The toshiba 1.8 inch HDD

[Krazeecain]

As many of you may or may not know, toshiba has made a 1.8 inch hdd, it is the very same hdd that the really high capacity ipods use (Like 20G and up). This hdd uses an IDE interface. Compact Flash uses an IDE interface as well. I also understand that there are some (rare) CF to MS converters for the PSP (Finally this has something to do with the PSP). So I open this thread for the discussion of such a project where one would interface the harddrive in the ipod to the psp. I have come up with the idea of removing the UMD drive to to make room for the HDD, but I'm still not sure if this would be enough room for it. There would also be the problem of formatting the harddrive so that the psp can use it. This is about all the info i have so far so please discuss the feasability of such a project on this thread.

[vinrose67]

its not possible if the mother board of psp doesnot change to hold bigger memory.

[Mitochondria]

The current maxium for Memory is 32gb. Or so i heard.

[Krazeecain]

32GB is enough, I just want to see a 20 or 30 GB HD work.

[cyberhedz]

i've got two similar posts open, people around here fro teh most part want it to be done, not help doing it, aside from a handful of helpfulls its going to be tough. 32GB is teh max right now, and there are converters for MS to CF adn MS to SD, so the last thing will be power consumption, we may have to upgrade to the new big boy battery pack thats coming out here in a few weeks to handle teh spool time, unless we went with SSD, but then you're back to the 2.5" format. i say we form a R&D group, i'm down, shit, i'll buy the drive and interfaces if someone can program teh necesities, also, need to find out if the converters have data limits on them and the pipe throughputs are close to the same

[cyberhedz]

sorry if that last post is too harsh, long day at work, lol, anyways, here is some data so you dont have to search it

MK3006GAL: 1.8 " HDD 30.0GB*
Data Transfer Rate:
Buffer to Host- PIO 16.6MB/sec
Buffer to Host- Ultra DMA 100MB/sec
Maximum Internal 131.1 - 283.3 Mbits/sec
Seek Time:
Track-to-track 3ms
Average 15ms
Maximum 26ms
Nominal Power Requirements:
Voltage 3.3V (5%)
Energy Consumption Efficiency: 0.01W/GB
Power Consumption:
Start 1.2watts
Seeking 1.1watts
Reading 1.1watts
Writing 1.1watts
Idle 0.4watts
Standby 0.12watts
Sleep 0.07watts
Other:
Rotational Speed 4,200rpm
Average Latency 7.14ms
Interface ATA 6
Buffer 2Mbytes

[Krazeecain]

I've already found this info on the toshiba website, I might be able to do it but i don't have the hdd nor the cf to ms converter. How would we start an R&D group? Honestly I don't really know enough to be of any real help in such a group, but i would love to get involved in such a thing. cyberhedz, you're definitely right about one thing, this has to be done, there are a ton of people that want to see it(more like own it). Secondly, I've been doing a bunch of research and I've tripped over stuff like PIC's , ARM and junk like that (At sparkfun dot com ). and I was thinking that if we could get someone who knows how to program this stuff involved we could make our own IDE to MS converter and program a few other tricks into it to make it more compatable with the psp (and maybe even solve the 32 GB limit problem). But hey, I don't actually know much about the abilities of these IC's, I'm just throwing that out there. BTW power consumption is the least of my worries for now, I just want to interface the hdd to the psp for now.

[cyberhedz]

easy enough, at least from the sound of it, good choice at sparkfun, I've made several toys from there :P. teh only way i can think of getting past 32GB would be to change teh entire interface, or use on the fly compression (which will slow down access and write times). If you change teh interface, thats talking about pretty much replacing teh bridge on teh mobo, and thats too much work. its not teh PSP taht regulates teh 32GB, its teh MS format, now teh new MS G or whatever its called can probably go higher but i dont think its backwards compatible.

as soon as i find a retailer, I'll buy one and start playing, shit 30GB, thats a lot of psx eboots and MP3s :P

[Krazeecain]

lol If I could do it I'd put all my snes roms on it. But anyways More than 32GB shouldn't too much of a concern right now anyways, just letting the psp interface with the 30 GB hd is good enough, You might be able to get a cheap hd from ebay. Just look for a broken ipod (there's a lot) with 20 or 30 GB hd. To stuff it in the PSP we could remove the UMD drive. (we wont really need it anymore) It would fit quite snugly in there once thats gone. For power we could stuff another battery (maybe the one we dissected from the ipod, or get another one at consolezombie dot com for $15) in the psp somewhere. As for the microcontroller or whatever we could simply replace the entire PCB that handles the MS (I'm assuming where using the phat for all this) with our own handmade/IDE/MS solderless modchip-esque board. *catches breath*

[cyberhedz]

ok, i just ordered the 20GB version, once it gets here I will start working on an interface

[Krazeecain]

Nice, How are you going to do it then?

[orangpelupa]

Maybe he'll make ide to ms interface.

[Krazeecain]

Yeah, I'm wondering how hes going to do that.

[cyberhedz]

that's what i'm planning, I have some programmer friends and local geeks who would like this challenge, I don't think it will be as hard as others assume, but it definately won't be easy

[Krazeecain]

Ok, so is it microcontrollers that we'll have to use then?