CF Card - Which one to buy?

[sim085]

Hello,

I have been looking to buy a CF card for over two weeks now. However I really cannot understand which one to chose. I tried following the advise I got from here, by trying to find a list of Amiga compatible CF cards and also by checking the specifications of different CF cards. However I never found what I was looking for.

I was wondering if people could just post the brand and type of the CF card they use.

Also does anyone know if this CF card is Amiga compatible.
http://www.sandisk.com/Products/Item(1158)-SDCFH-002G-A11-SanDisk_Ultra_II_CompactFlash2GB.aspx

Regards,
Sim085

[amiga1260]

SanDisk works very well on PCMCIA and also on IDE2CF adapters for the Amiga.

[MozzerFan]

Hello,

Also does anyone know if this CF card is Amiga compatible.
http://www.sandisk.com/Products/Item(1158)-SDCFH-002G-A11-SanDisk_Ultra_II_CompactFlash2GB.aspx

Most people have no problems with the Sandisk Ultra II cards (both PCMCIA and IDE).

I use a sandisk uLtra II 4GB in my a4000 with a scsi-ide and cf-ide adapter.

I also use a sandisk ultra II 2 GB in my a1200 and a600 with no problems at all.

I only had problems with the Ultra II 2GB version in my GVP hd8+ (with a scsi-ide/cf-ide).
The sandisk ultra II would give me write errors, but a Toshiba 128 MB CF would work with no problems at all.

[sim085]

I only had problems with the Ultra II 2GB version in my GVP hd8+ (with a scsi-ide/cf-ide).

Did you try with more then one Ultra II 2GB card? What I mean is could the card you where using been defected.

[MozzerFan]

Did you try with more then one Ultra II 2GB card? What I mean is could the card you where using been defected.

No the card is not defective. It works like a charm in my a1200 now.

[Nlandas]

Hello,

I have been looking to buy a CF card for over two weeks now. However I really cannot understand which one to chose. I tried following the advise I got from here, by trying to find a list of Amiga compatible CF cards and also by checking the specifications of different CF cards. However I never found what I was looking for.

I was wondering if people could just post the brand and type of the CF card they use.

Also does anyone know if this CF card is Amiga compatible.
http://www.sandisk.com/Products/Item(1158)-SDCFH-002G-A11-SanDisk_Ultra_II_CompactFlash2GB.aspx

Regards,
Sim085

I'm just curious myself as well. CF seems to be a neat way to go for Amiga hard drive replacement. Since we don't need 1TB drives. So what about actually using a CF as a hard drive. Don't they wear out based on a maximum number of read/write cycles?

Wouldn't an industrial card last longer for this type of use?

Write/Erase endurance: 2,000,000 write/erase cycles
http://www.amtron.com/cfcard.htm

or

http://www.psism.com/industrialcf.htm

Wouldn't it also be more if the CF-IDE adapter was Amiga compatible and then the card was compatible with that CF-IDE adapter?

-Nyle

[sim085]

No the card is not defective. It works like a charm in my a1200 now.

... I was just hoping ... bought one from eBay before seeing your message. I'll see what happens. If it does not work then I'll try Toshiba.

[MozzerFan]

... I was just hoping ... bought one from eBay before seeing your message. I'll see what happens. If it does not work then I'll try Toshiba.

Don't know if you want to put it in a gvp hd8+ too, but if you do and you find that it gives you troubles , try
to put a card in it that is NOT a high speed card (like the Ultra II).
I guess the old 1 GB Sandisk ("low" speed, the ones with the blue and red logo, see http://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-SDCFB-1024-A10-Type-Retail-Package/dp/B00006AE3K)
would work too. I have no such a card, so I haven't tried this myself.

[klx300r]

+ 1 for Sandisk as they work great in my 1200 as both HD and in the PCMCIA slot :-)

[sim085]

Don't know if you want to put it in a gvp hd8+ too, but if you do and you find that it gives you troubles , try
to put a card in it that is NOT a high speed card (like the Ultra II).
I guess the old 1 GB Sandisk ("low" speed, the ones with the blue and red logo, see http://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-SDCFB-1024-A10-Type-Retail-Package/dp/B00006AE3K)
would work too. I have no such a card, so I haven't tried this myself.

Thank you for the tip. When it arrives I will try it out. If I have problems then I will try to swap with some who has a 1GB CF card.

Yep ... I need it for the GVP HD8+

[amigadave]

Interesting thread, makes me want to replace the hard drives inside my A1200/060, A600 and A500 w/GVP A530 (and lose the noisy fan that is failing inside the A530).

Maybe I will get a few IDE > CF adapters from one of the vendors at AmiWest 2009 in October.  I already have two PCMCIA > CF adapters for the A1200/060 & A600, but that is used mostly for transferring files from one computer to another.

[save2600]

Interesting thread, makes me want to replace the hard drives inside my A1200/060, A600 and A500 w/GVP A530 (and lose the noisy fan that is failing inside the A530).

Maybe I will get a few IDE > CF adapters from one of the vendors at AmiWest 2009 in October.  I already have two PCMCIA > CF adapters for the A1200/060 & A600, but that is used mostly for transferring files from one computer to another.

Be careful thinking all this should work hunky-dory with your A530, etc.! See my recent post Re: this stuff...

[satiropan]

on this same thread, I have just received my PCMCIA2CF adapter.
obviously it warks flawlessly with any CF I have on a notebook, but on my OS4.0 A1200 I have problems.
I have various CF
1 128MB
4 4GB
1 8GB
2 16GB
I have tried them as master with a CF2IDE, only one 4GB let me install OS4, but could not boot.
the others were not even seen or hid the cdrom (slave); the 128MB one worked OK with prezious tests with 3.1, but it's to small for OS4.
now I tried the PCMCIA2CF adapter, same story, none worked.
using cardprep, it says all the CF are SMI brand, only the 128MB is a Toshiba.
on all, exept the 128MB, it says there is an error, for the 128MB it says it is protected.
any advice?
thanx
S.

[Lockon_15]

@sim085
 
I struggled some 2 months to troubleshoot and find a working solution for my CF/A530 setup. To sum some valuable findings:
 
- get a cheap CF card on eBay. Limit search for volumes of 1-2Gb, older type with slow performance - avoid Ultra and Extreme editions. You'll find this affordable at few euros apiece. Purpose of this is to test compatibilty of your IDE2CF adapter and SCSI-IDE bridge.
 
- Faster CF cards (i.e. Ultra 3,4) are generally prone to induce trouble on SCSI-IDE bridges since a huge fraction of them are switched to non-true-IDE disk mode. For some series there is a switching utility (PCDOS based), but I won't recommend it, too much hassle.
 
- if your CF card can't be recognized on Amiga via HDInstTools, check both adapter and card in PC working setup. In my case I had a problem where that combo worked on PC, while failing on Amiga. Issue was located in IDE2CF adapter which lacked DMA support on correct pins. On the funny side, that was a quite expensive IDE2CF adapter (DeLock) and all my problems vanished when I replaced it with 2€ no-name Chinese counterapart. The best way to shoot on DMA compliant is to check pics for DMA labels (DMA signal also covers Vcc voltage on adapters). Another one is to avoid adapters with additional port (double CF), extra function LEDs and jumpers - go for a most "barebone" version.
 
- if above works, then I can recommend Sandisk CF someone already mentioned - the one with red and blue logo. Those can be snatched cheap on eBay, too. My primary A530 setup includes exactly that card, it works like charm. For more info go to Hardware/A500 gallery and check my pics.
 
Regards

[MozzerFan]

I tried the PCMCIA2CF adapter, same story, none worked.
using cardprep, it says all the CF are SMI brand, only the 128MB is a Toshiba.
on all, exept the 128MB, it says there is an error, for the 128MB it says it is protected.
any advice?
thanx
S.

Are you saying you use cardprep to use the CF card.
If so, it won't work that way. At least not under os3.9 (I don't have OS4)
You need compactflash.device (cfd.lha on aminet).
If the card is FAT-formatted, you also need fat95.
If you want to format it with an amiga filesystem, you must make a mountlist yourself. You can use giggledisk for this.