UltraSatan: ACSI Hard Disk on an SD Card for the Atari ST
My Mega ST 4 "Low" uses an UltraSatan, an ACSI-connected device that gives the Atari a real hard disk using cheap SD/MMC cards. I bought the UltraSatan Mini from Lotharek, a revised, compact version of the classic device.
What the UltraSatan is
The UltraSatan is the improved successor to the earlier SatanDisk, designed by Jookie. It connects to the ACSI port of an Atari ST and emulates a hard disk, with the storage living on SD/MMC cards. The name comes from being the "ultra" successor to the SatanDisk, and has nothing to do with the occult. Its strengths:
- SD/MMC storage, cheap, quiet and reliable, replacing aging hard disks and floppies.
- Two card slots, so it can act like two hard disks on one machine.
- Hot-pluggable cards, SD cards can be swapped without powering off the computer.
- Battery-backed clock, a built-in RTC to keep the Atari's clock working.
- Multiple firmware slots, with a basic firmware so it keeps working even if a flash upgrade goes wrong.
The UltraSatan Mini
The Mini variant from Lotharek connects directly to the external ACSI port (no cable needed), supports microSD cards only, and is powered via a MicroUSB connector (a 5V phone charger is needed, not supplied). It works with the ICD PRO driver (free), HDDriver (commercial) or PeraPutnik, and you can even change the device name shown by the driver.
Getting it running
First use is practically plug-and-play: connect the device, switch it on, insert a prepared SD card and start the computer. The ICD driver on the card runs without problems and the desktop is set up. If you set up cards with HDDriver, make sure you use a current version, older ones threw a "Error reading partition data" error that was fixed in a later release. The card can even be made Windows-compatible, making data exchange between the Atari and a PC trivial.
Installation details are well covered in Jungsi's UltraSatan article, which also notes that for use in a Mega ST you can bridge two pins on the underside so the device is powered via the ACSI port, removing the need for a separate power cable.
My Setup
In my Mega ST 4 "Low" machine the UltraSatan Mini provides the hard-disk storage on an SD card, alongside the Cloudy/Storm ST combo, the Gotek, the SidecarTridge and the Wi-Fi modem.