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of 9The S-ATA way to boot any OS from CF or microdrive

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The S-ATA way to boot any OS from CF or microdrive First INQpressions Addonics does it for the health of our Charlie

By Fernando Cassia: Monday 31 July 2006, 20:08

Product: ADSACF adaptor Company: Addonics Technologies Price: $34.50 Web Site: www.addonics.com

ADDONICS will please everyone, including our Charlie D. with this Compactflash to IDE interface that allows booting any OS on Earth from a microdrive or CF memory card, but does so using a Serial-ATA connection.

When I reviewed the Compactflash to IDE adapter from Addonics, I immediately received a missive from one of our readers. Peter from Rochester, NY said: "IDE is slowly going away. It would be nice to see a CF (or SD for that matter) to SATA adapter. I do like the front 3.5" bay adapter, so I could change OS as quick as pulling one card and putting in another. When you find the CF-SATA adapter, then let me know. That would be most fun. And no fighting with the BIOS either".

I forwarded the reader's mail to the Addonics PR contact for comment, and after receiving his reply, I could imagine this person shaking his head, because he quickly pointed to the Addonics web page, listing the company's SATA to CF adapter, the aptly named ADSACF. At $34.50 vs $26.99 for the Parallel-ATA version, the price difference is easily explained: this one is not entirely a passive device, there's a surface mounted chip in there handling the SATA interface.



What is included in the box: sata cable, adapter, Y power cable, instructions



Top: PCI bracket configuration. Bottom: front 3.5" bay one. You can switch between the two arrangements at will with the included parts.



In case you missed my other Addonics adapter review, the beauty of the CF interface is that the plugged devices are seen as IDE devices, down to the electrical level. Even memory cards -when operating in "True IDE" mode- are mapped as heads, tracks and sectors. That's why all CF-to-IDE adapters that lead to a parallel-ata cable are passive devices. In this instance, what did Addonics do? Simple. They included a parallel-to-serial ATA controller IC!. Like it happens with PATA-to-CF adapters, there's no need for any drivers. As far as the PC and operating system is concerned, it's talking with a hard disk. But on this one you must supply power to the adapter circuit board, otherwise it won't work.

Testing it with one inexpensive 8GB Seagate microdrive

Addonics is aiming this adapter at the average desktop PC user. Like in its PATA sibling, one of the unique features of this IDE-CF reader is that it packs both a sturdy metal chassis for a 3.5" front bay, and also a full height PCI bracket. If you don't have room in the front of your desktop PC, you can always install it in the back. Also included is one "Y-cable" to supply power to it without leaving an existing peripheral without it. Switching between the front bay and PCI bracket arrangement is as simple as removing two screws and affixing them through a different set of holes.



BIOS screens show the seagate microdrive plugged via Serial ATA

I reviewed this adapter in my 2.4Ghz P4 desktop system, which contains a Supermicro P4SCA motherboard with both SATA and PATA ports. I set the bios configuration as "SATA Only" then plugged the Addonics adapter to SATA port number one. I did test it with an affordable eight GB microdrive from Seagate, and a 256MB compactflash memory card from Sandisk. The BIOS detected both media as a 8GB and 256MB SATA hard drives, as expected.



256MB CF memory card by Sandisk seen by Bios

The verdictThe adapter's construction is good, the price is right, and the ability to turn it from a front side bay adapter to one hidden in the back via the included PCI bracket is a nice bonus. The company sells directly from its web site and shipped my unit -like the PATA version- by FedEx, without problems.



The parallel ATA to Serial-ATA controller chip

Plus, the connection via Serial ATA rather than parallel means this device won't unleash the wrath of our Charlie.

I give this unit four and a half Fernandos in my one-to-five rating scale. It does what it says in the web site. µ

See Also Addonics parallel-ATA to CF adaptor reviewed Seagate makes waves in the microdrive market Boot Windows XP from a CompactFlash drive Using Compactflash cards in your Embedded Linux system

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