Place 1 inch HDD inside AOA110?

Yes, it is possible, but i have still problem with recognizing HDD in BIOS.
That is why i'm asking here for the solution.

I bought Lacie Little Disk 30GB, in hope there is ZIF HDD inside. And that is right, but very small 1 inch drive.
Samsung HU030HA is the name.
I use the connector cable from Lacie, this has smaller side that fit in hdd and thicker side that fit too in motherboard connector.

You can see, it fit without problems between screw holders. The rubber shock protection keeps the hdd in place.

I read something special about the ZIF connector used by SSD. There is something special, but what exactly? Both looks so same.
The HDD is running fine with Lacie USB-ZIF controller.
Must i count the wires in connector? Is it flipped or not?
When i flip the HDD, the screen went blank and i hear strange screech sounds. When i check HDD again, nothing is damaged.
When i test SDD with own ZIF cable at Lacie converter board, it doesn't react or detect it. That means there are differences between ZIF cables. But what exactly?

Who can help me with the problem?

 

You probably have to flip one end of the ZIF cable.

What you have is


1) Tear off the blue strip on one side, do it with care, do not bend.


2) Fold on this side the contacts to the other side.


This worked for me with my problem with SSD from an A110 and a ZIF to USB adapter.

Please do some benchmarking with HD Tune.

 

Thanks for explaination.

Is the ZIF connector cable from Lacie ZIF-USB converter not good?
Has this cable not enough wires?
I can turn over the hdd and put in the zif cable, but it gives blank screen and some sounds.

Interesting part is the hdd connector. It has connectors at both sides, one for "LIF" side, and other side is with lock handle for thicker ZIF side!
I can use ZIF side which is same as turning over, and i don't need to remove blue part. I found it at other site about hdd specifications.
I shall verify it for you.

But that is not all. This HDD has also native USB connector (look at photo at upper side hdd, there are 5 copper points visible). You can solder it to one of the free USB connectors on motherboard.
You can connect hdd in 3 different ways! Of course ZIF is a bit better.

 

Sorry, but turning the cable doesn't do the trick. The contacts have to face to the board, not to the Zif-lever, if you just turn the plug upside down, the current won't flow.
LIF and ZIF in one ? Please make a closeup picture. I couldn't find a datasheet for this harddrive.

 

Now it finally works.
I use the ZIF-LIF connector, same one used by Lacie ZIF-USB converter board.
Review data are here: http://www.hjreggel.net/hdtechdat/hd-samsung.html (models are almost same)
You see Lacie board too.

Because the LIF side of hdd connector has connection lines at both sides, i have just turned the cable. I have checked it for connection with multimeter, but there is connect. Thus it's ok.

You may place foam rings (almost always found on DVD+R spindles as fill material) there for shock resist and support.

You need fold the cable a bit to left.

Then it can go in the ZIF without much problems.

Because the cable is much shorter than the original cable, you don't need worry much about EM errors, thus EM ring is not really needed.
And you see, the hdd is finally recognized by bios.

Oh yes, the wireless keyboard from Targa is very useful because AOA has no keyboard here for testing.


You can see it fit almost exactly there. No really need to glue or tape it. Fill the room above hdd with another foam ring is enough, but here it won't move too because it's small and lightweight.
The max power usage on hdd is around 400 mA (The SSD uses around 330 mA in full working mode) which is not much energy consumption. This smaller version uses also much lesser energy than bigger 1,8 or 2,5 inch version.

You don't need remove screws from motherboard and USB/sound board. Only for SSD board. But for 1 inch, you can slide between both circuit boards.

I have only measured boot / shutdown speed. I don't know the hd benchmark for Ubuntu.
SSD start / shut : 1:21 min / 17.28 sec
HDD start / shut : 1:39 min / 10.93 sec

The read speed is a bit lower, but the writing speed is much higher. The SSD has known low writing speed (35 mb/s read - 7 mb /s write). That makes it good average hdd, also thanks to better writing speeds, you install a bit faster new programs, save docs and images faster, surfing also bit faster. And you get 30 GB instead of 8GB. Don't forget the important low power usage.

 

Very nice, thank you for the pictures.

 

And i have hdparm read results:
Timed Buffered Disk Reads: 9,88 MB/s (first try), around 19,30 MB/s (next tries)
Writing speed is generally same as read for HDD.

 

Many reads, but low reactions.
You think 1 / 1.3 inch HDD is bad idea? Perhaps not so fast as 1,8 or 2,5 inch HDD. But important are:
- lower energy consumption
- very lightweight
- no need to unscrew the mainboard
- no need to modify the netbook housing

With 1,8 inch, you must remove the mainboard to insert the one.
My Aspire is running fine for some weeks. That is just nice!