SATA Drives Working For Recording!!

jeffreybruton

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MX-2424 DV-RA1000HD CDA-700
Hey All,

Hope your 2025 is getting off to a great start!

I have been wanting to experiment with using SATA drives with the MX-2424 for a number of years, as between my brother and I we have 6 of them.

I know that Strados here on the forum has both of his working with the Acard AEC-7730 SCSI to SATA bridge cards. These are small cards that have a 68-pin SCSI connector on one side, and a 22-pin SATA (data and power) connector on the other side...AND the electronics that do the protocol conversion.

I have found the AEC-7730 cards nearly impossible to find. For example, I have a Saved Search on eBay for them and a couple days ago I woke up and checked email to find a mail saying one was posted! It was sold before I even got out of the shower!

I know that Acard (based in Taiwan) has other SCSI to SATA bridge products and I contacted them about getting some. The one I inquired about was the ARS-2160. It is cool in that it not only is a SCSI to SATA bridge, but a drive tray as well. They got back to me and it was just too expensive...for me at least.

I noticed on their website that they had the AEC-7732 unit, which is marketed as a SCSI to SATA bridge for Optical Disk drives (ODD). From my time in this industry and on staff at Microsoft I thought that if it worked with CD-ROM drives, that it should also work with hard disk and solid state drives.

There are TONS of AEC-7732 units on eBay for very reasonable prices! Most brand new (“open box”), but nearly all from China. I decided to invest $130 and buy one to test.

When it finally arrived (after formatting the drive on my PC) I hooked it up to a 2TB SATA drive and the MX-2424 and it worked GREAT! So great in fact that I have now recorded approx. 2000 track hours with it in my tests! Roughly 15 projects that are 24 track recordings and typically 4 hours long each!

During my 2 weeks of testing, I emailed my contact at Acard, told him about my success, and asked him if it should really be working as well as it was with hard drive and SSD. He replied that they did indeed “migrate” the code into the AEC-7732 to work with hard drives and SSDs!

I have been testing with a 3.5” 2TB Seagate Barracuda SATA hard drive, and a 2TB Samsung EVO 870 SATA SSD.
Both drives have preformed flawlessly!

I have used the Orico Hot Swap SATA Tray (Model 1106SS) and the Orico 2.5” drive adapter (Model 1125SS) for my tests.

I have NOT even tried to format the 2TB drives on the MX-2424. I simply connected them to one of our PCs that has a SCSI card and formatted them as FAT32...using the Acard AEC-7732 to get them recognized by the SCSI card in the computer. I also have not yet attempted to format them by connecting them to a SATA interface in the computer.

After I format the drives on the PC I connect them to the MX-2424 and they take a few minutes to mount...yes a few minutes. Once they mount they ROCK!

One of the coolest things in my mind is that the MX-2424 sees them for what they are size-wise!! Check out the picture attached to this post! You are seeing that correct: Nearly 3600 hours reported as available on a newly formatted 2TB drive!! And the MX-2424 has been reporting the correct available record time as I have been filling up the drive with recordings!

I am in the process of installing a AEC-7732 in each bay of a Glyph two drive SCSI rack to put the SATA drives into production!

I am hoping that someone else will risk around $130 to get a AEC-7732 off of eBay and confirm my tests!!

Look forward to hearing from you!

Kind regards,
Jeffrey Bruton
 

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That's good news, thanks for testing this out. Could you post some pics of the drive in the machine & also in the glyph rack housings. I have 2 Mx2424 & 2 dual scsi glyph racks so this could be a good solution.

Have you tried is with an SSD ?
 
Hi Rob,

You are most welcome!

Answer to your SSD question is in my original post.

More pics when I get it all configured for production!

Kind regards,
Jeffrey Bruton
 
Hi Rob,

Glad it is encouraging!

I have 5 more of the Acard boards on the way!
I will test them all thoroughly and report here!

The seller I am buying from for $130 each on eBay gives free shipping so it's like getting the boards for $100 each or less!
I actually saw some for $119 with free shipping and the person has 99.7% feedback which is higher than my seller!

I have been wanting to do this for years, so am super stoked!

Kind regards,
Jeffrey Bruton
 
Back in the old thread we discussed the ACARD AEC-7732 which was compatible with ODD & SATA drives plus the other SCSI to SATA bridge adapters.

The ACARD AEC-7732 is designed to fit on the back of a SATA DVD / ODD. there's an aluminium frame with some sticky tape for this purpose. I did buy mine because I looked at & compared the specs which were the same speeds as the Acard SCSI SATA bridge adapters.

They were a bit cheaper back then, I think I paid about £32 for my AEC-7732. I did some extensive tests back then with 7200rpm 8mb cache 3.5" & 2.5" SATA drives up to 120mb & SSD drives up to 240mb. All various well known brands they all worked fine.

I just formatted the SATA / SDD drives from the computer, added the tascam HD files & track folders, then connected them to the AEC-7732. The MX2424 then recognises the drive.

I'm really surprised that a 2TB SATA disk works, I wonder what the limit is? LOL!

A pity they are now more expensive, although if you add the price, storage & future reliability of SATA 3.5" / 2.5" drives or SSD drives compared to buying 20 year old old SCSI drives it's still worth considering, unless you have an old stash of SCSI drives?

The Acard AEC-7732 is also on Ali Express, but still no sign of other models & brands of SCSI to SATA bridge adapters.
 
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Hello Carausius!

So glad others here have tested the AEC-7732 and had the same great results as I am seeing!

32 pounds for one?!?! My goodness!! That is a steal!! I still think just over $100 USD including shipping from China is a great price!

I also believe you are correct in that the cost of the AEC-7732 will be completely offset by the price/reliability of SATA drives...and using SSDs with the MX is SO fun!!

I am seeing roughly 20% to 30% faster disk operation (SmartCopy, TapeConvert, etc) times with an SSD vs a Seagate Barracuda 7200rpm SATA drive...even though both work great!

I simply format the drives as FAT32 on a computer, and then mount them to the MX without creating any of the MX specific directories. When I mount them for the first time the MX creates the directories it needs!

You are of course correct in your description of them with the aluminum backing plate!
The card can be taken off the backing plate via the four mounting screws if someone is needing a really compact install.

All six of my AEC-7732 boards are here and I have burned in all but one...with no issues at all!

I too am curious what the drive size limit is that the MX will calculate correct time remaining!!
I think I will stick with 2TB or smaller drives for now!
SO wish I could talk with the TimeLine folks and see their reaction to all of this!

Thanks again for your reply and confirmation of your experience with the AEC-7732!

Kind regards,
Jeffrey Bruton
 

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