Experiment - SSD in mpc 2000xl

Yo

Long time 2k mpc user. I've recently been stream lining my work flow & have got fed up of Zip drives. So exploring options for fast bigger storage, ideally a hard drive or large flash storage so I can have all my samples in one place. Was ready to sell my 2k & get a 2500 just for these reasons, jjos is a big bonus, bad build quality a big hit, anyway that's another story.

So here's where I'm at with options

1. Internal scsi hdd, only 9gb & expensive to buy 2.5" drives now. Plus if there's issues with it cannot access from Mac.

2. Cf card reader - will be doing this anyway but on it's own it's too small for whole sample library.

3. External scsi hdd- expensive rare & same problems in terms of access as internal scsi.

4. Internal SSD drive - not seen anyone trying this but thought could use a sata to ide adapter & see if it works on atapi port.

Here's a photo

https://www.dropbox.com/s/tqel7t1xpusvy ... 8%2001.jpg

So bad news is this doesn't seem to work but going to try a different adapter with master slave jumper as this could be the problem. Other options I guess is try ide ssd.

Does anyone know if ssd would be classed as flash storage ie removable so atapi would see it?

Neko Neko wrote: Was ready to sell my 2k & get a 2500

You already know what your best solution is, why not save yourself the headache and do it right?

Haha true but love my 2k

Would be great figure something out to extend it's life.

mpc4000


/thread

Seen it can be done in 4000 but different story.

Guess one option is scsi to ide converter & cf card board connected to the internal scsi. Limited to 9gb though. Does anyone know why you can use bigger than 9 gb external scsi drives but not over 9 internally?

I had an internal 40GB laptop IDE HD partitioned 9X=1GB partitions on my 2000XL.
I couldn't figure out either why I was limited to 9GB on a 40GB HD but the 9GB was enough storage space for me.

Juke I've seen your posts, you have ultimate storage setup!

Hoping to do something similar. The ssd idea is redundant really as could just use an 8gb cf card on scsi to ide adapter. There the same thing really.

Looks like I will have to fork out for scsi to ide.

Well just scored an akai ib id2sc scsi to ide converter for £60. Will test out with a sata to ide & ssd but probably going to go down the route of cf card or hard drive on it.

Can a mac or PC read the partitions on akai internal drive?

Neko Neko wrote:Does anyone know if ssd would be classed as flash storage ie removable so atapi would see it?

An IDE/ATAPI interface, like in the MPC2000XL, works with both fixed IDE drives and removable ATAPI drives.

Why SCSI, why not just use the IDE/ATAPI port?

The internal IDE/Atapi port does not read hard drives ONLY removable storage, thats why its Atapi. The scsi port supports Hard drives

Still waiting on my Scsi to IDE converter.

Figured out aswell that if i install a card reader on the Atapi port i will be able to use cards bigger than 1 gb Cause 1.20 doesn't support making partitions only 1 gb can be used but the scsi port can still partition so can use that to partition Cf card bigger than 1gb & then move it to atapi reader to read the rest of the partitions.

stumbled upon this too showing similar method to mine, internal cf reader as SSD on the scsi port. Although this one has 16 gb of internal space. It's on 1.14, maybe over 8 gb works internally on 1.14. Will test soon enough.

http://www.mpcstoragesolution.com/mpc2000xl_for_sale_2

Neko Neko wrote:The internal IDE/Atapi port does not read hard drives ONLY removable storage, thats why its Atapi.

Where did you get this info from?

I don't think it is correct, it is an IDE/ATAPI port, it supports both IDE devices and ATAPI devices.

If you use a non-ATAPI card reader on the IDE/ATAPI port, which is an IDE card reader, the IDE card reader connects the CF flash card pins directly to the IDE cable, as a CF card is an IDE device, and it works with the MPC as a non-removable drive.

But, that is probably only with OS 1.20, which seems to be needed for non-hotswap IDE card readers, so it would probably limit the formatting of a hard drive to 1GB as it does with card readers on the IDE/ATAPI port.

Neko Neko wrote:stumbled upon this too showing similar method to mine, internal cf reader as SSD on the scsi port. Although this one has 16 gb of internal space. It's on 1.14, maybe over 8 gb works internally on 1.14. Will test soon enough.

That says...

Internal 16GB Hard Drive

...hard drive? Where does it mention internal CF reader?

Why wouldn't over 8GB work internally?

SimonInAustralia wrote:

Neko Neko wrote:The internal IDE/Atapi port does not read hard drives ONLY removable storage, thats why its Atapi.

Where did you get this info from?

I don't think it is correct, it is an IDE/ATAPI port, it supports both IDE devices and ATAPI devices.

If you use a non-ATAPI card reader on the IDE/ATAPI port, which is an IDE card reader, the IDE card reader connects the CF flash card pins directly to the IDE cable, as a CF card is an IDE device, and it works with the MPC as a non-removable drive.

But, that is probably only with OS 1.20, which seems to be needed for non-hotswap IDE card readers, so it would probably limit the formatting of a hard drive to 1GB as it does with card readers on the IDE/ATAPI port.

Well I did some reading before hand & everyone seems to say IDE hard drive will not work on the internal IDE/Atapi port & refer to this http://www.mpc2000xl.com/Internalhd.htm

I have tried it myself & couldn't get it to work. Would be great if it did. Your right though non atapi card readers work. Most of them just seem to map the CF pins to the IDE cable so maybe there a way of tricking the MP into treating an IDE hdd as a CF card. Hoping to do that with an actual SSD as its close to CF card in design.

SimonInAustralia wrote:

Neko Neko wrote:Neko Neko wrote:
stumbled upon this too showing similar method to mine, internal cf reader as SSD on the scsi port. Although this one has 16 gb of internal space. It's on 1.14, maybe over 8 gb works internally on 1.14. Will test soon enough.

That says...
Quote:
Internal 16GB Hard Drive

...hard drive? Where does it mention internal CF reader?

Why wouldn't over 8GB work internally?

Your right it says Hard drive but it isn't.
If you check the photos on the right side it shows the MP loading from SCSI 0 & says 16GB PRO CF card. Thats what i meant, he just describes it as a Hard drive.

Apparently internal hard drives on the SCSI port are restricted to 9GB even if its bigger the MP will only see & partition 9GB.

I have not tried hard drives with it, only CF.

Neko Neko wrote:Apparently internal hard drives on the SCSI port are restricted to 9GB even if its bigger the MP will only see & partition 9GB.

If it is seeing 16GB with an internal SCSI CF reader, I would expect that it could also do the same with a hard drive.

Yea I would think so too. I wonder if the 9gb limit is to do with partitions. If the mpc can only make 9 partitions of 1gb then that might explain it. 9gb is an odd number. Maybe this guy partitioned the cf card in a different machine that can have more than 9 partitions then placed it into the 2k.

I'm going to give this a go using both hard drives & cf cards using something old like windows 95 to partition it. Still going to give the SSD a go too but now thinking this is very unlikely even though SSD's are flash based the complex controllers of board might make it impossible for the mpc to just treat it like flash.

Without getting inside the 2ks firmware or hardware it's hard figure out what if anything is limiting it firmware wise or if it's a hardware limitation. This would be the key to getting anything working on ide, atapi port & scsi port.

Imagine though a 2k with 16 or 32 gb of flash based internal space, would completely make buying a 2500 redundent, well at least for me for a good while.