Amiga.org

Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Hardware Issues and discussion => Topic started by: blakespot on January 26, 2010, 02:47:17 AM

Title: Best route to SCSI->CompactFlash?
Post by: blakespot on January 26, 2010, 02:47:17 AM
I have a A1200 '060 w/ a half-full 2GB SCSI HD.  It's having issues.  I want to go to flash memory to avoid data loss, given how relatively little space the Amiga needs.

What's a good way to go.  Is this one component a good piece of the puzzle?

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=320460883629

Thanks.




blakespot
Title: Re: Best route to SCSI->CompactFlash?
Post by: AltRN8 on January 26, 2010, 03:26:47 AM
Yep that's part of the chain. Check out this link for some pretty good documentation on experiments with doing the SCSI->IDE->CF conversion.

http://www.synack.net/~bbraun/ridsce.html

I just bought 10 f the SCSI->IDE converters for $10 each. You shouldn't pay mor ethan $20 bucks for a single unit of one.

Also you can use normal Compact Flash but they have a much lower theoretical life span. If you pay more for industrial rated compact flash they will in theory last a much longer life. In all honesty I don't think it's worth paying the extra since the prices are pretty high.
Title: Re: Best route to SCSI->CompactFlash?
Post by: smf on January 26, 2010, 09:52:15 AM
@AltRN8

Did you find them for $10 on ebay?
Title: Re: Best route to SCSI->CompactFlash?
Post by: Tumbleweed on January 26, 2010, 10:31:12 AM
Quote from: blakespot;540138
I have a A1200 '060 w/ a half-full 2GB SCSI HD.  It's having issues.  I want to go to flash memory to avoid data loss, given how relatively little space the Amiga needs.

What's a good way to go.  Is this one component a good piece of the puzzle?

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=320460883629

Thanks.




blakespot


What's th difference between these cards and the ACard, other than that the ACard Scsi to IDE board is around double the price?

Also what's the difference in transfer speed using an IDE drive hooked up to the SCSI on CS MKII using on of these boards vs the internal IDE port in an A4000D?

Thanks Weed.
Title: Re: Best route to SCSI->CompactFlash?
Post by: delshay on January 26, 2010, 10:58:49 AM
iv gone the other route. SCSI to PCMCIA (dual slot)

config 1: use one SCSI ID but shows LUN 0 and LUN 1.

config 2: use two SCSI ID unit 0 and unit 1.

i can transfer data between two cards,unit fits in 3.5 inch floppy drive bay.
LEDS: power on. card inserted and card activity. if card is not compatible LED will not light-up.

don`t know transfer speed of CF cards as i only tested microdrive but it will be interesting to see what the speed is with CF cards.
Title: Re: Best route to SCSI->CompactFlash?
Post by: mingle on January 26, 2010, 11:32:18 AM
@delshay,

That sounds like a neat solution...

Can you please tell me where you bought the SCSI->PCMCIA unit?

Would be a nice addition to an A2000 :-)

Cheers,

Mike.
Title: Re: Best route to SCSI->CompactFlash?
Post by: delshay on January 26, 2010, 12:07:58 PM
Quote from: mingle;540158
@delshay,

That sounds like a neat solution...

Can you please tell me where you bought the SCSI->PCMCIA unit?

Would be a nice addition to an A2000 :-)

Cheers,

Mike.


i got mine years ago and its a little expensive at the time,just do a search on ebay for a cheap unit.

it will be interesting to fit this into a A1200 desktop.


NOTE: i also have floppy drive with built in CF/MEMORY stick ect built-in which i modifyed to work with the A1200/A4000.

so if you have a SUBWAY or somekind of USB interface the CF/MEMORY slot should work. it takes other types of flash device aswell,all in a compact floppy drive unit.

the floppy drive takes a standard 34 pin cable.

iv only tested the floppy drive part after modifcation and it works perfect,but the flash slot should work with USB interface. (this was one of my old projects).
Title: Re: Best route to SCSI->CompactFlash?
Post by: countzero on January 26, 2010, 01:09:50 PM
Quote from: smf;540150
@AltRN8

Did you find them for $10 on ebay?

the 10$ is only available if you buy a lot of 10.
Title: Re: Best route to SCSI->CompactFlash?
Post by: sim085 on January 26, 2010, 02:23:00 PM
Quote from: Tumbleweed;540153
What's th difference between these cards and the ACard, other than that the ACard Scsi to IDE board is around double the price?

Just wanted to share my experience on this. When trying to build this solution for my A500+ with a GVP HD8+ I first bought a SCSI -> IDE card that was not ACARD. It basically did not work!! I then bought the ACARD and it worked like a charm. I think the ACARD might reduce configuration time and stress :) However I can only say this for the A500.
Title: Re: Best route to SCSI->CompactFlash?
Post by: x303 on January 26, 2010, 02:39:00 PM
Why not go to amigakit.com and search for "EasyADF  PCMCIA Compact Flash Transfer Kit"

:afro:

Title: Re: Best route to SCSI->CompactFlash?
Post by: AltRN8 on January 27, 2010, 12:14:42 AM
The price for $10 was as countzero said only if you bought a count of 10. I expected to do this a lot since I have quite a few older scsi based machines (Amiga, NeXT, SGI, Classic Mac, etc.).

I have a couple of ACARD units which are cool but definitely are more expensive. The R-IDSC-E/R that was covered in the link I supplied above were the ones I got for a significantly cheaper price.

The jumper settings are important and you should check out the link if you have one to make sure you have all the settings correct.
Title: Re: Best route to SCSI->CompactFlash?
Post by: johnklos on February 16, 2010, 07:55:10 PM
Quote from: x303;540171
Why not go to amigakit.com and search for "EasyADF  PCMCIA Compact Flash Transfer Kit"


Because he wants to use the CF card as his main drive, not just transfer stuff back and forth with it.
Title: Re: Best route to SCSI->CompactFlash?
Post by: johnklos on February 16, 2010, 08:27:54 PM
The Acard work very well but are obviously more expensive than other (usually older and either used or hard to source) adapters. I'm using many including an AEC-7720U in a rackmount 1U Amiga 1200 with Blizzard 1260 and SCSI, a 7726H in an Amiga 4000 with CyberStorm Mk III, an AEC-7730A SATA to SCSI in a PowerMac 9600, and an ARS-2000SU 2.5" SATA to 50 pin SCSI enclosure in an Amiga 3000.

I prefer to have new drives which are generally more reliable and take less power (particularly in the case of flash disks or 5900 RPM "LP" models).

If you want to use an IDE to CompactFlash adapter, they're an iffy lot, so I highly recommend you pay a little more and get one that definitely works with DMA transfers (which may preclude using really old cards, but considering the price of a 4 gig CF card these days...) Addonics is a good, high quality but not cheap adapter.

I did some tests with an Acard and an Addonics which I posted here:

http://68kmla.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=12050&start=50#p123985

I hope this helps.
Title: Re: Best route to SCSI->CompactFlash?
Post by: Speelgoedmannetje on February 16, 2010, 08:41:57 PM
Quote from: blakespot;540138
I have a A1200 '060 w/ a half-full 2GB SCSI HD.  It's having issues.  I want to go to flash memory to avoid data loss, given how relatively little space the Amiga needs.

What's a good way to go.  Is this one component a good piece of the puzzle?

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=320460883629

Thanks.




blakespot
I got a compactflash to IDE converter from Vesalia.de with a Sandisk Extreme III 4gb compact flash card, formatted in 2 2gb partitions, and my A1200 boots almost instantly with it. Note that not all CF cards can be booted from.
I got some pdf from the internet which describes it all in detail.
Oh, and I haven't used scsi, just the onboard ide connector.