Motion Tablet Upgrade to SSD on the Cheap!

Nothing gets a geek more excited than tearing into some hardware to do an upgrade, and this was no exception.  For the past couple years, I've mostly forgone buying any navigational charts, and and have been using my Motion LE1600 tablet as an EFB.  First I used Golden Eagle Chart Case Express. Then, at OSH a couple seasons ago, they had an awesome deal on Seattle Avionics Voyager where I could get the chart updates for a lesser annual cost...and get their software too. Turns out it was a very nice deal, because with their fuel price finder, I've been able to search for which airport I want to stop at on an impromptu stop, to find a good fuel deal.  And once, I stopped and could not get fuel at my planned stop because nobody was around, so I easily found the next nearby cheap fuel stop.  Very cool stuff, and the software has more options than just about anyone's, including a larger selection of charts available.  (See this link for more info)  Oh, and about the coolest thing in the world happened to me a couple weeks ago....they ran a holiday promo where the first 100 customers could pay a lump-sum flat-fee and get chart updates for LIFE.  I of course paid up and took advantage of that one, so I now get all WAC's, TAC's, IFR Hi & Low, VFR Sectionals, and approach charts for no more recurring fees, forever.  It's truly a fantastic thing.

Anyway, on to the hardware.  I run this all on a Motion Computing LE1600 tablet.  I have a car charger semi-permanent mounted in my sidewall so I can just plug the tablet in and charge it in-flight anytime I want.  I have a Holux Bluetooth GPS (about $60 ... painted flat black) that is also semi-permanently mounted on my glareshield that I use to provide GPS to the Voyager software, and to my street mapping software for in-car use.  This not only provides for charts that show my position on them at all times, but also an entire independent, self-battery-supplied system for navigation if all else should fail.  The Tablet comes in handy in hotels and at FBO's if I need to get on the internet and email anyone, and in general, it's awesome utility to bring a PC like this along.  I use a soft roll-up silicone keyboard that I can leave in the plane or in the luggage, for times when I may be doing extended text entry.  The combination works very very well for most things.  I got the tablet on Ebay from a good seller, and one VERY IMPORTANT feature was that it has the "View Anywhere" screen for better sunlight readability.




There is one catch....it came with a standard 30GB hard drive, which I upgraded to a 60Gb model, but they're awful slow at 4800rpm.  Note that LE1600's came with a couple types of hard drives, some are "ZIF" (like mine) and some have a more standard connector.  So, if you do this mod, be sure to inspect yours before you buy the replacement hardware, so you get the right stuff.  The thorn in the side of the tablet though is that hard drive.  Not only is it slow, but in general, ALL HARD DRIVES get real error prone when used at high altitude.  The drive heads rely on the cusion of air under them, to keep the head from crashing on the disk.  At 10,000' or more, I've seen my tablet barely boot.  That's a real pain.  Sometimes you want to USE your charts enroute.  The only real option is a Solid State (Electronic) Hard drive (SSD).  But, that too brings you a problem.  When I started shopping for SSD's a year ago, you could ONLY buy 32GB versions or less.  Those were about $800.  When 64GB versions came out, the cost about $1200.  The prices are currently about $499 and $799 respectively.  I waited a WHOLE YEAR for these prices to drop, and they did, but man, usually electronics become cheaper than that.  So, I started to long for something different....something that I could use ANY time.

There is a newer LE1700 that would make a good system.  It's got a dual-core processor, holds more memory, and they have an even better new ULTRA VIEW ANYWHERE screen.  The downside is mainly that it's a got lots more pixels than this one does...it's 1400x1050, as opposed to the LE1600's 1024x768.  You may be thinking bigger is better, but in mapping software like this, bigger means more pixels means slower, and more map loaded at one time.  So ideally, I'd get an LE1700 which is now just recently available STOCK with an SSD, and have a standard res scree, but I'd have to settle for the higher-res if I got it.  And, the worst part??? Price.  I'd pay well into at least $3000-3200 range to get the SSD model with the Ultra View Anywhere screen.  My tablet cost me around $1700, and they now sell for about $1000 if you look on Ebay for the same versions.  What to do, what to do?

Well, one day recently I was JUST about to bite the bullet and just buy an LE1700 or even a different brand of convertable tablet/laptop, when I ran across a forum thread that INSTANTLY struck me.  The guy said he was going to try a ZIF to CF adapter that he got on Ebay for UNDER $10.  Then he reported back that IT WORKED!!  That was all it took.  For about $10 or so I ordered up a ZIF to CF adapter from a great eBay Seller who goes by the id "i88990"....actually a Chinese seller. (you can get them other places...even Newegg.com, I think!)  I ordered my 32GB CF Card from Newegg.com for $100.  Note that this one is a 233X speed card, which you'll want to get at least that fast.  It will compare greatly with the standard hard drive...it may even seem faster.  But, there are some very recently introduced cards by one company that are now pushing 50GB and 100GB or 64GB, at speeds of 233X to 333X, which would be awesome. They're expensive, but as the price comes down, the upgrade will be a BREEZE!  One other benefit....my tablet has a PCMCIA card slot, so using a PCMCIA to CF adapter, I put a 2nd 32GB CF card in the PC slot, and now I have a 32GB C: Drive and a 32GB D: Drive.  The D: Drive is just for file storage and stuff.  You can fit an entire Voyager install, with all it's charts, and MS Office and a map program and more all onto the 32GB C: Drive without problem.

So below you'll see photos of the mod.  Basically, you just use Norton Ghost or similar to copy the partition of your old drive off to some other server (This step you can eliminate if you're willing to re-install windows from scratch), pull the old drive, (learn how to open ZIF connectors before you force them apart), stick the CF card in the rubber shock mount and plug it in, and then use Norton Ghost to restore your partition back onto the CF Card.  Wala, it works!!!!  If you don't yet own a tablet, but need one for charts, just find any 30GB system with a ViewAnywhere screen, and it will be an easy transition.  Easier to clone a drive onto a same or larger drive than it is to clone to a smaller.

The result?? For a couple hours of time, and $110-115 worth of parts, I now have a tablet with a CF card as an SSD, that will be useable at any altitude, and provide continuous chart coverage for all types of navigational charts during my flights!

5/13/2009 Update
Ok, if you've just read the above, make sure you don't miss this.  The CF card method had been working OK for me, but on a recent trip it started to get slow...really slow.  Along with that, a friend of mine wanted the same thing I had in a tablet, so I helped gather all the parts for him and put one together.  During the process I did a bit of digging and research into the current state of Solid State Drives (SSD's), and the speed of my CF Card.  Well, my CF card is a 233X card.  1X = 150Kb/s, so 233X roughly equals 35Mb/s.  That's not too awful when you consider what a 4200RPM 1.8" drive has for throughput, but not great when you see what's available.  As it turned out, those CF cards actually sometimes don't get anywhere near that performance. Yes, spending a lot for some 300X cards may help with that, but you're still under 50Mb/s for the most part.  Worse than that, some of those cards won't always sustain more than 16Mb/s at times, and the 35Mb/s is the READ speed...writes are slower.  Well, if you do a little browsing for SSD's, you'll find that REAL SSD's can go over 50Mb/s, with many even 80-100Mb/s throughput.  And they were spec'd as high speed for read AND write.  So, I decided to buy these 2 tablets the real deal.  Turns out prices are better now, too.  I paid $244 Shipped, for an MTRON MOBI 3000 32GB PATA ZIF drive, from http://www.Rocketdisk.com.  My tablet uses the ZIF connector.  To throw a big curve at me, the LE1600 that I got for my friend used the OTHER type of drive that they used in the LE1600...his came with a 60GB drive that used a 50-pin Toshiba connector.  Darn!  That made it tougher.  After a bunch of digging, I finally found a Samsung MCBOE32G8APR-0XA00 on eBay for $225 new.  This drive worked well for me.  A side note about that though....with BIOS version A12, it did NOT boot, but with BIOS version A09, it did.  A quick ghosting of the original drive onto the SSD and he was in business.  Another side note...y

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