I have decided to switch to a solid-state drive. Who knows why SSD SCSI are so rare, it is weird. So I need to try a SCSI-IDE bridge. But I can't afford a 50-pin SCSI bridge now, so I dug out a rare item I forgot I had - 2.5" SCSI-IDE bridge. I think I bought some when I was hoping to fix a friends Duo280. So this weekend I ordered on the cheap a couple of 3.5"->2.5" SCSI adaptors. So the internal SCSI is going to go to the 2.5" adaptor, and then the bridge, and a 2.5" IDE SSD.

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It took a while for the SSD to arrive, shipped from China. I just tried the setup. The mini SCSI-IDE bridge works, but not with the SSD. I tried a 2GB PowerBook drive and it worked fine. So it's good to know that the bridges work, since they are harder to find than drives. Why the SSD doesn't work? Of course I need to test it in a different configuration to verify that it works at all - I am going to guess some kind of "sensing" on the bridge board. Draws too little current, doesn't use the 12V rail... circuit may not see that it is there. Indeed there is an indicator LED on the bridge which blinks while it connects to the IDE drive, and then goes out. With the SSD it remains steadily lit instead. Not all bridges will do this, the ones here look fairly elaborate, Guess I will try to hold out for an Acard or similar.

So now I wonder if I should use the 2.5" 2GB drive in my SE instead of the 4GB SSD... The little IDE drive is a lot quieter than what is in my SE now, and newer. Looks like the SSD is going in the Xybernaut I am fixing for work.