ZVM with 128 GB SSD is born! ;-)

[godbes]

Hallo!

Now my ZVM Projekt/ dream has ended with happy end. I replaced the 80 GB HDD and fitted in a 128 GB SSD (runcore 1,8 zoll pro IV PATA ZIF, Solid State Drive for Macbook Air Rev A). It works great, now two month without any problems. By the way, I fitted in a bigger Ipod Batterie. How to replace the batterie (pcm card) is described in my post (and the post from dwaneR) in the batterie thread.

Why a SSD for a Macbook? It was an accident, but ist works fine. I´ll explaine...
I first tried a Mach Xtreme Technology Nano ZIF Series 120GB, but it doesn´t work. It´s a cheap SSD (210 Euro) but the controller (Controller: eastwho EWS 720) is not compatible with the ZVM.
I had the hope to get a SSD from Photofast with a Indilinx Barefoot Controller. This one is compatible. But the price is about 430 Euro an it is not easy to get.

One day, after a bottle of wine, surfing in the net, I found the runcore SSD with the Indilinx Barefoot Controller, about 370 Euro. I ordered it without reading the specifications carefully. As I read the specs holding the SSD in my hands I regreted the bottle of wine ;-). But I tried it anyway and perhaps you can imagine my happiness as.... it worked.
It may be that the version for the mac is only a special casing.... don´t know. As you can see on the image, I disassembled it to get more space for the bigger batterie. I dont know if necessary, but I isolated/wrapped the naked SSD with read adhasive tape. If you use the standard batterie, it is not necessary to disassemble the SSD. Just fit in the zif connector and connect.

Here some pics:







Have Fun!
Martin

[The DarkSide]

WOW!!! Great mod!!! I now have hope for my Z:VM.

Question time: Has the access time improved, and is the battery life better??? And the battery you have, I guess you now have double the runtime???

[dfkt]

http://anythingbutipod.com/2011/01/c...ronger-faster/

[no9]

Nice job godbes. Good FP article dfkt. I hope this doesn't mean that the X5 will soon be 100+ gb

[dfkt]

Nah, the ZV:M has a newer generation ZIF connector - the X5 is doomed to work at most with CF cards in an IDE converter, but no modern SSDs.

[BruceBanner]

awesum thread and well done!

I don't understand why the main mp3 player manufacturers haven't already brought out SSD and more HDD players than just tuns and tuns of flash variants, especially the PMP style range. I mean 32gb or even 64gb is not cutting it these days for music and video storage.
I mean HOW MANY 4,8 and 16gb players can you get! There are billions of em! lol. But how many 120-160gb or more! Very few
I want 500gb players like yesterday.
Shame the x7 didn't quite get it right as I think there is a demand for this style of player.
I think we would all agree we'd be happy to pay a premium price for a product that gets it right in every regard.

[dfkt]

Simple answer: price. A 500GB SSD player would cost more than a Hifiman (but of course would be more useful as well ). Not a lot of people would fork their money over for that.

[Confispect]

Nice.

[BruceBanner]

Originally Posted by dfkt

Simple answer: price. A 500GB SSD player would cost more than a Hifiman (but of course would be more useful as well ). Not a lot of people would fork their money over for that.

Yeh ok i'm not talking about a 500gb SSD (more like 128gb ones), but like... I have a samsung portable (no need for ac adapter) 640gb hd (called the G2 http://www.techfuels.com/attachments...g-g2-g3-3-.jpg) which is pretty small. Can't u just get one of those, whack a screen on it and all the other stuff. I mean look at the size of the sansaclip+ hardware, its tiny. Couldn't its hardware components be thinly spread out on top/beneath/to-the-side of a hd like the G2?. Then of course the other necessary hardware components to play video added. I understand the device would end up substantially bigger than a the portable hd but still that would be offering to a completely different market, those wanting ALL their film, tv and music on one device.

I mean these tablets that are popping out all over the place, 8gb, 16gb internal memory... :/ what can u do with that, constant file swopping thats what.
I'm sure im not the only one with 500gb+ of movie files/tv series, music etc that would love to have them 'backed up' on a PMP. You can get 1tb hd's now the same size as my G2.

Just saying why has it taken so long for an X7 type player to emerge when really this was being done in the days of the xclef and x5. The x7 is also proving to have fantastic battery life which was often a complaint of the hdd compared to flash.
It's as if since the demise of the xclef/x5 its been flash all the way but hdd have come a long way, becoming smaller and more efficient, why oh why arn't they're more DAPS and PMPS doing hdd? It's not price, I picked up my 640gb G2 for $60AUD :S

[akbarhash]

^ You Forgot Power...

[lestatar]

@godbes: Awesome job! Thanks for the tutorial

[McGyyver]

The reason for all new HDD's to have an external electricity input is, that a usb input just delivers a max to 0.5A (that would be 6W). In other words: A HDD with a lot of storage would require a lot of Power. A realy really big lot of Power. Don't want a 500gb mp3-player that weights 500g and doesn't fit into a pocket.

Then, I don't get why you should need so much space. Ya, I've got a lot of music/videos. In fact, my 1.5TB storage is packed of those. But my 16gb pmp is just enough. I don't need to have to much music on my player, as I just don't play some either way, and even if I decide to, I can just plug in my device and change some music. I have video for about 40 days of watching (24/7), but why would I need that on my PMP? If something like this is so important to you, get a netbook

[BruceBanner]

MccGyyver,

You've been very helpful in actually pointing out to me WHY large storage devices are not common place and why 8/16gb flash memory is the norm. As you say Powering the device is the problem.
You may not understand why large storage is needed but I assure you MANY people would prefer to have all of their 90gb+ worth of music collection with them at a ll times as well as a videos so they do not have to always think about what they need to put on the device etc. Like i said to begin with, I'm pretty sure their would be a demand for this type of player, even cowon released the x7 with a 160gb hdd, surely they also believe a market exists for people wanting higher storage devices.

So the x7 brings me to my next point, if Powering a HDD is the issue, how does the x7 get around it without it becoming too bulky and heavy whilst ACTUALLY boasting the greatest battery life of any portable player to date (104hrs of audio on a single charge). I understand its hdd is smaller is it not, and also only coming in variants of 120 and 160gb size. Is that the maximum gb size for a player with a hdd this size so far? Does more gb hd require more power? For example does the new 1tb samsung portable hdd require more power than my G2 640gb hdd, i.e. more gb = more power required?

Try telling me that if the J3 existed with a 128gb SSD or a 640gb HDD that was obviously now a bigger version its current flash version that it would not sell well EVEN with a vastly steeper price tag, it's just opening up the market to different people and their needs.

[paulr]

Nice work with the SSD. I can't help cringe at the price though, since a 32GB SDHC card is about $45 at newegg.com now, or about $1.50 per GB, so I'd have hoped a 128gb SSD would be around 200 euro instead of 370. I notice Kingspec has some 128gb PATA ZIF drives at memoryc.com that are a bit less expensive than the Runcore. They also have 64gb SDXC (successor to SDHC) cards for 127 USD or so, which are sure to get cheaper. A D2-like player with 64gb internal flash and an SDXC slot sounds completely practical to me. 128gb SDXC cards probably aren't that far off, since 32gb microsdhc is already available and the SDHC/XC form factor is at least 4x larger than the micro form factor.

1.8" hard drives don't take all that much power--they are in something like seven generations of Ipods after all. They are available up to 320gb and you can fit a gen 6 ipod with those drives.

Laptop hard drives (2.5") are available up to 750gb or even 1tb, but are bigger and need more power. Some early portable players used them that would probably be unacceptably large by today's standards. I still have an Archos Jukebox that had a 10GB laptop hard drive and four nimh AA cells. It was about the size of a cassette walkman and weighed about 300g, so it was certainly portable, just not pocket sized.

HD players don't have to use a lot of battery energy since the disk isn't active very much. With a few hundred MB of buffer ram, the disk can spin up, transfer an hour of music into ram in a few seconds (if it knows your playlist in advance), then spin back down. They need lots of power (compared to flash) when they're spinning, but not much when they're idle.

[BruceBanner]

Well yeh it sounds as if powering the hd is a bit of a poor excuse now. Meh... I just don't know why its taken SO long for a x7 type to appear. Exchange the screen on the x7 to the D3 screen and its a winnah surely!? Maybe the battery life would go down but for gods sake it was at 103hrs audio anyway, it can afford to lose some battery life (how often do we get to say that!)

[zerogoki]

Awesome post!

I currently own both ZVM and ZVW. I was wondering, does anyone know if such a mod is possible on the Zen Vision W? I am looking to rid the player of the old hard drive and move to a SSD. I was hoping to either go SSD like this or use a CF card with a ZIF adapter. However the only CF cards that seem to work are microdrives (but they only have a max of like 8gb).

So before purchasing such a drive I was wondering if anyone has had success with modding a ZVW with either a compact flash card w/ zif adapter or SSD as the hard drive?

[Machiventa]

Crazy!

[JohnMcL7]

Originally Posted by McGyyver

The reason for all new HDD's to have an external electricity input is, that a usb input just delivers a max to 0.5A (that would be 6W). In other words: A HDD with a lot of storage would require a lot of Power. A realy really big lot of Power. Don't want a 500gb mp3-player that weights 500g and doesn't fit into a pocket.

This isn't true because hard drive manufacturers have to keep within a power envelope which means a 20GB 2.5in drive from 10 years ago can run off a single USB's power just as a current 1TB 2.5in drive can. Toshiba have recently announced their new range of 1.8in drive which are actually lower power consumption than their predecessors. The Archos 504 tipped the scales at just over 300g using a 2.5in hard drive therefore you wouldn't need anything like 500g for a 1TB mp3 player, around half that is easily possible.

3.5in desktop drives need more power than a USB port can offer but these drives are not used for portable mp3 players and they've always required additional power.

John

[BruceBanner]

Well... I simply can't understand why the PMP and tablet range of devices are not packing proper hdd's tbh, especially when these devices are aimed at playing back non converted HD video playback etc. 8 or 16gb even when coupled with a 32gb stick is still not cutting it for adequate storage imo. You would be constantly transferring files all the time. There's not even enough space for music let alone pictures, comics, books, and of course film and tv media.

[delaware74b]

There are many reasons why they're going with SSD's: speed and less likely to be damaged physically (no moving parts).
My 21yo son dropped his laptop (2 separate times) and had to replace the hard drive both times. I threatened to change the hard drive to SSD at his cost the next time he drops the computer and kills the drive.