OCZ Throttle eSATA Flash Drive

Just thought I'd let everyone know about a reasonably cheap way of overcoming the speed lag due to the 8GB SSD that comes as standard...

As per previous posts, I soldered a SATA connector from a SATA cable to the PCB (Took a long time and very fiddly, but oh so worth it). Also connected up two wires for the +5v/GND feeds from the adjacent power holes.

Once I had made sure it was secured with plenty of hot glue :shock: I soldered up a SATA (plug) to eSATA (socket) adaptor to plug straight into the PCB connector and a mini USB plug for the power (goes into the rear of the unit).

All that was left was to dismantle the Throttle from the case so it was just the board, plug it in and connect it up.

I also had to cut out some of the upright supports from the bottom of the case to allow it fit flat.

It was finally secured by re-sticking a post to the bottom of the case to screw the board onto.

I also have the orignal ZIF SSD connected up, it only shows the eSATA drive in th BIOS, but both are listed in the boot menu (F12) and from within Windows

Write: 26+ MB/Sec
Read: 86+ MB/Sec
(Tested with ATTO)

Total cost ~£50.00

Now Windows XP flies, its brilliant

 

Wow, great, seems like we did almost the same thing, the only difference is that I did use SATA instead of eSATA.

Well, the problem is I just found two IDE0s in F12 boot menu, where I had thought should be IDE0 and IDE1. And when I set IDE0 as the first in boot sequence list, it always boots from the original SSD. I have to add two lines in boot.ini in my 8G SSD, to give boot priority to Windows XP installed in SATA SSD. Do you have any idea how to let the BIOS know to boot from the one mounted in SATA port automatically?

 

What device shows on the first page of BIOS? Does it show the SATA or orignal SSD? (Mine shows the eSATA drive) Also from what I can remember, try and change the boot order within BIOS, can't remember exact screen as it's not with me at the mo. Can have a look when I get home. What SSD did you use? What kind of read/write speeds are you getting?

 

Fantastic! Thanks for sharing this innovative hack. I have just ebayed my A110 and bought a new A150, wish that I had known about this earlier.

Even if the Runcore mini ZIF SSDs actually worked in an AA1 this would still beat them. The 16GB Throttles are as low as £40 at the moment and now that play.com are stocking them the price is sure to fall.

 

Mine too, on the first page of BIOS the SATA one appears, but in the boot sequence list the original SSD appears as IDE 0 and IDE 1 line is always blank. When I pull out the original SSD and leave SATA connected solely, it appears in the IDE 0 line and can be booted automatically by the BIOS.

I did all the mod yesterday and I used OCZ Solid Series 30G. I'll post mine in a new thread later to talk about the mod and the drive itself. It is a 2.5 inch SSD, so it's kinda faster but not as slim and cheap as Throttle I guess. I got 120/80MB with ATTO under XP. However, the boot issue still troubles me.

 

Cool mod!
I'm interested where you guys obtained your connectors? I'm guessing Farnell. Which part numbers did you buy?

TIA

 

Hey tux, I only used a SATA connector from the end of a SATA cable, then soldered two wires directly to the mobo to get the +5v as the throttle needs power via usb as not many eSATA adapters are powered.

 

Hi, Neo, have you figured out how to let the system pick up the new SSD as the boot device? I'm still in trouble with it and I also tried the newest BIOS Ver.3309, no progress :cry:

 

OK, thanks, I guess I will go down that road too.
My next problem is that my MB has the holes filled like others have reported. It's not solder - seem like some sort of resin. Did you experience this with your mod?

 

Assuming you don't find a BIOS/hardware solution the grub bootloader should do what you need. For example, in my boot menu I have an option to boot from a USB device. The only caveat is that you would need to place a small (<50Mb) boot partition at the beginning of your ZIF SDD.

 

Thank you for the advice.

I already did that, with a modified boot.ini to do multi-booting from the beginning, but still I would prefer using the BIOS to pick up the SATA SSD as the first boot device if it is possible.

 

fridtear, have a look at your boot menu in BIOS, does it display IDE0 and IDE1? The screenshot should explain what to change

 

Hi tux, yeah I did find that, but didn't know that was the case until after I had done the mod :x and saw it on another post, could of saved me well over an hour of trying to get all the solder out with solder wick and a desoldering pump.

I manged to get all 4 data lines through the mobo easily, the 3 gnd's were a pain though (middle far two ends), I eventually managed to stick a thin rigid piece of wire through the middle one, then solder the two end wires from the connector to this middle pin on the mobo so that I knew all 3 gnd's wer connected.

Someone had suggessted using a thin pin and hammering it through which could work but i'd very careful and nervous about doing this, depends how much of a risk you want to take.

Take care

 

Thanks for the pic!

Yes, mine has IDE0 and IDE1 as well but IDE0 shows the old SSD, not the new one. Did you do anything to change IDE0 to Throttle after you connected both SSDs? How? Once I connected both, the old one occupied IDE0 and I can not change it in BIOS.

 

You could try disconnecting the ZIF drive, powering it up for a few seconds then shutting down and reonnecting to see it re-prioritizes them, or just change the boot order preferences so it boots IDE1 before booting IDE0 which would save having to open it up again on the off chance it might work.

Thanks

 

Thank you for your advice. I think I tried only connecting SATA drive when I installed it for the first time. Next time I open it I will try SATA only environments for a few more minutes, hope something will change

I've also tried changing the boot order in BIOS for couple of times, but P-SSD1800's still occupying IDE0. I'm not sure if different BIOS version makes different IDE0 selection. Could you please tell me which version you are using? Mine has been updated to 3309, the latest one.

 

Using 3308 BIOS, have you got a screen shot of you boot device selection from within BIOS? Might help if I can see it.

 

This is it. As you can see, P-SSD1800 is the original 8GB SSD, occupying IDE0 channel. The one connected to SATA port is missing here but listed in F12 Boot Menu after P-SSD1800 as the second IDE0 device. I wonder which one is recognized as the first IDE0 in your F12 Boot Menu, Throttle or the Intel one?

Thanks

 

Now that's strange that my IDE0 is the throttle, but you should still be able to change the boot order so that IDE1 is against #1 and IDE0: P-SSD1800 is against #2.

Select "1. IDE0 : P-SSD1800" and press F6 to swap it with the one underneath (IDE1) does that work?

I know your F12 boot menu will still show two IDE0's but hopefully it is just a text error in the BIOS rather than a programming error. I think the BIOS is treating all IDE/SATA channels together hence IDE0 and IDE1 and the boot menu treats them seperately hence the two IDE0's.

Hope that helps, sorry if it doesn't make sense, I'm not very good at explaining things.

 

Thank you and you've already made it clear enough :mrgreen:

I tried to put IDE1 above IDE0 but nothing changed and the system booted from P-SSD1800 anyway. I hope it is just some bug of the BIOS. If you can change the boot priority in BIOS, I would like to try ver. 3308 next time.