Exchange tips and tricks for the Akai MPC4000
By atestarr Tue Apr 06, 2010 4:07 pm
I did this because I trust solid state drives, but I also wanted to be able to access my old files on the original harddrive. Below are the four things I bought so I could make an external harddrive out of the orignal IBM deskstar and retrofit SATA SSD into the MPC with a PATA to SATA bridge adaptor. I know, sounds nerdy, but it's quiet, light, and I don't have to worry about losing beats.
I bought everything on Amazon, though you can save on the drive thru B&H Photo. I don't support or take responsibility for this procedure, I just wanted to give back. I've learned so much from this forum.

Best,
M

1."SATA to PATA/IDE Hard Drive Interface Adapter"
$4.45, Sold by: HDE

2."Vantec NexStar 3 NST-360U2-BL 3.5-Inch IDE to USB 2.0 External Hard Drive Enclosure
Electronics; $32.99, Sold by: Amazon.com, LLC

3. "SILVERSTONE SDP08 3.5 to 2 X 2.5-Inch Bay Converter"
Electronics; $7.99, Sold by: Amazon.com, LLC

4. "Crucial Technology 64 GB M225 Series Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) CT64M225" Electronics; $197.59, Sold by: Amazon.com, LLC

Total for this Order: $265.91
User avatar
By Peer Mon Apr 12, 2010 6:43 pm
atestarr wrote:I did this because I trust solid state drives


I'm planning to do this as well -- but I'd like to try an IDE SSD drive directly to avoid the SATA to PATA/IDE converter. Currently they are selling 128GB SSD drives on eBay for just $300. The only thing need (I think) is a ZIF CE 1.8 to IDE 3.5 40 pin adapter that cost me just $3. I haven't gotten the drive yet.

-- peer
By atestarr Mon Apr 12, 2010 8:18 pm
Pilotwings wrote:Thanks for the info, I am thinking of doing this as well.

One question - How are the loading times with the new SSD drive compared to the original IBM deskstar?

thanks


It's noticably faster navigating through the menus, especially while scrolling through sequences in the load window. They way I work is to "Save Entire Memory" to one folder, then load the entire folder of sequences/songs/kits, etc. all at once, and it still takes a while to load all that up. I think it's because the SATA SSD is limited by the IDE bus speed, but the seek time is much faster because it's flash memory.
User avatar
By mr_debauch Mon Apr 12, 2010 10:19 pm
atestarr wrote:
Pilotwings wrote:Thanks for the info, I am thinking of doing this as well.

One question - How are the loading times with the new SSD drive compared to the original IBM deskstar?

thanks


It's noticably faster navigating through the menus, especially while scrolling through sequences in the load window. They way I work is to "Save Entire Memory" to one folder, then load the entire folder of sequences/songs/kits, etc. all at once, and it still takes a while to load all that up. I think it's because the SATA SSD is limited by the IDE bus speed, but the seek time is much faster because it's flash memory.



I think the time to load all that up is not the IDE buss speed.. probably more likely to be the speed the machine works at itself loading things into ram. IDE is fairly fast.... or it might be the SSD controller/adapter itself since the mpc4000 OS isn't designed to work with SSD drives.
User avatar
By konc3pt Tue Apr 13, 2010 5:06 pm
Lampdog wrote:
atestarr wrote:limited by the IDE bus speed


yep


what it is it's probably snappier, more responsive since you eliminated seek time. giving impression it's faster
By atestarr Wed Apr 14, 2010 2:19 pm
konc3pt wrote:
Lampdog wrote:
atestarr wrote:limited by the IDE bus speed


yep


what it is it's probably snappier, more responsive since you eliminated seek time. giving impression it's faster


that's exactly it. plus no vibration/noise from the spinning drive.
By U3 Thu Apr 15, 2010 7:44 pm
atestarr wrote:yep
what it is it's probably snappier, more responsive since you eliminated seek time. giving impression it's faster

that's exactly it. plus no vibration/noise from the spinning drive.


Hey atestarr!

What about noise coming from the mpc's FAN?? Is the fan noise still loud??
I was under the impression that the mpc FAN was the reason it is soo loud. More so than the Hard Drive.. ??
Which mpc you own? White or Blue?? (The white is supposed to be louder i read)


PEER- let us know how your experiment goes too!
By atestarr Fri Apr 16, 2010 1:42 pm
U3 wrote:
atestarr wrote:yep
what it is it's probably snappier, more responsive since you eliminated seek time. giving impression it's faster

that's exactly it. plus no vibration/noise from the spinning drive.


Hey atestarr!

What about noise coming from the mpc's FAN?? Is the fan noise still loud??
I was under the impression that the mpc FAN was the reason it is soo loud. More so than the Hard Drive.. ??
Which mpc you own? White or Blue?? (The white is supposed to be louder i read)


PEER- let us know how your experiment goes too!


i have the white mpc4k, inside the machine the cdr-w has a sticker on top dated 2002. i can hear the fan, but the deskstar was mostly the problem. i'll probably just unplug the fan at some point, but it's not really that annoying. it's more like low level ambient white noise. soothing actually.
User avatar
By dabmeister Fri Apr 16, 2010 3:13 pm
U3 wrote:Hey atestarr!

What about noise coming from the mpc's FAN?? Is the fan noise still loud??
I was under the impression that the mpc FAN was the reason it is soo loud. More so than the Hard Drive.. ??


atestarr wrote:i can hear the fan, but the deskstar was mostly the problem. i'll probably just unplug the fan at some point, but it's not really that annoying. it's more like low level ambient white noise. soothing actually.


The way that I see things is, that's a hard cookie to sell as far as unplugging the system fan because some of us are bothered by it. Akai engineers put it there for a good reason. I don't think this would be smart "reverse engineering" because you can put the internal cooling temp in jeopardy which is supposed to be at a certain level at all times (ie: ic's, cpu, memory, etc.).

Is there another alternative to making things a bit quieter without sacrificing the cooling system? I'm pretty sure because there's been mention around these's threads about katz upgrading their case fans with some degree of success (if I can remember correctly).

But on replacing the deskstar, oh most defenitely. I think the deskstars had maybe a 2 mb cache vs. the 8 mb cache, 160 g hd I upgraded to a while back. This hd is a lot quieter and loads way faster than the deskstar did.