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There are a few USB drives designed for embedded use which plug directly into the USB header on the motherboard but your solution is more cost effective for non-critical applications. I have a couple of IDE to CF adapters which I use for the same application.

http://www.transcendusa.com/Products/ModDetail.asp?ModNo=122&LangNo=0&Func1No=1&Func2No=159
http://www.psism.com/eusb.htm
http://www.ptiglobalusa.com/emusbfldrmo.html
http://www.atpinc.com/p2-4a.php?sn=00000417

So go for it.
http://www.psism.com/adcf.htm
Has CompactFlash to IDE adaptors.
Get a few of these and some Compact Flashcards and then set up a Flash based raid. I Would keep a my swap on a regular drive but modern motherboards tend to have a few IDE slots and a few Sata connectors.
Could be a cool little system.

Those two interfaces are explained by Phil Karn.

There's a freakish USB module that takes some of those CardBus cards and makes them into USB devices. I think it's simply exposing that same internal USB interface, and if you look at the supported cards list, it bears that out.

So if this device has been out for a while, why is the monolithic USB version news?

"somewhere in the neighborhood of 10,000 to 1,000,000 write cycles will give you trouble"

Industrial Compact Flash is >2,000,000 read/write cycles. And some advertise 3,000,000 cycles. http://www.psism.com/industrialcf.htm#industrialCF

in some applications this [cost] is actually not a factor.
[ ... ]
give me a 4gb flash drive and i'll be all over it!

OK, if price is not actually a factor, and you really want a 4 GB flash drive, then by all means, have at it. They're only about $1200 to $1500 for 4GB flash drives (with an ATA interface).

http://www.psism.com/mini-ide-drive.htm

What you are looking for is called Zoom-Video(ZV). It was added to PCMCIA before CardBus came around but unfortunately not all laptops supprt this standard.

I was about to tell you that they were all EXTREMELY overpriced($200+), and that pretty much all the Zoom-Video cards had been discontinued (a.k.a iRez's Capsure. However I froogled and found a Nogatech ConferenceCard that seems like it would do the trick for under $30! Anyhoo, I've never used the Nogatech card and they have gone out of business so definately make sure it will work for you.

-Lucas

Thanks for posting that link to the 'mydigitaldiscount' site. I've been looking for internal IDE/ATAPI compact flash adapters for a while now. Those external USB adapters have become so common I'm sure you'll be able to buy them at grocery stores soon. Why are internal ones so darn hard to find? Don't manufacturers understand that I've got a decent sized computer case on my desk with a few empty drive bays for a reason? The last thing I want is another stupid little item to take up more space on my desk - and certainly not one that's effectively chained to my computer with another cable to get in the way.

The only drawback I can see to the internal adapter on that site you mentioned is that they state that it needs a card inserted before powering-on the system. In the manual, it also recommends having a card inserted when shutting down your OS. I'm hoping to find an adapter that follows the more flexible ATAPI route that CD-ROM drives and ZIP drives offers - i.e. unhindered hotswap capability. The only possibility I have remaining is this unit. With few details provided, and having not run into anyone who's tried it, I guess I'm just going to have to shell out the $80 to see how it works.

Darnit! These sorts of internal adapters should be dead commmon by now! What year is it? 1986?

Death to the floppy drive!

As I understand, firewire is a mastering bus (each peripherial can control the whole bus - compared to USB, a chained/star system where you need a central controller for everything). So, it seems that if you had a firewire CDROM, you could hook it up to a firewire ripper/player, and if you had a firewire CDRW (and appropriate firmware in the ripper), you could burn it back to CD. I see problems in getting an interface that's small enough to be useful for simple playback, but large enough to let you control burning well. Probably power issues too. But it can probably be done.

:-)