Most bullet-proof drive solution?

[Heiroglyph]

Other than ancient drives, thumb drives or CF's, I don't know where to find a 4GB or less drive period.

Since I'm using less than 4GB of the drives, can this even be the issue?

[the_leander]

The constant has been OS3.9.  As I said, I thought this was the gold standard, newest to use with fixes for drive capacity.

I'll take stable over fast BTW.

I'd try using the original 3.1 scsi.device or seeing if there is a replacement on aminet for the one that shipped with 3.9, then go back and down tune your maxtransfer rates with it and see how that works before thinking about purchasing new kit.

Hope things work out for you!

[Heiroglyph]

What about one of DiscreetFX's 8GB SCSI SSD's that they use for Flyer video drives connected to either the 4000T SCSI or GVP A4060 SCSI?

That would be as fast as possible, especially on the 4060.

I've had zero problems in the past (including drive/file size) with Flyer SCSI drives so I'm tempted to use that for all work and have some small System drive on something bootable.

[TheGoose]

I have one of these 2GB jobbies:

http://www.pcconnectionexpress.com/1/1/2843759-transcend-information-transcend-2gb-44-pin-vertical-ide-flash-module-ts2gdom44v.html

I have no idea if they are really any different than a CF card. Mine works great as a hard drive. Other stuff on the page there might look at...

Fast? Well it faster than any moving parts ide drive will ever be, I'd confidently guess.

EDIT

I don't know what this stuff means really:
http://www.transcendusa.com/Press/index.asp?LangNo=0&axn=Detail&PrsNo=529

Transcend's IDE Flash Memory Module is small in size, measuring just 59.0mm x 27.3mm x 7.3mm (plastic case included in package) and has strong data retention. The 44-pin IDE Flash Memory Modules is ideal for use in harsher more demanding industrial environments where PCs, Set-Top Boxes and other industrial machines are used. In addition, with built-in ECC (Error Code Correcting) functionality Transcend's IFM ensures highly reliable data transfer and also supports Auto Sleep and Power-Down modes to save on energy.

Transcend insists on only using original SLC (Single-Level-Cell) NAND Flash chips in its IFM's, which have higher write speeds, lower power consumption, and superior durability compared with IDE Flash Memory Modules made with MLC (Multi-Level-Cell) chips. Transcend's 2GB IDE Flash Memory Modules are extremely reliable, have hi-speed data transfer rates and are the perfect choice for use in your industrial machines.

EDIT ...

Found some new kinds, "high speed" supposedly:

http://www.memorydepot.com/ssd/listcat.asp?catid=EDC800044
These must be better than CFs for some reason, more expensive.

[stefcep2]

I had read write errors with a CF-IDE.  It turned out that the 4Gig Sandisk compact flash card I had was a fake.  It would work, and then for no reason report read write errors.  And it would not work with another IDE device, even when the device was on a Zorro FastATA.

I could not get it to be recognized on the PCMCIA adaptor on an A1200 at all.  I though the A1200 had a defective PCMCIA.  Even bought the hardware PCMCIA hack. Win XP and Linux would detect it and write to it via USB, but when i used the PCMCIA adaptor on Win XP or Linux it would not be detected.  And then I checked the fake serial number and stickers.

I bought a Sandisk 4Gig Ultra II from a bricks and mortar store and I have no problems whatsoever.

This was on an A4000 with 3.9 and 3.1, and A1200 with 3.1.

[TheGoose]

Just posting to kick down a thread I don't like appearing on my Amiga forum community...

move along...

[Heiroglyph]

I'm hearing a lot of good things about CF in here, maybe I should take it more seriously.

Right now I think I'll try one of mechy's SCSI CF readers on the 4000T's SCSI controller with an updated scsi.device.

How does that sound?

Am I missing a gotcha somewhere?

[a1200]

I use these normally: link.

[johnklos]

I went through many drives in my A4000 due to heavy I/O, then came up with this solution, a dual 2.5" SATA drive hardware RAID-1 enclosure:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816111065&cm_re=sata_raid-_-16-111-065-_-Product

I'm using it with this SATA to IDE adapter which always works:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812119257&cm_re=sata_to_ide-_-12-119-257-_-Product

That could just be connected to the IDE bus, but mine is connected to an Acard UW-SCSI to IDE adapter. With two 500 gig, 7200 RPM Seagate drives, it's been happy for a year now.

If you have size issues, you're still MUCH better off with a new drive using only part of it than going with an old drive. I'm using the full 500 gig, but only because I'm running NetBSD. Here's how it shows up in dmesg:

cbiiisc0: target 0 now wide 1
cbiiisc0: target 0 now synchronous, period=50ns, offset=14
siopng sync: siop_sxfr 2e, siop_scntl3 95
sd0 at scsibus0 target 0 lun 0: disk fixed
sd0: 465 GB, 242255 cyl, 64 head, 63 sec, 512 bytes/sect x 976773168 sectors

[Crumb]

By degrade, do you mean slower, or r/w errors?

I mean r/w errors but I doubt you'll ever run into that problems.

This is a very scary subject.  Can I use my Deneb card to boot with the updates already in place from the start?

Do not use Deneb dma driver with A4000T! You must use PIO driver with A4000T in order to avoid problems (I think that even if you don't use scsi units you may run into problems too if you use deneb dma driver due to the way A4000T is designed).

I'm confident with SCSI and willing to buy new cables and active terminators just to be sure.

scsi works pretty well on classics, you won't regret it.

I'm just about to buy one of the GVP 4060-DT's from Software Hut assuming they still have them (I think I may have had some CPU card issues)

IIRC latests GVP versions like that one are very reliable and memory access is faster than cyberstorm mk3/ppc too.

Is that controller reliable?

I think you won't have any problem using FFS. IIRC there were some problems using other filesystems but only if you tried to boot the OS from them.

I'm pretty paranoid at this point, like I said, I'm not using a full 4GB with 3.9 on SCSI, IDE and USB right now and they are all disastrously bad.

Is the RAM of your accelerators/motherboards OK? is your cabling ok?*are the drives ok?

What scsi.device do you suggest using for the onboard 4000T?  I assumed 3.9 was the good stuff and that tweaking all the devices and libs would be a bad idea.  Sometimes you can tweak them into instability, you know?

3.9 is just a collection of patches (and some of them are not very reliable). The most interesting parts are newer workbench.library, icon.library, updated scsi.device and newer FFS. If you own a Deneb you can extract the 3.9 modules and update the ones you need like scsi.device (there's a nice patch on Aminet done by Chris Hodges, the author of Poseidon), once you have updated the files put them into Deneb's flashrom.

Do you know what I should use for the GVP 4060?

An ide hd connected trough an IDE-SCSI adapter and ROM3.1 with the few interesting 3.9 parts (workbench.library, icon.library, filesystem.resource, scsi.device -and a4000T scsi device if you use A4000T-, ffs and perhaps updated shell). Skip 3.9 Reaction preferences when it's possible too.

Dump AmiDock and use an updated ToolsDaemon, it's faster, more comfortable and overall better.

[Heiroglyph]

Do not use Deneb dma driver with A4000T! You must use PIO driver with A4000T

I understand that one, I hit it some time ago.

IIRC latests GVP versions like that one are very reliable and memory access is faster than cyberstorm mk3/ppc too.  I think you won't have any problem using FFS. IIRC there were some problems using other filesystems but only if you tried to boot the OS from them.

That's what I have been hearing unfortunately.  It would just be SO awesome to have a new (refurb I think , but still) CPU/RAM/SCSI in the system that I could count on.  No matter what I buy used, I just wouldn't have the same confidence.

Plus it would just be nice to get that warm fuzzy feeling that new hardware gives you

I'm very tempted to boot from FFS and keep my work on SFS or PFS just to get the new CPU card.

Is the RAM of your accelerators/motherboards OK? is your cabling ok?*are the drives ok?

Hard to say, but I won't say I trust it.

I have removed all RAM from the CPU card, tested, then from the motherboard and retested and the problem persists either way.

I've also used multiple CPU cards, but I don't trust those either.  As I said, the one with seemingly stable transfers had ramlib guru's or failure to boot, even without onboard ram.

Thanks again for all the suggestions.

[nicholas]

All those adapters seem pretty scary, but if it works...

I tried an IDE to SATA but I can't get it to recognize on any of my systems.  Probably just not a compatible adapter.

I did give SFS a shot, that didn't work out any better than FFS from what I could tell.  If anything went wrong, I had trouble accessing the drive too.

Is PFS more reliable?  Is it painful to set up?

It's no more difficult to set up than SFS really, it is also very fast too.

[nicholas]

I've tried a multitude, so just combine these options...
A4000T scsi
A4000T ide
A4000D ide
Quickpak 060 desktop version with scsi
Warp Engine 3040 scsi
Deneb USB (DMA and PIO, ZIII and ZII)
Misc. ide drives, 120GB-200GB
Misc. scsi drives, 9GB-72GB
4GB USB thumb drives
USB-sata enclosures with 80-250GB 2.5" and 3.5" drives
Normally a ~1.7GB or less System, no more than 1.7GB Work.

The constant has been OS3.9.  As I said, I thought this was the gold standard, newest to use with fixes for drive capacity.

This was in 5 Amigas (3 4kD, 2 4kT) with 3 CPU and SCSI cards.

Closest yet was the Warp Engine SCSI.  It copied far more files without issue, from one old scsi drive to another new SCSI, but it's seems to have developed RAM and heat issues.

The Warp Engine HD also included an OS3.9 that was NOT installed by me.  I have no idea what was done to it.

I fear screwing up that drive by installing my 060 and other libraries on it so I duplicated it and tried with two other controllers and CPU cards with no better results.

Of them all, the Deneb/thumbdrive combo felt fastest in use, but was no more reliable.

I'll take stable over fast BTW.

3.9 with Boing Bags 1, 2 and 3 is reliable on all my machines, BB4 is good too but is still a WIP.

[mousehouse]

I have had no problems (ah well, not scsi/disk related) on both my A4000D or A3000D. In all cases I only used SCSI because it performs really well. I used many different controllers including the Cyberstorm PPC, mk2, WarpEngine 4040 and the onboard A3000 SCSI controller, both old and new chip version.

I suspect there might be something b0rked in your install, maybe the best way forward is first to remove additional hardware in your system and reinstall. Just go with CPU accelerator + RAM + SCSI + DENEB + Video card. That should be a working combo...

What I did was to go from a clean 3.1 (just floppies with Picasso96 and IDEfix) to 3.9, then added BB1 and 2. I can copy for hours without issues, on both machines. Not tried BB3 and 4 yet, and the 3000 gives a recoverable alert at bootup, probably from an FFS related update somewhere but works fine otherwise.

For backups I use network and USB. As USB flashdrives are quite cheap I use a set of them, but I could also use an external USB drive. I wrote a 5-line crappy bug-ridden instable script that just LHA's my complete system drive to an archive file on the USB stick and optionally network drive (FTP).

edit:
As a system drive I just got two Seagate Savvio 2.5" 10K SCA drives from Ebay for about $25 each. They hardly make any sound and are quite fast I think, probably faster than the SCSI bus can handle anyway. Haven't had time to test or try them yet beside putting power on them to test. I wanted to go the SATA - SCSI way but $150 for an adapter is a little too much for me.

[mousehouse]

Sidenote, stability problems can also come from old/bad 68060 libraries... You might try to get the set from here: http://phase5.a1k.org/index.php?driverslibraries

One symptom can be that all is well except for your disks which fail... sounds a little too familiar to me...

credits: "rayon" at the Dutch Amiga site pointed this out to me...

[Crumb]

Using a PSU that gives a lot of power at exactly +5v is a good idea too. Use a multimeter to check it out.