I have an early 981 Boxster and after seeing quite a few posts around the voulnerability of the original hard drives failing over time I decided to upgrade my PCM 3.1 to solid state.
After quite a few learning curves I though I would post my experience on here to help save others the headaches I encountered along the way.
From the forums this is a relatively easy upgrade with little technical knowledge being required. This seems like a no brainer when a new PCM costs are northwards of £2500.
I purchased the required parts of a SATA Solid State Drive, and an offline cloner. All in all acounting to about £55.
Things however started to unravel once I opened up my PCM to find the early 981's have an IDE drive instead of a SATA drive.
After quite a bit of time of google, I did find a post explaining there is a very specific way of upgrading these as you need a Ableconn converter (this is very specific due to the chip it uses to convert Sata to an IDE connection) Apparently the PCM is very picky about which ones it likes to understand.
I then needed to buy a mSATA drive to go with the Ableconn converter. I also needed to buy a mSata to Sata Converter to allow the drive to fit the offline cloner I had already purchased. In addition to this, I needed a IDE to SATA converter to allow my old IDE drive to fit the SATA offline cloner.
As a novice it felt like everytime I overcame a hurdle there was another item to buy to try and make it all work, however had I have had all the information before hand it's actually quite a simple upgrade. Even easier if you have a later 981 that already have a standard sata drive.
Early 981 IDE - Parts required:
Offline Cloner (£35)
mSata drive (£20)
AbleConn housing and mSATA to IDE conveter (£45)
mSata to SATA converter (£10)
IDE to SATA Converter (£10)
Total somewhere in the region of £120
Later 981 SATA - Parts Required:
Offline Cloner (£35)
SATA Solid State Drive (£20)
Total somewhere in the region of £55
I eneded up cloning to a spare Sata Solid State drive as a back up should anything fail in the future.
Anyway I just though I would share my experience.
Rik
After quite a few learning curves I though I would post my experience on here to help save others the headaches I encountered along the way.
From the forums this is a relatively easy upgrade with little technical knowledge being required. This seems like a no brainer when a new PCM costs are northwards of £2500.
I purchased the required parts of a SATA Solid State Drive, and an offline cloner. All in all acounting to about £55.
Things however started to unravel once I opened up my PCM to find the early 981's have an IDE drive instead of a SATA drive.
After quite a bit of time of google, I did find a post explaining there is a very specific way of upgrading these as you need a Ableconn converter (this is very specific due to the chip it uses to convert Sata to an IDE connection) Apparently the PCM is very picky about which ones it likes to understand.
I then needed to buy a mSATA drive to go with the Ableconn converter. I also needed to buy a mSata to Sata Converter to allow the drive to fit the offline cloner I had already purchased. In addition to this, I needed a IDE to SATA converter to allow my old IDE drive to fit the SATA offline cloner.
As a novice it felt like everytime I overcame a hurdle there was another item to buy to try and make it all work, however had I have had all the information before hand it's actually quite a simple upgrade. Even easier if you have a later 981 that already have a standard sata drive.
Early 981 IDE - Parts required:
Offline Cloner (£35)
mSata drive (£20)
AbleConn housing and mSATA to IDE conveter (£45)
mSata to SATA converter (£10)
IDE to SATA Converter (£10)
Total somewhere in the region of £120
Later 981 SATA - Parts Required:
Offline Cloner (£35)
SATA Solid State Drive (£20)
Total somewhere in the region of £55
I eneded up cloning to a spare Sata Solid State drive as a back up should anything fail in the future.
Anyway I just though I would share my experience.
Rik
