IDE Compact Flash adapters

[motorollin]

I'm looking at IDE compact flash adapters on eBay. They have a 40 pin male IDE connector and a compact flash socket.

The details on the unit say that it works with DOS, Linux etc so I'm guessing it doesn't require any drivers to work. It also says it is bootable. So I'm assuming that the device will be seen as a hard disk, rather than as a memory card?

I want to get one for my A1200 to use as a backup device. Anyone know if they will work? Can I boot from it? What about partitioning, do I just use scsi.device in HDToolBox like I would with a hard disk?

Thanks for any advice!

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moto

[orange]

it certainly can't be seen as memory since its connected to IDE port. I think it will behave just like HDD with VERY fast access time, based on what was said here before (unfortunately never used one myself). just don't use it for too frequent writing (bitmap) as flash ram has limited write cycles.
do a little search it has been extensively discussed before
 :-)

[alexh]

You can also use PCMCIA compact flash adapters. You require the driver written by Neil Cafferkey (see Aminet).

You could have that formatted in DOS and use it to exchange data between the Amiga and PC at high speed. (Cross DOS required on Amiga).

I dont think you can boot from them, but they make great backup devices and they are only a few € / £

[Effy]

Orange : the loading time from a CF card is slower than from a harddisc, so from one point it is slower. But a CF card has no heads that do the searching, no reorganizing or validating like the harddisc, so overall it is faster than a harddisc. Also drains much less power  :lol:

[boing]

Yes Flash RAM does have a limited lifespan.  In theory.  But in practice they had better work for a real real real real long time.  Lest a LOT iPud Shuffle, camcorder and digicam users are going to get pissed off.

[motorollin]

Thanks everyone. I've bought this, which according to the auction is fully IDE compliant. I'm hoping that means I can boot from it. For £3.50 including postage, I consider it disposable if it doesn't work

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moto

[Argus]

I have done this modification; it definitely works and is real real quiet.  Booting takes maybe a second.

[motorollin]

Coooool  :-)

As you can see the one I have bought is a backplate mounting one, so I plan to mount it on my D-Box. I am then going to format a flash card (will SFS work?) and just drag the entire contents of my hard disk on to the card, which should result in a bootable backup  :-D

--
moto

[jj]

Most of the mp3 players with large storgae capacity do not use solid state memory.  They use micro HDD's  so there this will not be an issue for ipod users etc.

[LawlessPPC]

would this boot faster than a scsi hardrive (SCSI II)BlizzPPCSCSI)

[Doobrey]

LawlessPPC wrote:
would this boot faster than a scsi hardrive (SCSI II)BlizzPPCSCSI)

Probably not, the bottleneck is still the A1200's IDE interface (~2.5MB/s).

@Argus, when you say it boots in a second, is that into Workbench?
 I can get 3.9 booted in about 6-7 secs on my CF card.

[motorollin]

7 seconds is impressive. What do you have loading on startup?

--
moto

[leirbag28]

@motorollin

Why not use your PCMCIA port with a Large Compact flash to backup? if your putting a Compact Flash on the IDE port that your Harddrive should be on......how will you back that up?

The only use for that CF to IDE adaptor is if you want to use the CF as your main HD to boot off of.


And Yes!  you can use 4ig PCMCIA compact flash cards on an A1200 or A600 as well as MicroDrives and Sony Memory stick, SD cards.MMC cards annd anything for Digital cameras you can think of.  Just get the proper PCMCIA adaptor and the Amiga drivers on Aminet.

[Argus]

@Doobrey

Seconds into Workbench 3.0.  sorry for any confusion.  Of course, 3.5 or 3.9 would take longer due to the new kickstart, etc.

[AmigaHeretic]

JJ wrote:
Most of the mp3 players with large storgae capacity do not use solid state memory.  They use micro HDD's  so there this will not be an issue for ipod users etc.

The ipod Nanos are solid state now, both the 2gig and 4 gig versions.  Only the devices, as you said, that have large capacity have HDs.  All the MP3 players out there that are 512mb or 1gig are solid state or course.  

Where I work (700 retail store chain in the US) we just got a memo about 3 weeks ago that, as a company, in the last 12 months we had spent 1.7 million dollars in 'shipping' charges sending ipods off for repair.

I would say the users with HDs and not flash memory have to worry.  HD's have a MUCH shorter life span in an Ipod than flash memory.  Imagine this, you are trying to copy 4 gig of files from one folder on your HD to another folder, all while jogging down the street with your A1200 under your arm.   I don't know who the idiot was that thought putting a laptop size HD in a portable device was a good idea, but he should be hung.  Never mind all the people that accidently drop their ipods while the HD is spining playing music.  

Solid state is going to last a lot longer in those sorts of applications.

AmigaGuy