I still can't bring myself to sell the 2488 Neo as it just represents such an awesome multitrack. The Neo was much closer to a hardware DAW than any of the current Tascam or even Zoom machines.
My 2488 Neo came with a 160GB drive installed. I assumed the first owner had upgraded it but as it turns out this is not the case.
Nevertheless, the one thing I didn't like about the Neo was the hard drive itself. It's actually pretty fast, in some cases faster than a dp24. Still though, the physical drive represents the most likely failure point - along with the CD drive.
I wanted to see if it was possible to upgrade the 2488 Neo to an SSD transparently. Obviously, the system will know nothing about the SSD so modern SSD technologies like TRIM won't be operating. No big deal. It would still be a really nice upgrade.
I have seen teardown shots of the Neo showing the base and top portion split away from each other. In those shots the base contains the power supply, CDROM and 5 1/4" HD. The drives are directly connected via a single IDE cable to the mainboard.
When I removed the 11 screws on the base to see my HD I was surprised to see not only the drive but a factory TEAC IDE-to-SATA converter board. My CDROM was marked 2009 so my Neo must be a 2009/2010 model. Clearly Tascam had already run out of sources for plain old IDE drives and had tackled the problem with a converter.
When planning my SSD upgrade I purchased a PNY 120GB SATA SSD ($17!) and a StarTech IDE-to-SATA converter from Amazon. That StarTech is highly rated by people who have had trouble with other converters when attempting to upgrade older equipment. It probably would have worked as well but obviously the best choice here was to simply use the converter already supplied by Tascam.
Anyhow, I connected the PNY SSD to the converter, strapped it down with a nylon tie and buttoned everything back together. The Neo booted normally and of course stopped early to ask if I wanted to format the drive. Yes was the obvious answer. It created 3 32GB audio partitions and a 17GB FAT partition for exporting to USB.
I recommend shutting down and restarting the Neo after booting and formatting a new drive.
I imported some backups I had made from the hard drive before removing it. Everything runs perfectly! It seems somewhat faster booting and shutting down and certainly a bit faster in other operations but it's not using anywhere near the bandwidth the SSD is capable of. This upgrade is not about making the Neo super fast. It's already a responsive machine. After all the drive transfer rates are limited by the interface speed of the motherboard in the Neo.
The real point of the upgrade is to get rid of the most fragile part of the machine. On top of that, removing the hard drive reduces overall power usage in the system. This lowers the load on the power supply, keeps the heat down and presumably could lead to longer life for the supply as well now that the 12V rail is hardly used. You also lighten the Neo by a few ounces though that's hardly noticeable.
Here's a link to the StarTech converter if you're interested.
https://www.amazon.com/StarTech-com-Drive-Optical-Adapter-Converter/dp/B00EOJNGC2/ref=sr_1_3?crid=AVKNXJGTZIOH&keywords=startech ide to sata adapter&qid=1566569798&s=gateway&sprefix=startech ide,aps,142&sr=8-3
This same approach using the Startech converter MIGHT work on earlier 2488 models. It's a small gamble. The SSD's are getting very cheap.
NOTE: I stuck with a 120GB drive because the Neo probably doesn't handle drives larger than 160GB. 3 32GB audio partitions is a lot of recording time. I checked the manual and found that the maximum number of partitions is 4 and max partition size is 32GB so indeed don't use a drive larger than 160GB.
Now the question is do I keep my dp24?
My 2488 Neo came with a 160GB drive installed. I assumed the first owner had upgraded it but as it turns out this is not the case.
Nevertheless, the one thing I didn't like about the Neo was the hard drive itself. It's actually pretty fast, in some cases faster than a dp24. Still though, the physical drive represents the most likely failure point - along with the CD drive.
I wanted to see if it was possible to upgrade the 2488 Neo to an SSD transparently. Obviously, the system will know nothing about the SSD so modern SSD technologies like TRIM won't be operating. No big deal. It would still be a really nice upgrade.
I have seen teardown shots of the Neo showing the base and top portion split away from each other. In those shots the base contains the power supply, CDROM and 5 1/4" HD. The drives are directly connected via a single IDE cable to the mainboard.
When I removed the 11 screws on the base to see my HD I was surprised to see not only the drive but a factory TEAC IDE-to-SATA converter board. My CDROM was marked 2009 so my Neo must be a 2009/2010 model. Clearly Tascam had already run out of sources for plain old IDE drives and had tackled the problem with a converter.
When planning my SSD upgrade I purchased a PNY 120GB SATA SSD ($17!) and a StarTech IDE-to-SATA converter from Amazon. That StarTech is highly rated by people who have had trouble with other converters when attempting to upgrade older equipment. It probably would have worked as well but obviously the best choice here was to simply use the converter already supplied by Tascam.
Anyhow, I connected the PNY SSD to the converter, strapped it down with a nylon tie and buttoned everything back together. The Neo booted normally and of course stopped early to ask if I wanted to format the drive. Yes was the obvious answer. It created 3 32GB audio partitions and a 17GB FAT partition for exporting to USB.
I recommend shutting down and restarting the Neo after booting and formatting a new drive.
I imported some backups I had made from the hard drive before removing it. Everything runs perfectly! It seems somewhat faster booting and shutting down and certainly a bit faster in other operations but it's not using anywhere near the bandwidth the SSD is capable of. This upgrade is not about making the Neo super fast. It's already a responsive machine. After all the drive transfer rates are limited by the interface speed of the motherboard in the Neo.
The real point of the upgrade is to get rid of the most fragile part of the machine. On top of that, removing the hard drive reduces overall power usage in the system. This lowers the load on the power supply, keeps the heat down and presumably could lead to longer life for the supply as well now that the 12V rail is hardly used. You also lighten the Neo by a few ounces though that's hardly noticeable.
Here's a link to the StarTech converter if you're interested.
https://www.amazon.com/StarTech-com-Drive-Optical-Adapter-Converter/dp/B00EOJNGC2/ref=sr_1_3?crid=AVKNXJGTZIOH&keywords=startech ide to sata adapter&qid=1566569798&s=gateway&sprefix=startech ide,aps,142&sr=8-3
This same approach using the Startech converter MIGHT work on earlier 2488 models. It's a small gamble. The SSD's are getting very cheap.
NOTE: I stuck with a 120GB drive because the Neo probably doesn't handle drives larger than 160GB. 3 32GB audio partitions is a lot of recording time. I checked the manual and found that the maximum number of partitions is 4 and max partition size is 32GB so indeed don't use a drive larger than 160GB.
Now the question is do I keep my dp24?
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