Did somebody try a flash disk inside an A1200 ?

[Hyperspeed]

Show some love to Piru, he's a reservoir of technical knowledge. Peel some grapes and I'm sure he will be more conversational.

:laughing:

I have a SimpleTech 1GB flash drive in my A1200's standard IDE slot and whilst it boots fast, uses little power and makes no noise - with SysInfo it reports a mere 1.5MB/S transfer rate. This is pretty crap. The A1200's IDE port is capable of 2MB/S on an '060 system.

I heard that Compact Flash gradually degrades over time. The size becomes less as it 'self repairs' which is probably not a good thing for a permanent hard drive.

I'm surprised by how slow these flash drives are. Trouble is, battery backed SRAM would be extremely dangerous (just a slight disconnect from the power and your whole drive vanishes - this happened to me a lot on a Philips NiNO palm PC).

I don't think I'll be ditching my 3.5MB/S SCSI-2 hard disk (Asynch mode) completely yet, flash drives aren't ideal as a main multimedia drive. Good for quick booting projects, MP3 players or for gaming though.

[kidkoala]

Now i've got seconds thoughts over my order from Ebay the other day; two 2.5" to CF adapters, and two 2Gb CF cards.

Hearing you say that if my cd32 og laptop looses it's power for a mere second the whole drive will be deleted? (!)

I might want to invest in a UPS as well then to protect the data (sounds like an ironic investment in the cf-adapters/cards then after all;)

Will use one of them in my CD32+SX32 and one in my C= i486 Laptop..

[maffoo]

kidkoala wrote:

Hearing you say that if my cd32 og laptop looses it's power for a mere second the whole drive will be deleted? (!)

Flash memory isn't battery backed-up, so it will hold the data even when the computer loses power. Hyperspeed was referring to a different sort of memory I think, which is faster but needs power to refresh it.

[dbrads]

Piru,
 
 I agree with TjLaSer, be careful how you word replies, (we should all be careful because of the multi national membership of this site) anyone that takes the trouble to view/post on this site deserves to be helped (until they prove themselves unworthy!!)

I use a CF adaptor to copy files downloaded from the internet onto my PC to my Amigas, an excellent and quick way of doing so.

[rare_j]

Piru wrote:
What I'd really like to see would be some storage device based on PCM memory. Fast writing and unlimited write cycles. That'd be something...

That looks awesome.

"But we're still years away from seeing these things in products," Doller said. "Will we be selling these? Yes. When will the volume start crossing over and above our current flash output? Probably not until 2010 or so."

So who'll be the first to fit some of this in a classic amiga...?  :-)

[Hyperspeed]

Yeah, only the battery backed SRAM cards are dangerous for permanent data (like those PCMCIA cards). If you do want a small 2MB/4MB PCMCIA SRAM card I'd advise going for the Centennial self-recharge brand over the Mitsubishi Melcard (which needs a CR2032 change every now and then and would be more prone to impact-related data loss).

This type of storage method is so fast it can be used as 100ns FastMem whereas a flash drive would be way too slow for random access.

Piru: I don't quite understand what that PCM memory technology is about. Is it simply a hybrid SRAM/Flash fast writing process? If it's made by Intel it will be boycotted!

:-D

Anyway, let's keep this thread going. I'm going to put a flash drive in my CD32 too and I'll try and get benchmarks soon.

[dillinger]

reflex rant/

lol, who/what on Earth do AmigaHeretic et al think they are? The Official Internet-Forum Etiquette Standards Commission, or something? :roll: Nobody wants to hear your whiney opinions on how ppl should and shouldn’t respond to posts, thank you guys.

You better get used to Piru’s abrupt responses sometimes, because that’s just the way he is. People respond to things in different ways - it’s called having an individual personality – and nobody was attacking anybody personally. Funniest thing is that the response didn’t seem to bother FrenchShark himself in the SLIGHTEST - was like water off a duck's back to him (probably because he’s French (?) and they’re the masters of abruptness Yet these guys felt the need to be offended on his behalf. :lol:

The words: interfering busy and bodies, spring to mind

:ranting: /rant over

[kidkoala]

well I was talking about using cf-cards for booting from and storing data, like a hd, not for mem. use, of course.

it is said that the ide-bus in the 600 is @1,5MB/sec., but due to something, it's only capable of about half of that.
so cf-cards are more than fast enough, you don't need a 150x card, though big cards tend to be fast as well..

..and they are reliable, light, don't make noise etc.

I'm planning on buying the 4way IDE-bus and connecting two cf-adapters to it, making one of them accessible from outside in a custom-made slot to make transfers on cf from pc easy and swift (would look pretty sweet to:).

off topic: right now i'm having trouble with my a2000-keyboard that's connected to my aux-port on the cd32, it worked when i first installed os3.9 but now it doesn't at all; anyone?? (and remember i can't write commandos in cli to check if it's up or something, only mouseclicks;)

[LoadWB]

If the Tandem in my 2000 was bootable, I would consider putting a CF drive in the box.

Though, I have a Blizzard 2060 which has (from what I have read) the fastest SCSI interface available for the 2000.  It's narrow, but there's a plethora of 50-68 adapters around.  For that matter, I'm curious to try one of the narrow SCSI to IDE (or SATA) converters -- sure, they're US$70 or so, but aren't hobbies supposed to be expensive?

Hey, Piru... is there a *major* concern over AmigaOS versus the expected life-span of a CF card?

[kidkoala]

a couple of interesting notes about cf-cards:


lifespan:

flash memory supports only a limited number of Erase/Write cycles (about 300,000) before a particular "sector" can no longer be written. Typically the controller in a CompactFlash attempts to prevent premature wearout of a sector by mapping the writes to various other sectors in the card - a process referred to as wear leveling.

prices and fraud:

Compact Flash memory is not inexpensive and as such counterfeiting has become a problem. CF cards available at exceptionally low prices (particularly from online merchants, which call for return-shipping for any chance at a refund) should be viewed with skepticism. See http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?p=1029509288

Look at the Edge Stamp

Lexar, SanDisk, Toshiba and others stamp or engrave a series number onto the edge or rear of the card. The photo below shows the edge stamp from an older Lexar CompactFlash card.

Look at the Label

Some companies attach a label to the card that contains the series number, or print it right on the main label.

Look at the Internal Name

You may also see this or similar identifying information for both CompactFlash and SD in the file setupapi.log in the WINDOWS directory on the C: drive of a typical Windows XP installation

[Hyperspeed]

Well, for transferring from PC to Amiga they're a great idea. In fact you might be able to get a PCMCIA adaptor for the A600 to use compact flash cards (you might not need another IDE port).

I'm just wondering why people pick the compact flash card though and not SmartMedia, SD, XD or Memory Stick. Is it due to Aminet drivers?

Another advantage of solid state is that they don't need that much juice. A heavily expanded desktop unit could have trouble with external scandoublers, accelerators and a motorised hard disk - particularly when a PPC/BVision comes into things. They won't get bearing failure or overheat either.

Right now my Simpletech 1GB 2.5" (A1200 IDE) flash disk is reporting a SysInfo 'SPEED in BYTES/SEC: 1,077,304'. Not sure whether Fast File System slows down this benchmark but I have noticed the speed results lower as the drive fills up.



A Quantum Fireball 2GB 3.5" (SCSI-IV - ASynch) hard disk is reporting a SysInfo 'SPEED in BYTES/SEC: 3,419,269'. For multimedia or general DOpus file management this 3½ increase is very noticeable.

For main system use I found the 2MB/S rate of a 2.5" hard disk pretty slow so half this again and you can see a definite niche area of use for a flash drive.

The Amiga could make good use of such a drive but can you imagine using a Linux swapfile or Windows virtual memory on something this speed? You'd pull your hair out!

EDIT:
After reading the SSD Buyer's Guide I'm puzzled why I'm only getting 1MB/S. Maybe it's something to do with PIO Mode-0/1/2 or Mask/MaxTransfer.

[kidkoala]

i cannot use a pcmcia-cd solution since i have a pcmcia-ethernetcard connectet to it at all times, that's why a 4way ide-adapter might be a good solution.

and absolutely the low poser consumption of the cf is of great benefit, both my machines are higly upgraded and are in need of more power..


yes, as you state in your edit, it leads to the thought that i think a modern cf-card can match most classic amiga ide and scsi-bus's (maybe not the 3000, 4000?).

for me it's surely good enough since the a600 ide-bus is so slow, but I eagerly await to benchmark the cf-card on the cd32's
ide-bus (i guess it's about the same as in a 1200's ide-bus?).

[Hyperspeed]

by kidkoala:
for me it's surely good enough since the a600 ide-bus is so slow, but I eagerly await to benchmark the cf-card on the cd32's ide-bus (i guess it's about the same as in a 1200's ide-bus?).

It should be the same, the chip in the SX32 is supposed to replicate the A1200 features exactly ('Harry' I think it's called).

I would recommend one of those Simpletech drives though, they are slimline and have screws to go straight onto an A600/A1200 cradle or indeed the SX32's PCB.

Someone here on Amiga.org mentioned a 60GB 1.8" hard disk too which sounds really interesting!

Keep the ribbon short though, the SX32 docs say it is buffered but I've read about problems with longer ribbons to external drives. Ideally the A600/A1200 ribbon to the IDE header should be no longer than 2"/5cm.

[kidkoala]

Ok, nice to know about "Harry", hehe, one more in the c= chip-family...

about the 1.8" I know that you get these micro-hd's which fit right into the cf-slots, but these are actually just 1", you even get 0,85" drives that are the same (not memory cards, but drives. the 1" ones are also suprisingly cheap, you them @40$ on ebay for a 5gb.. (!) --->

"The Microdrive is a brand name for a miniature 1-inch hard disk designed to fit in a Compact Flash (CF) Type II slot. The release of similar drives by other makers has led to them often being referred to as 'microdrives'. However, 'microdrive' is not a genericized trademark and manufacturers other than IBM up to 2003 and Hitachi after do not officially refer to these drives as Microdrives. Some other companies, such as Sony, have licensed the name and sell re-branded versions.

These drives fit into any CompactFlash II slot; however, they may take more power than flash memory (up to 500 mA) and therefore may not work in some low-power devices (e.g. handheld computers). Nevertheless, they have some benefits over flash memory in terms of the way data is stored and manipulated. Microdrives which can store 4 GB or more must be formatted for a file system which supports this capacity, such as FAT 32 or NTFS, which may not be supported by older CompactFlash hosts."

here's some specs. on a hitachi-drive:

Microdrive 3K6  

 
 Feature/Function
 Benefits
 
Capacity
 6GB maximum capacity
 * 6000 digital photos (1MB each)
 
* 1.5 hours DV-quality MPEG-2 video, or
8 hours MPEG-4 video
 
* 1,500 - 3000 songs
 
Size
 42.8 x 36.4 x 5.0 mm
16g
 High-capacity, portable storage in a package the size
of a matchbook.
 
Reliability
 200G operating shock
2000G non-operating shock
 Exceptional ruggedness to withstand tougher
handling and improve portability
 
Interface
 CF+ Type II
IDE
 Flexibility to support embedded or removable designs
 
Performance
 Sustained data rate up to 9.4MB/sec
 30% better than prior generation
 
 


if the sx32 ide-bus is buffered, does that mean it is faster than the plain 600 bus? my ide-cable for the 600 is the 5cm type, i just didn't know that some of the reason is that it might give your trouble if it was longer..

[TjLaZer]

/rant on

@dillinger

OK well if we have to get used to abrubt responses then we shall all do it and resort to being a lame PC forum!  How fun would that be.  Then we can all get banned like Doomy!

/rant off

back to the topic at hang

How effective are those 2.5" IDE Flash drives?  They look neat!

[kidkoala]

read through the topic once more and you'll be enlightened i think

they are a few mb/sec. but they are limited to a few hundred thousand reads/writes before they can't be used anymore. meaning, i think, that a bigger drive, will last longer, because the filesystem will use those areas on the drive first, that are least used.