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Author Topic: Amiga, CF, and SSD  (Read 2184 times)

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Offline LoadWBTopic starter

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Amiga, CF, and SSD
« on: July 31, 2008, 04:08:27 AM »
So the world is abuzz about SSD, or Solid State Drive, technology.  This is similar to the CF cards we are fitting into our beloved boxes to provide an alternative to classic platter-based hard drives.

So any thoughts on using these with the Amiga?  Anyone tried yet?  So far I can only find SATA SSDs, but I would think that IDE or PATA drives are somewhere to be found, if not around the corner for legacy laptops and desktops.

[EDIT] A little more digging finds some PATA 32GB drives for around US$160.  Seems pretty much on-par with CF of the same capacity.

[Another EDIT] MLC (multi-level cell) drives are obviously less expensive than SLC (single-level cell) because they offer less performance.  But on the Amiga, what's that going to mean to us?
 

Offline Sparky

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Re: Amiga, CF, and SSD
« Reply #1 on: July 31, 2008, 04:27:28 AM »
They'll probably work but only benefit an old Amiga would see is seek time .. poor old interfaces the amig has can't stress a normal hardisk at the best of times :-)

Would be a waste of money really.

Mark
 

Offline mfilos

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Re: Amiga, CF, and SSD
« Reply #2 on: July 31, 2008, 06:28:59 AM »
I don't think that money is the only difference :)

As far as I know SSD drives are more hardcore when it comes to  limited reading/writing cycles that iirc all CF cards have. SSD drives have 100.000h work cycle.

I saw one guy (i think it was from a.org) that upgraded his 1200 BPPC with SSD drive and worked like a charm. Tbh I don't find a reason not to.
If someone can afforn SSD drive I think it would be a nice addition to his/hers beloved Amiga
Visit my Amiga blog here
- A600: Vampire V3, 128MB, A604n, 16GB CF, Indivision ECS, RapidRoad, MAS-Player + Custom Audio Mixer (internal), HxC SD + Slim floppy (internal)
 

Offline kreciu

Re: Amiga, CF, and SSD
« Reply #3 on: July 31, 2008, 07:32:14 AM »
Hi, I'm using a CF card's and I'm very happy. For Amiga 4Gb or 8 Gb is really enough (or you have HUGE collection of mp3 or avi files).

The life time of CF card today is really good e.g. :

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820211189

See the MTBF = 1,000,000 hours. This will work fine with Vista ;)

MTBF:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mean_time_between_failures

I hope this will work :). I will see soooooon.

PS. SSD is way to expensive for Amiga, and we really don't need 36Gb :). For the price of the cheapest SSD you can buy a 4-8Gb CF + FastATA and be really  happy...
Re-A1200inE/BOX/3.2/AmigaOS3.2/TF1260@66Mhz/256Mb/MediatorTX/R9200SE/SpiderUSB/LAN/SB128/16Gb-CF/DVD-ROM/FDD-HD
 

Offline Atheist

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Re: Amiga, CF, and SSD
« Reply #4 on: July 31, 2008, 10:23:12 AM »
I can't find CF to SCSI 1 adapters anywhere, new that is. I missed the boat. :-(((((((

Using a CF on an Amiga, it's not like the Amiga is using a swap file, and reading writing the same cells every 10 seconds. Who has turned on their Amiga 100,000 times? Not too likely.

Besides at $20 or less for 4 Gigs, throw it away after 2 years! Don't take any chances.
\\"Which would you buy? The Crappy A1200, 15 years out of date... or the Mobile Phone that I have?\\" -- bloodline
So I guess that A500, 600, 1000, 2000, CDTV, CD32, are pure garbage then? Thanks for posting here.
 

Offline ZeBeeDee

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Re: Amiga, CF, and SSD
« Reply #5 on: July 31, 2008, 11:02:55 AM »
IDE SSD's can be found here

Straight forward drop-in replacements ... a very good alternative to CF cards and interfaces.

For the past 2 months, I've been using one of the 256mb units partitioned as Workbench: and Work: and thus far cannot fault it. The loading speed is excellent with ver3.1 Workbench loading just a shade faster (by my reckoning) than the same using a CF card setup.

At the end of the day, the real mitigating points is setup time & cost.

A CF card setup can be a right pain in the butt to get working but cheap to buy the parts, whereas - The SSD isn't cheap compared to the CF setup but oh so easy - just prep and format like a standard HHD.

IMHO whatever way you wish to go ... it's a winner!  :-)
To err is human ... to BOING divine!

[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
 

Offline darksun9210

Re: Amiga, CF, and SSD
« Reply #6 on: July 31, 2008, 11:06:01 AM »
hey atheist,
you need some SCSI to IDE bridges. vesalia, and softwarehut have them - i haven't checked amigakit recently, so not sure if they have any in stock.
then you need an IDE to compact flash adapter.

IDE to SATA adapters work too if you can only get SATA SSD's
but as mentioned. why do you really need more than 4/8Gb? thats a fat OS partition, and a shedload of Whdloads, with space for apps, and relevant data

and seek time (and silence) would be the only benfits of a SSD. and compact flash is cheaper and far less stressed with an amiga install, than a linux or windows build on it.
there are no hard disk controllers on the amiga that could stress a good compact flash card, but seek time would be a bonus to all machines regardless of CPU and controller type.

don't underestimate silence. a quiet machine leads to a much more pleasent working/playing environment than an a dying 6Gb 2.5" IBM travelstar screaming away. i'd much rather fire up my 030/CF based 1200, than my fan cooled PPC/HD loaded machine... except i like the 1x1 detail on XTR ;)

A500, A600, A1200x3, A2000, A3000, A4000 & a CD32.
and probably just like the rest of you, crates full of related "treasure" for the above XD
 

Offline kreciu

Re: Amiga, CF, and SSD
« Reply #7 on: July 31, 2008, 11:46:06 AM »
Hi, I don't think that installing a CF-IDE interface is a pain :). Sure it's good to use a "tested" interface with Amiga, but technically ANY interface should work fine.

My old OS3.1 is recognizing a CF "hard drive", without any updates, I partitioned my 4Gb CF card-HDD into three partitions, using standard, old HDToolBox from OS3.1. It was detected as a CF harddrive from 2007 (all info about CF was read properly). (Installation from floppy disc, starting from "Install Disc" ;).

Bootting time of A1200 on standard IDE interface is almost instant :).

I really don't see reason for buying a SSD harddrive today for Amiga. Amiga on standard interface will not use 40mb/s or 120 mb/s or... this will be 1.7mb/s or MAYBE 8Mb/s with FastATA (which is great for Ami).

Today ANY CF is more than 16Mb/s fast, and this is CHEAP, CF interface are also not expensive. For $40 you can have great HDD for Amiga.

For PC I can use a speed of SSD, but... different story ;).

After changing old 8Gb HDD into my CF-HDD (4Gb) I will never come back to old noise, heavy, crappy HDD... I will backup my data (copy to other CF) and see how long I can use it. If card will dye fast I will buy next one for $10 :D.

Have a fun with CF-IDE interfaces!!! :).

Re-A1200inE/BOX/3.2/AmigaOS3.2/TF1260@66Mhz/256Mb/MediatorTX/R9200SE/SpiderUSB/LAN/SB128/16Gb-CF/DVD-ROM/FDD-HD
 

Offline ZeBeeDee

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Re: Amiga, CF, and SSD
« Reply #8 on: July 31, 2008, 12:08:40 PM »
Quote

It was detected as a CF harddrive from 2007 (all info about CF was read properly). (Installation from floppy disc, starting from "Install Disc" ;).


Now that's what I like to see (on with the asbestos underwear - it might get a bit fiery here soon lol) ... somebody who actually reads the manual  :lol:  :lol:  :lol:  :lol:  :lol:
To err is human ... to BOING divine!

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Offline stefcep2

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Re: Amiga, CF, and SSD
« Reply #9 on: July 31, 2008, 12:13:32 PM »
The A1200 ide interface is often canned for being slow but stick a compact flash card extreme 2 and you'll really appreciate how fast it can go compared to the IDE drive.  Boot time is under 5 seconds and icons appear almost instantly.  Sure if you were to benchmark the interface it would be poor compared to todays' interfaces, but amiga files are generally much much smaller so its nowhere near as bad as you might think. Actually, damned quick if you ask me.
 

Offline ZeBeeDee

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Re: Amiga, CF, and SSD
« Reply #10 on: July 31, 2008, 12:25:52 PM »
It's not the speed, it's what you do with it that counts  :-D
To err is human ... to BOING divine!

[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
 

Offline Atheist

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Re: Amiga, CF, and SSD
« Reply #11 on: July 31, 2008, 12:46:15 PM »
Hi darksun9210,

Thanks for that info. SCSI 1 to CF used to be available, but hey, who still uses SCSI 1 but us fools, huh?


That is AMAZING, ~5 seconds, and remember, most of that time is actually the computer running through diagnostics, so if you even doubled the actions in startup-sequence, it would boot in SIX seconds. Man windos is soooooo lame.

Amiga is really a genuine computer.

We'll be here 10 years from now!

Revel in the revival! Long live NatAmi!!!!!!!!!!!!
\\"Which would you buy? The Crappy A1200, 15 years out of date... or the Mobile Phone that I have?\\" -- bloodline
So I guess that A500, 600, 1000, 2000, CDTV, CD32, are pure garbage then? Thanks for posting here.
 

Offline derringer3

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Re: Amiga, CF, and SSD
« Reply #12 on: July 31, 2008, 01:22:00 PM »
I recently playing around some cf to ide adapter and sd to ide adapter, but i cannot find it to useful.
By the way i tried to install os4 to it.

Reasons:

First cf-ide adapter (40 pin) I can't install it because then i can't use my DVD-RW drive. I have an ide splitter, but my mediator is blocked its way, so this is not usable.

Seconf cf-ide adapter. (44pin) I put an 44-to 40 pin adapter to my amiga, then connected my dvd-rw with a standard ide cabel as a slave unit. On the master side i put another 40 to 44 pin adapter and connect the 44 pin cf adapter to it. And put a Kingstone 133x 4GB flash drive.

So i tried to install os4 to it. With SFS i always get an sfs block id error randomly after 10 minutes of copying files. So i couldn't isntall os4 to it. Anyway its copied the files about 9-10 minutes to the cf card. My 80GB samsung do the same about 12-14 minutes.

If i Put FFS on it it is massively slower, and i get checksum errors.

Third adapter. (IDE to SD) I tried this with normal sd cards. One of my stone aged 128MB and a new 2GB model. The 128MB was quiet slow (the install was about 3 Hour!) Of course i need to delete some files 'cause the os4 demand more than 150mb free space.
THe 2GB working, but the install was about 40 minutes so i don't want to check it further.

SO if i can correctly install an amiga os to my cf card it will be some benefit, but currently i Can't.

Any recommendation?

Amiga 500: 68030@14MHz/68882@40MHz/ 5.5MB RAM/80MB HDD/Delfina FE Sound card/Kickstart 3.1/OS 3.1

Macmini 10,1 PPC 1.58GHz, 1GB Ram, 80GB HDD 5400rpm, Ati Radeon 9200/32MB, , MorphOs 3.1

PowerBook 15" PPC 1.67GHz, 2GB Ram, 250GB HDD, ATI 9700/128MB, MorphOS 3.1
 

Offline stefcep2

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Re: Amiga, CF, and SSD
« Reply #13 on: August 01, 2008, 12:34:44 PM »
Quote

Atheist wrote:
Hi darksun9210,

Thanks for that info. SCSI 1 to CF used to be available, but hey, who still uses SCSI 1 but us fools, huh?


That is AMAZING, ~5 seconds, and remember, most of that time is actually the computer running through diagnostics, so if you even doubled the actions in startup-sequence, it would boot in SIX seconds. Man windos is soooooo lame.

Amiga is really a genuine computer.

We'll be here 10 years from now!


Revel in the revival! Long live NatAmi!!!!!!!!!!!!


And thats with magicmenu, magic workbench, tool manager toolsdaemon and executive all loading at startup.  if i went for a vanilla 3.1 with 4 colors it would be even quicker.  back in the day when i had never used a PC, only my A1200 running a "large" 1.7gig 3.5 in hardrive, i used to hear about windows users complaining about their boot times.  I thought, gees, these guys must want their systems to go REALLY fast, thinking windows booted up as fast as my A1200.  Little did I know..