Question How to connect a SSD sata disk to a old IDE motherboard

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psaez84

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Jan 8, 2018
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All the adapters i'm seeing on aliexpress are for converting a IDE disk into SATA interface to connect it to new motherboards

But I can't see how to connect a sata SSD to an IDE motherboard

Does exist? Have you a link to some samples on aliexpress?

Also... will be possible to install windows 95, 98... on it? and enjoy an SSD on a retro computer?

EDIT:

The reason to do this, is that I wanna mount a retro computer, but the most difficult part to have at good performance is the hard disk, because hard disk from 199x are mostly broken or massively used so they are very damaged or become slower with the use.

It is not possible to use a PCI expansion card because it requires drivers, and I think it is not possible to find drivers for that on Windows 3.1, Windows 95, etc...

So In my opinion, the best option is to use an adapter from the IDE port on the motherboard to another media type. My first request was to find an adapter from IDE motherboard port to SATA device, but now I'm thinking also in the possibility to search for an adapter from IDE motherboard port to SD card. Does that exist?

Please can you help me finding one at pccomponentes.com, amazon.es or aliexpress.com? Thank you.
 
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Pretty sure this can, and has been done. I recall watching something on youtube about it. In hindsight they may have used an SD card which is still loads faster than the HDD's available at the time. I'd suggest a solid YouTube search, there's a pretty vibrant retro gaming community and tons of videos about it.

Edit: To add, whatever flash storage you end up using, make sure you set a partition offset that is divisible by 1024. This will ensure you aren't (dredging back to XP SSD days, hopefully accurately.) writing/reading from more than one cell at a time. It will increase write speed and drive longevity.
 
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Only some of those adapters are going to be bidirectional--I have a SYBA adapter using a Silicon Image chip and it doesn't work going from IDE port to SATA. Apparently SYBA also made a bidirectional model that actually has a direction switch.

I do have no-name adapters with JMicron or Marvell chips that work just fine converting SATA drives to IDE ports. The problem is most of those adapters are designed to plug into an IDE drive so there may not be room around the port on a motherboard for them without a short IDE extension cable, and it sort of wastes half the capacity of a 2-drive capable IDE channel for one drive this way.
I used these to attach a Gigabyte I-Ram to old Pentium I systems. 4GB is plenty of space to install Win9x, and the the ramdisk is some 100x lower latency than SSD.

The lack of TRIM support on SSDs has a manual workaround--when eventually they slow to a crawl (and you will know it when it happens!) just use a zero-fill utility (such as sdelete, or the cipher command built-into Windows XP+) to zero-out the free space on the drive and performance will return to 100%

Of course the reason for all this is that IDE interface SSDs are both ridiculously overpriced and low-performance. But most people probably just want the better reliability of a new drive now that small IDE HDD are all over 20yo.
So I expect most people are instead using CompactFlash-to-40 pin IDE adapters instead for their seldom-used retro PCs, because CompactFlash is IDE so only needs a simple pin-adapter, just be sure to choose a CompactFlash card that can do DMA transfers because PIO mode sucks.
 
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Lutfij said:
Yu should stylize your post akin to this thread;

*How to Ask for New Build or Upgrade Advice*

How to Ask for New Build or Upgrade Advice First off, respect where respect is due - this is an adaptation of the Animal's *How To Ask For New Build Advice* Sticky. I created this because there's a lot of posts nowadays asking for upgrade advice both on here and on the CPU forums, and I feel...
forums.tomshardware.com forums.tomshardware.com
and include all necessary information in order for the community to chime in with constructive suggestions.

Including the names of apps, the sort of budget you have and where you're located as well as your preferred site for purchase helps fine tune the suggestions.
Click to expand...

boju said:
Think your more gpu limited here in games, 8600g should be more capable than that. What ram speed are you running?

8700g and 8600g perform similar. Paired with a more powerful graphics card sees 8700g beating 12100 quite comfortably. Scroll down where they pair 7900xtx and 6600.

www.techspot.com

AMD Ryzen 7 8700G Review: Most Powerful Integrated Graphics

The Ryzen 7 8700G is a Zen 4, Ryzen 7000-class processor that also includes a Radeon 700M GPU on the same chip. AMD says the iGPU will...
www.techspot.com www.techspot.com

8600g vs 8700g
https://www.anandtech.com/show/21242/amd-ryzen-7-8700g-and-ryzen-5-8600g-review/12
Click to expand...

USAFRet said:
Why?

Win 95/98/2000 does not know how to treat an SSD (TRIM), nor probably cannot utilize one of the sizes they come in today.

Some things do not cross multiple generations.
Click to expand...

CelicaGT said:
Pretty sure this can, and has been done. I recall watching something on youtube about it. In hindsight they may have used an SD card which is still loads faster than the HDD's available at the time. I'd suggest a solid YouTube search, there's a pretty vibrant retro gaming community and tons of videos about it.

Edit: To add, whatever flash storage you end up using, make sure you set a partition offset that is divisible by 1024. This will ensure you aren't (dredging back to XP SSD days, hopefully accurately.) writing/reading from more than one cell at a time. It will increase write speed and drive longevity.
Click to expand...

COLGeek said:
This device would allow a physical connection to a SATA SSD (driver support would be a likely problem):

https://www.newegg.com/axgear-model-pci-sata/p/17Z-00B4-00013?item=9SIAFY67M23704

However, as @USAFRet asked, why? Those OSes are not designed to use SSDs.

You should be able to locate similar expansion cards (PCI based) on other sites.
Click to expand...

BFG-9000 said:
Only some of those adapters are going to be bidirectional--I have a SYBA adapter using a Silicon Image chip and it doesn't work going from IDE port to SATA. Apparently SYBA also made a bidirectional model that actually has a direction switch.

I do have no-name adapters with JMicron or Marvell chips that work just fine converting SATA drives to IDE ports. The problem is most of those adapters are designed to plug into an IDE drive so there may not be room around the port on a motherboard for them without a short IDE extension cable, and it sort of wastes half the capacity of a 2-drive capable IDE channel for one drive this way.
I used these to attach a Gigabyte I-Ram to old Pentium I systems. 4GB is plenty of space to install Win9x, and the the ramdisk is some 100x lower latency than SSD.

The lack of TRIM support on SSDs has a manual workaround--when eventually they slow to a crawl (and you will know it when it happens!) just use a zero-fill utility (such as sdelete, or the cipher command built-into Windows XP+) to zero-out the free space on the drive and performance will return to 100%

Of course the reason for all this is that IDE interface SSDs are both ridiculously overpriced and low-performance. But most people probably just want the better reliability of a new drive now that small IDE HDD are all over 20yo.
So I expect most people are instead using CompactFlash-to-40 pin IDE adapters instead for their seldom-used retro PCs, because CompactFlash is IDE so only needs a simple pin-adapter, just be sure to choose a CompactFlash card that can do DMA transfers because PIO mode sucks.
Click to expand...

Hi

the reason to do this, is that I wanna mount a retro computer, but the most difficult part to have at good performance is the hard disk, because hard disk from 199x are mostly broken or massively used so they are very damaged or become slower with the use.

It is not possible to use a PCI expansion card because it requires drivers, and I think it is not possible to find drivers for that on Windows 3.1, Windows 95, etc...

So In my opinion, the best option is to use an adapter from the IDE port on the motherboard to another media type. My first request was to find an adapter from IDE motherboard port to SATA device, but now I'm thinking also in the possibility to search for an adapter from IDE motherboard port to SD card. Does that exist?

Please can you help me finding one at pccomponentes.com, amazon.es or aliexpress.com? Thank you.
 
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psaez84 said:
now I'm thinking also in the possibility to search for an adapter from IDE motherboard port to SD card. Does that exist?
Click to expand...
You need PCI SATA adapter (not PCIE, not IDE) with sata ports.
You put it in PCI slot on old motherboard.
Link in post #4.

Here - another one.
PCI SATA adapter

Problem is - you'll probably have trouble getting appropriate drivers for win95/win98.

61UBr07hdrL._AC_SL1000_.jpg
 
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Some of the converters do work, but you will be limited to ATA-33 or whatever your motherboard supports. Despite the USB 2.0-like speeds, this actually seems pretty snappy in Win9x with SATA SSD or ramdisk. Given the ridiculously low price, it's worth ordering a few different kinds to see if one works (as I mentioned, it's the no-name ones that worked for me while the SYBA branded one didn't)

CompactFlash allows pretty similar speeds but isn't going to be as reliable since things like wear-leveling probably aren't included or don't work as well. Anything is better than IDE-interface SSDs which can stall for multiple seconds, just like the early RAM-less SSDs from 2009 which could perform much worse than HDD.

Many early Pentium boards only have one or two PCI slots and of course you'll want to use one of those for the GPU, so may end up having to resort to an ISA NIC or soundcard. Both of those PCI adapters appear to use Silicon Image chips which do have Win9x drivers but are known to give terrible performance unless you can find a BIOS limiting them to IDE mode. At least both have the option ROM installed in the pictures--attached drives would not be bootable without it.

A PCI SCSI card is much more likely to deliver good performance in a retrocomputer but those 15,000rpm HDD are all getting pretty old now too since everything went to SAS, and SAS cards are unlikely to be PCI or have Win 3.11 or 9x drivers.
 
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I don't use Aliexpress but SATA (drive) to IDE (motherboard) adapters are readily available. I've used one. The compatibility wasn't great but it worked on some systems. Unfortunately, the system I really wanted to use it on would recognize it but hard lock within about 30 seconds of booting.

Just how retro of a computer are you looking to build? There are plenty of functional IDE drives still out there. They were manufactured until at least 2010. I recently tested several that are over 20 years old and still work. By the way, properly functioning hard drives do not become slower with age/use.

I do understand the appeal of using an SSD. Unfortunately, IDE SSDs are not common or cheap. As someone else mentioned, Compact Flash cards may be preferable to SD cards, if you choose to go that route.

Several people have mentioned the lack of TRIM support. I wouldn't worry about that too much. I doubt a retro machine is going to stress the drive enough for that to make a significant difference. If you're worried about it, just leave a portion of the drive unpartitioned. Depending on how retro you're going, you may not even be able to utilize the full size of the drive anyway.
 
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If you're doing this for a Windows 95/98 machine, even a reasonably late era IDE drive is fast. I started my Windows 98 PC with a generic 5400 RPM IDE hard drive. The PC boots into the OS as fast, if not faster, than my modern PCs with a PCIe 4 SSD.

If you're doing this for performance, I doubt even a SATA SSD will offer anything noticeably better. The CPU is going to be the bottleneck here and said late era IDE hard drives are already much faster than era-appropriate IDE hard drives.

If you really want solid state storage for some reason, I would argue a CF card adapter or a Micro SD card adapter would be a better choice. This has the added benefit that you can easily transfer files to and from the PC since USB on Windows 9x can be finicky and you probably shouldn't have it exposed to the internet (though I think at this point, Windows 9x is so old that the internet wouldn't know what to do with it).
 
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