Updating Mixrack with solid state drive - questions

[Tim McCullcoh]

Greetings all-

After another spinning platter failure in our SC48 we've decided to upgrade to SS. For the SC48 it's simple as the mobo already uses SATA interface.

Not so happy for our Mixrack/Profile, though. The Mixrack mobo uses the PATA/IDE interface.

PATA SSD are much less common, have fewer user reviews for reliability and longevity, etc, and have a much less attractive GB/$ ratio.

In searching the forum I found 1 particularly relevant thread: http://duc.avid.com/showthread.php?t=252854 so there is some precedent.

My questions - 1) has anyone upgraded their Mixrack with an PATA SSD? If so, what have your experiences been, and 2) have you upgraded using a PATA/IDE to SATA adapter and how did that work out for you?

FWIW, we've never had a drive fail in the Mixrack and if there is no defining moment we may just leave the spinner.

Thanks for any info or experiences you can share.

[Valentyn]

I'm not answering any of your questions, but I'd like to give you an important note:

If you buy some smaller drive to your console, please ensure drive D:\ always has at least 4 GB of free space. VENUE software relies on its production drive to be large enough to satisfy this. But for your own drive you need to ensure that by yourself.

[Ed Spoto]

There are sata ports on the motherboard. We used a sata SSD and ran a new cable to the motherboard. You also need a 15 pin sata to 4 pin molex adapter for power. The consoles we upgraded have been running this way for 3 years.

[xcx]

what about stuff like "trim" and the garbage collection issue with SSDs in general? i mean is win CE (or what ever it is in the old venues) able to do so or are drivers required?

[Valentyn]

Originally Posted by xcx

what about stuff like "trim" and the garbage collection issue with SSDs in general? i mean is win CE (or what ever it is in the old venues) able to do so or are drivers required?

Old systems use XPe - modular version of Windows XP for embedded systems. It doesn't support TRIM, so SSD performance may degrade with time. Depending on the drive vendor, SSD may come with some software solution for WinXP, but there's no guarantee that that solution will run on VENUE's XPe.