<html><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body dir="auto">On Sep 19, 2023, at 10:30 PM, Mouse via geeks <geeks@sunhelp.org> wrote:<br><div dir="ltr"><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote></div><blockquote type="cite"><div dir="ltr"><span>I've seen it said that Compact Flash is compatible enough with IDE that</span><br><span>a CF card can be treated as an IDE drive with a passive adapter that</span><br><span>takes IDE and power on one side and a CF device on the other. Indeed,</span><br><span>I have a few such adapters.</span><br><span></span><br><span>Is it possible to go the other way? Is a passive adapter possible that</span><br><span>plugs into a CF socket and an IDE drive (and a power cable, because I</span><br><span>doubt the CF socket provides enough power for a disk drive)? If so,</span><br><span>does anyone know whether such a thing exists? I've got a few small</span><br><span>machines designed to use CF for storage (Soekris, PCEngines) and am</span><br><span>wondering about putting real disks on them.</span><br></div></blockquote><br><div>Mouse,</div><div><br></div><div>You’re probably aware that micro drives were made for CF sockets? Those were real hard drives. You can find them on ebay regularly, even now.</div><div><br></div><div>As far as the interface goes, electronically, it should be straight forward to attach a low-power IDE disk (like an SSD, or a DoM) to a CF slot, as the interface is straight ATA. Here is a discussion of just that, from Ars Technica, from 10 years ago:</div><div><br></div><div><div style="display: block;" class=""><div style="-webkit-user-select: all; -webkit-user-drag: element; display: inline-block;" class="apple-rich-link" draggable="true" role="link" data-url="https://arstechnica.com/civis/threads/use-ssd-in-place-of-cf-card.1206735/"><a style="border-radius:10px;font-family:-apple-system, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;display:block;-webkit-user-select:none;width:300px;user-select:none;-webkit-user-modify:read-only;user-modify:read-only;overflow:hidden;text-decoration:none;" class="lp-rich-link" rel="nofollow" href="https://arstechnica.com/civis/threads/use-ssd-in-place-of-cf-card.1206735/" dir="ltr" role="button" draggable="false" width="300"><table style="table-layout:fixed;border-collapse:collapse;width:300px;background-color:#E9E9EB;font-family:-apple-system, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" class="lp-rich-link-emailBaseTable" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" border="0" width="300"><tbody><tr><td vertical-align="center"><table bgcolor="#E9E9EB" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="300" style="font-family:-apple-system, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;table-layout:fixed;background-color:rgba(233, 233, 235, 1);" class="lp-rich-link-captionBar"><tbody><tr><td style="padding:8px 0px 8px 0px;" class="lp-rich-link-captionBar-textStackItem"><div style="max-width:100%;margin:0px 16px 0px 16px;overflow:hidden;" class="lp-rich-link-captionBar-textStack"><div style="word-wrap:break-word;font-weight:500;font-size:12px;overflow:hidden;text-overflow:ellipsis;text-align:left;" class="lp-rich-link-captionBar-textStack-topCaption-leading"><a rel="nofollow" href="https://arstechnica.com/civis/threads/use-ssd-in-place-of-cf-card.1206735/" style="text-decoration: none" draggable="false"><font color="#000000" style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 1);">Use SSD in place of CF card?</font></a></div><div style="word-wrap:break-word;font-weight:400;font-size:11px;overflow:hidden;text-overflow:ellipsis;text-align:left;" class="lp-rich-link-captionBar-textStack-bottomCaption-leading"><a rel="nofollow" href="https://arstechnica.com/civis/threads/use-ssd-in-place-of-cf-card.1206735/" style="text-decoration: none" draggable="false"><font color="#A2A2A9" style="color: rgba(60, 60, 67, 0.6);">arstechnica.com</font></a></div></div></td><td style="padding:6px 12px 6px 0px;" class="lp-rich-link-captionBar-rightIconItem" width="36"><a rel="nofollow" href="https://arstechnica.com/civis/threads/use-ssd-in-place-of-cf-card.1206735/" draggable="false"><img style="pointer-events:none !important;display:inline-block;width:36px;height:36px;border-radius:3px;" width="36" height="36" draggable="false" class="lp-rich-link-captionBar-rightIcon" alt="ars-icon.png" src="cid:B21F0CCB-F064-4DBA-B651-142F2A530C05"></a></td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table></a></div></div><br></div><div>I’ve never heard of anyone trying it, though.</div><div><br></div><div>Good luck!</div><div>- Alex</div></body></html>