market if it works.

The market potential really isn't that big... and you know it.  Sure, a lot of them will be sold within the first 2-6 months... but once you have it you'll never need another one. 

If you want to talk market... there is a bigger, more profitable market for some smart (and daring) company to physically modify the camera to take a SSD.  But even then... the market really isn't that big.

[deleted.acct.20132206]

I talked to ESSkabel´s sales manager yesterday by phone. He said he will talk with ess cables engineers if the cables can hold the speeds limits of udma7 and our requirements will fit to their products.
Also, he said to me the market would not be that big, but he want to help us because he likes such kind of projects requests.

So still waitnig some days until next week. There will be an answer I am sure!
Otherwise I will call next week again to ask for a feedback.

I very much like the idea of Andy600 to get a microcontroller and maybe hard drives in the batterygrip that handles a lot of bonus features. http://davidhunt.ie/?p=2641 ? Also combined with a peltier element could be a good idea! Really Cool stuff!

[g3gg0]

I talked to ESSkabel´s sales manager yesterday by phone. He said he will talk with ess cables engineers if the cables can hold the speeds limits of udma7 and our requirements will fit to their products.
Also, he said to me the market would not be that big, but he want to help us because he likes such kind of projects requests.

So still waitnig some days until next week. There will be an answer I am sure!
Otherwise I will call next week again to ask for a feedback.

I very much like the idea of Andy600 to get a microcontroller and maybe hard drives in the batterygrip that handles a lot of bonus features. http://davidhunt.ie/?p=2641 ? Also combined with a peltier element could be a good idea! Really Cool stuff!

you talked to Klaus S., right?
thats the one who offered me the cable.
i will let you do the rest, so there is only one person who nags them

[deleted.acct.20132206]

Ja genau, so machen wir das - ich mache das gerne.
Yes thats right - let´s do it thay way - I love to do that.
Where do you come from g3gg0 - i am from Karlsruhe?

[squig]

You can tell the ESS guy the market is in the thousands, potentially 10s of thousands. Sounds profitable ja?

[ptunstall]

I saw you guys were posting other stuff from Sycard but I didn't anyone mention this: http://www.sycard.com/cfext182.html  Seems to be simple enough to just extend the CF card outside the case. Would you think it could handle the throughput?