Hi!
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%% THE PRELUDE %%I am new to the ROCKbox Forum as a writer, but not new at all to iRiver players. I used to have an old iHP-120, that I loved very much but one night it got pretty damaged (a tribute to a specific Cuban drink). Since I still felt in love with it (a tribute to life in digital space) I decided to keep it. And it took me much time to repair the navigation 5-way switch, replace the battery and to mod it with a 32GB CF card from Kingston (a tribute to the ROCKbox community). That time, around 2009, the CF mod was not yet tested with many CF cards and replacements for the HDD weren't available for a reasonable price. Using the internal microphone for recordings was very annoying with the HDD driver because it was spinning its disk mechanically and this fine noise was recorded as well. All that changed with the CF card, which gave no noise at all to the recordings.
Then last month (Autumn 1014) I felt in love with someone else and while thinking about her I lost my iHP-120 (32GB) in the public transport in Hamburg. (A tribute to life in real space...)
I couldn't stand this life without an iriver for a long time.
Finally, now, I found a new H340 (only the battery had to be replaced) for about 55 EUR. It still uses the original 40GB Toshiba HDD. I was used to the very quick response time of the CF card in my previous player. Using the HDD in my new H340 feels lame and odd. And I can't use the internal microphone any more, beacuse of the noise issue described above.
I've started research on the topic of solid state memory for the iRiver players. Surprisingly a lot of things have changed since 2009 and we have even larger solid state memory device available today. I am wrting from a fairly new notebook with a 512GB SSD. I stumbled over the post of michaelbowe (
http://forums.rockbox.org/index.php/topic,48399.0.html) He uses 1 TB in his iRiver H320. That's stunning, isn't it? There are plenty of devices available which should fit into the H340.
Here I just want to give a review what I found during my research.
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%% THE IDEA %%I also want a SSD in my H340.
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%% THE CHOICE of MEMORY %%I think we can devide memory types that are relevant into Compact Flash (CF) and Solid State Drive (SSD).
CF is just easy to handle. It comes in a tight housing and there is only one adaptor needed to make them fit into the iRiver iHP-120/140 and H320/H340. I think if one goes for a 32GB CF card with adapter, she or he would spend a maximum of 50 EUR and two hours of tinkering with hardware and software. And then it is done.
Above 32GB capacity I have the impression that the pice per GB of CF memory grows very quickly and it gets much much more expensive than SSDs.
To give an example: The "Sandisk ExtremePro2 256 GB" costs about 700 EUR another "
Transcend CompactFlash Card 256 GB" costs about 350 EUR.
So, a high capacity mod (with a maximum of 256 GB) with CF will be too expensive! And actually no one wants to buy them and try these jewels... reasonable enough.
SSDs had been very expensive in the past but became quite price worthy lately (due to all the Ultrabooks that pull the prices via mass production).
In one blog post I found a comparison between SSD connector interfaces. The author told that the cheapest interface would be mSATA. Although this is not directly compatible with the 50 pin Toshiba HDD connector in the iRiver players it seems that one get very high capacities running with ROCKbox with consecutive adaptors.
There are also some 1.8" devices with the Toshiba 50 pin connector that could be used but they are kind of expensive, too and sometimes very energy consuming (
http://forums.rockbox.org/index.php/topic,48456.0.html). That means that the battery runtime was in some cases even less or longer than with the old original HDD.
The prices of SSDs go roughly from 120 EUR for 240 GB (that's about factor five less than the CF!) to 400 EUR for 1 TB.
I was very motivated to try such an mSATA SSD in my H340 but soon realized that there is quite a difference for SSDs from different manufactures. To me it seems that the major criterion is the energy consumption of the SSD. This will most likely define if you can use a specific device in the iRiver players. Below is a list of current devices available on the market (far from complete, of course)
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%% ADAPTORs for mSATA SSDs %%From mSATA to 40 Pin ZIFmSATA SSD to 40 Pin ZIF Adapter Card as Toshiba or Hitachi ZIF HDD
http://www.ebay.de/itm/NEW-mSATA-PCI-E-SSD-ZIF-CE-Kabel-Adapter-Karte-40pin-/281399100025?pt=DE_Computer_Sonstige&hash=item4184b18279around 10-15 EUR
From ZIF to 50 Pin HDD (PATA/IDE)ZIF HDD,SSD to 1.8 inch TOSHIBA type converter,zender
http://www.ebay.com/itm/ZIF-HDD-SSD-to-1-8-inch-TOSHIBA-type-converter-zender-/281099104230around 25 - 35 EUR
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%% SSD ENERGY RATINGS %%(data mostly from
www.alternate.de and
www.conrad.de )
mushkin needs 1 - 2 W
intel 525 needs 200 - 300 mW
intel 530 needs 55 - 140 mW
samsung 840 Evo needs 33 - 103 mW
kingston needs 0.4 - 1.8 W
ADATA needs 0.6 - 5 W
Plextor needs 250 mW (average?)
From the list we can conclude that Samsung an Intel produce the most energy efficient devices at the moment. I don't know if this is related to a better storage controller on the SSD or on the memory chip itself.
I repeat my statement here as a question:Will the energy consumption define if I can use a specific device in the H340?
Rockbox Technical Forums
Topic: Intel or Samsung SSD drive for iRiver H340? (Read 11216 times)