Hard drive

Sup.

Through some tinkering and general messing around with my 500, I have figured out a way to put a MINI-ide HDD (not 2.5", 1.5") in to the 500.

I have found leads on the motherboard as well as a few other things that can trick it into believing that it is just another folder on your CF card...

Once I'm done, I'll post photos.

I swear I'm not joking.

If you succeed in getting a hard drive to work in the 500, I really want to see this.
Post a video too.

okeefe wrote:Sup.

Through some tinkering and general messing around with my 500, I have figured out a way to put a MINI-ide HDD (not 2.5", 1.5") in to the 500.

I have found leads on the motherboard as well as a few other things that can trick it into believing that it is just another folder on your CF card...

Once I'm done, I'll post photos.

I swear I'm not joking.

Post pics. This may make the MPC 500 the most powerful truly portable powerhouse in the MPC lineup.

Let us see

Heres the deal...

It's not easy, but to all the people who don't believe me, I think I'll shut them up

In the back panel where your RAM and batteries go, there is that white connector with all the holes in it. This is simply an oversized IDE channel, more than likely the way that Akai accesses the internal memory (in case of a memory leak/dump, causing the unit to be inoperable).

So here's how I have come to the conclusion that it is possible...

Pay attention on this, it might get tricky....

The mpc 500 has two PCB's (print circuit boards), one on top, one on the bottom. The one on the bottom is the 20 layer PCB (20 layers of individual boards sandwiched), used to house the processor, northbridge, etc. The top layer is called a control PCB (5 layers (generally used to on non critical parts)) containing nothing more than a few transistors, few capacitors, and a few pressure sensitive pads . The top layer contains nothing that is "mission critical" for the bottom layer to operate, meaning, if you were to rip apart your mpc and take out the top PCB, it would still function.

That oversized IDE channel in the back comes into play here...

It not only appears to have access to the internal memory, but also to the CF card slot. Likely designed
this way to allow the CF card to be overwritten quickly.

So with that in mind, I'm pretty damn sure that if I can find the correct converter that can do this:

IDE channel on the back -> normal IDE -> mini IDE

I think we could be in business...

Once I can jerry-rig something together, I'll take pics in a heartbeat.

Holy shit. This is actually possible!!! But do you not need a data converter? I don't think the software can "see" more than 2 Gig's of the harddisk, and then the idéa is gone.

eimer wrote:Holy ****. This is actually possible!!! But do you not need a data converter? I don't think the software can "see" more than 2 Gig's of the harddisk, and then the idéa is gone.

Logicaly, yes.

The provisions set on the CF card limit are due to technology, not a setting.

At the time the 500 was made, the idea of over 2gb seemed illogical and expensive. That is merely a limit because of the hardware.

What my idea isn't to trick the mpc into thinking it has more than 2gb available, but to trick it into thinking that the hard drive is nothing more than a folder, a HUGE folder.

There's absolutely no reason this idea SHOULDN'T work. You're really on to something. Share your findings with us soon.

what the heck is the point??

a drive is going to draw even more power from your batteries plus all the shock it's going to take if you're moving it around

well best of luck to you with whatever you decide to do...

djobserv wrote:what the heck is the point??

a drive is going to draw even more power from your batteries plus all the shock it's going to take if you're moving it around

well best of luck to you with whatever you decide to do...

can you say solid state drive?

yall too damn smart, once you figure this out let me know if I can pay you to hook mines up, providing a few months pass and we see its not going to burn out the motherboard... does the mpc have a motherboard? lol

okeefe wrote:

djobserv wrote:what the heck is the point??

a drive is going to draw even more power from your batteries plus all the shock it's going to take if you're moving it around

well best of luck to you with whatever you decide to do...

can you say solid state drive?

"solid state drive"

there

why would you spend $200+ on a solid state drive when you can buy as way more cf cards with more storage than a ssd

you know the 500 only loads 128mb worth of sounds at one time right??

yea can make your own SSD for under 100 bucks....

And I'm aware of the 128mb limitations, but this HD will allow you to go places for extended durations without the need to offload spare samples...


Sometimes it's nice to be able to back to a sample you never got the full opportunity to work with months before...

Back in the 90's when I was mostly using long length samples like loops etc, most tracks would fit on a 1.4mb floppy. Sometimes if extra samples were used the total size could be around 2mb. At that rate I'd fit 1000 tracks on a CF card.. No way I can see myself recording that much though!

Good luck with it.. if you really need the extra space!

Avene wrote:Back in the 90's when I was mostly using long length samples like loops etc, most tracks would fit on a 1.4mb floppy. Sometimes if extra samples were used the total size could be around 2mb. At that rate I'd fit 1000 tracks on a CF card.. No way I can see myself recording that much though!

Good luck with it.. if you really need the extra space!

Welcome to the future . I like to hack my equipment to do more than supposed!