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Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Hardware Issues and discussion => Topic started by: danbeaver on October 05, 2012, 11:20:29 AM
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Do any CF cards have TRIM capability? Is there some way to simulate this? If not then how many R/W cycles before data is lost? Most were designed for cameras and the like, which don't act like the hard drives in Amigas.
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I don't have any specifics but I was under the impression that eventually you won't be able to write but you should always be able to read. So if a drive goes bad you should be able to recover all your data. I know this probably doesn't help much but I wanted to mention it :)
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it seems that newer CF cards have 'over-provisioning', so they should last long.
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also in general, the miggy doesn't do virutal memory, swap space, write backs, caching, pre-staging or hybernate type stuff. so writes are only done when actually needed.
not sure about PFS or SFS with regard to filesystem journaling? cached writes?
i don't think there is much to worry about on the miggy side...
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There is no file system for AmigaOS which does TRIM, so it does not matter if a harddrive (or similar) supports TRIM or not, it is not used anyway.
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Or you write a driver that supports it.. :P
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It is more complex than just adding trim support to a file system.
For example there are block sizes. We usually use 512 or 1024 byte blocks on our media, while flash media internally using 128KB and even bigger blocks. So each 512 byte block write causes an 128KB block flash erase + reflash.
Depending on the internal controllers used the effect may be lower. Also the bigger the card, the less the ageing, as the internal controller swaps blocks to prevent killing a single block e.g. root/directory head, which needs to be written hundreds of times a day, while other blocks (mbr, once written files) just got a hand full of writes.
Trim just avoids that blocks a filesystem sees as cleared, are not backupped to other blocks when cycling flash cells, which a) avoids a useless flash and b) speeds up the write process.
Speaking aboud speed, recent flash media are much faster than our hardware can handle. The speed gain is produced due the lack of seek times, as we don´t have big system files.
I am using CF Cards for years now as main drive in my main system (Pegasos2) writing around 400 MB per day (entire system update + extracting ) and did not experience a single problem with it.
In fact I avoid harddrives where possible, so I even backup my files on flash media as well as using them in portable harddrives.
Geit
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Thanks, glad to hear it! I've been only using them for the past year and while I have found CF cards to be bus limited, SD cards are not; but then I've only used cheap ones. Due to the swap partition of OS 4.1, I've moved to an UW SCSI drive for it. As SSD prices have fallen I've played with one on my PCI SATA card plus a modern DVD-RW.
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hmmm, get thee swap space to a nunnery! erm, i mean, hard disk! if you value thy flash cells :)
in another point of view, swap is starting to get pointless with the amount of ram systems have available. i know there are machines out there to prove me wrong. but does a 8Gb+ Windows system need swap? why does a 512MB+ amiga need swap? it used to make sense to me when we were limited to 16/32MB maybe even to 4GB system ram.... but these days?
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Thanks, glad to hear it! I've been only using them for the past year and while I have found CF cards to be bus limited, SD cards are not; but then I've only used cheap ones. Due to the swap partition of OS 4.1, I've moved to an UW SCSI drive for it. As SSD prices have fallen I've played with one on my PCI SATA card plus a modern DVD-RW.
CF Cards are 100% IDE, it is just a different connector, while SD card are using a serial protocol, so more hardware and more crap can happen to the data.
Cheap CF Cards are for sure slow. Just be sure to get at least a 400x. Better even a 700x. Another way is to go for real SSDs, which are currently getting into the same price sector. Use some not to cheap IDE-SATA adapter if needed.
It works quite well.
Geit
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Thanks, glad to hear it! I've been only using them for the past year and while I have found CF cards to be bus limited, SD cards are not; but then I've only used cheap ones. Due to the swap partition of OS 4.1, I've moved to an UW SCSI drive for it. As SSD prices have fallen I've played with one on my PCI SATA card plus a modern DVD-RW.
I have been using sandisk,transcend and kingston cf's on my amigas. my main amiga csppc has 2-sandisk 32Gb cf's and it pulls around 32MB/s on the csppc scsi with acard 7720UW's.. its been running for at least 8 years+ like this with no failures.
I've sold 1260 used transcend 80x 2Gb cards over the last years and not one has been returned as defective. not to say none failed,but i would think people would of told me for sure.
With cheap cards its a gamble . There are so many knockoffs on ebay i would estimate 40% are fakes at least. if its way way cheaper than you can find them for be suspicious. genuine cards have the numbers printed on the rear edge usually and can be verified from the mfg.
the problem with sd is its serial,while a cf is a true ide interface. i find sd generally slower than cf's..
mech
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hmmm, get thee swap space to a nunnery! erm, i mean, hard disk! if you value thy flash cells :)
in another point of view, swap is starting to get pointless with the amount of ram systems have available. i know there are machines out there to prove me wrong. but does a 8Gb+ Windows system need swap? why does a 512MB+ amiga need swap? it used to make sense to me when we were limited to 16/32MB maybe even to 4GB system ram.... but these days?
My old linux box had 4 GB RAM and I don't think the swap partition was ever touched, at all.
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Yeah but my A4000T is limited in OS 4.1 to 128MB of ram which, after loading workbench is then cut to half that. When it runs out of CSPPC memory it first hops to my 256MB ZorRam card, and when that is done to hard drive. While I can put a CF card on the IDE bus (damn slow compared to the CSPPC) to get a CF card on the SCSI bus (and only the CSPPC bus it really usable) takes 2 adapters (Acard to IDE then IDE to CF) which, when the speed is tested is much slower than CSPPC to SCSI UW hard drive.
Granted I use the CF cards for quick backups of boot partitions and such, I just wanted to know from this thread if over the next 27 years if I should archive my CF cards like I now do with my SCSI drives.
Geit: I've checked speed between a X266 and an X600 CF card and they are bus limited on the Amiga (CSPPC Wide SCSI bus) as is a SATA III SSD drive; it just so happens at this point in time a 120GB SSD is cheaper by far than even a CF card; hence the origin of my question on longevity and TRIM technology. We can't all work with electronics and computers for a living so questions arise that can't just be Googled
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Yeah but my A4000T is limited in OS 4.1 to 128MB of ram which, after loading workbench is then cut to half that. When it runs out of CSPPC memory it first hops to my 256MB ZorRam card, and when that is done to hard drive. While I can put a CF card on the IDE bus (damn slow compared to the CSPPC) to get a CF card on the SCSI bus (and only the CSPPC bus it really usable) takes 2 adapters (Acard to IDE then IDE to CF) which, when the speed is tested is much slower than CSPPC to SCSI UW hard drive.
Granted I use the CF cards for quick backups of boot partitions and such, I just wanted to know from this thread if over the next 27 years if I should archive my CF cards like I now do with my SCSI drives.
Geit: I've checked speed between a X266 and an X600 CF card and they are bus limited on the Amiga (CSPPC Wide SCSI bus) as is a SATA III SSD drive; it just so happens at this point in time a 120GB SSD is cheaper by far than even a CF card; hence the origin of my question on longevity and TRIM technology. We can't all work with electronics and computers for a living so questions arise that can't just be Googled
Well, something is wrong.Are you using SFS? FFS is horrible. I am getting 32MB/s+ on a sandisk card on 7720uw+ide cf adapter under os4. All cf adapters are not wired right,and your card /adapter needs to support dma. also are you running the scsi bus in synchronous mode? I dont know anyone who has attained 40MB/s on a csppc,but i've been close with 15K seagates with big buffers. I havent tried the latest cf's so it may run close with them as well.
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Ignore SFS, PFS3 is faster and has much better recovery tools if needed.
I get about 9MB/s out if a 30MB/s Sandisk CF card on my lowly 500+!
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I get 35 Mb/s with a 15k U320 Atlas but only 25 via ACard 7720UW (one of the 2 Mech sold me) with an IDE->CF adapter; the adapter is a generic off Amazon. Is there one that performs better? Oh same speed using an SSD via IDE->SATA. Slow as heck off the sii3114 SATA card.
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Another way is to go for real SSDs, which are currently getting into the same price sector.
I just put a 32GB 1.8 SSD in my A1200 :)
It came new/unopened/shipped (ebay) for $40 USD.
Used ones were even cheaper as 32GB is getting almost useless for the PC.
Works really well double-sticky taped to the top of the floppy drive.
I found out that also needed converter to go from SATA to micro SATA with a 5.0 to 3.3 voltage converter.
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I get 35 Mb/s with a 15k U320 Atlas but only 25 via ACard 7720UW (one of the 2 Mech sold me) with an IDE->CF adapter; the adapter is a generic off Amazon. Is there one that performs better?
As an IDE->CF Adapter is just a hardwire, you need a faster card or a faster computer.
The used adapter doesn´t matter. There is no electronic needed.
It is just an CF-IDE to FullSize-IDE Adaper. Same as for 9pin Serial to 25pin Serial or micro usb to usb. Just a different connector. Nothing more.
Geit
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Yes, that is what I thought.