Sweet CF adapters

[Damion]

I picked up a few CF adapters for my desktop IDE amigas, and thought I'd share some info and a couple of pics.

Single slot adapter

Single slot adapter 2

Dual slot adapter

Datasheet w/product info here.

I ordered them directly from Mesa Electronics. I know there's nothing *too* special about a CF-IDE adapter, but the quality of these units is simply fantastic. They have push-button card ejectors, so if you wanted to nicely modify your A600 or A1200 case for easy swapping of cards, these would be the way to go.

The dual-slot adapter is going in my new A1200 desktop project (along with a PG upgraded Apollo 1260 and a Prelude 1200).

I configured a few cards using WinUAE, which made setup really easy. (I had to format the cards using my A600 first before WinUAE could recognize/do anything with them.) I am *very* pleased with the results. Room temperature operation and low power consumption are big pluses (especially for the accelerated A600.) Not like it was slow with a "real" drive, but bootup is like 2 1/2 seconds.

I'll post some more pics when everything is fully installed. Also, I have yet to try these with my GVP A530 + Acard setup... though I'm sure it will work fine.

cheers

 

edit -- BTW, I'm using PFS3 with the standard HDToolbox (WB 3.1 version) settings, and everything seems fine so far.

[Damion]

corsavert wrote:
So you use these instead of a conventional hard disk? Or just for moving data around? How does the CF card stand up to the continual read/write cycles of being used like a regular HD?

They're used in place of a hard disk, though it's also possible to use CF (and others) for data transfer via PCMCIA.
 
Reading has no effect on the life of the card. Write cycles do, which initially deterred me from the idea. However, after researching the topic a little, I came to the conclusion that I'd probably get 10 years of average, day-to-day use out of a CF card. More than enough for me, since realistically, my need is little more than the occasional game or demo. (The chances are high that the amiga would die before the CF card, LOL.)

If you require lots of storage space, or are running editing rigs/etc, standard drives are probably a better idea. BUT... for average use, silence, low power consumption, room tempature operation and near instantaneous seek time make them a great choice. (Raw read/write speed is the same as a normal HD, limited by the A600/A1200 IDE interface.)