Re: Looking for an IDE simulator
Technology wise, there is an inherent limitation on the number or writes with the SSD design. While it is not as simple to calculate as a mechanical system, it does have a limitation. I don't know the exact number with the current technology, earlier products had write life times in the tens and hundred of millions of writes. bb On Sun, Aug 30, 2020 at 1:38 PM Peter Corlett via cctalk wrote: > > On Sun, Aug 30, 2020 at 11:02:50AM -0500, Jules Richardson via cctalk wrote: > [...] > > I found it next to impossible to find information on what - if any - > > technology a particular SSD uses to extend lifespan; while manufacturers all > > compete on things like capacity and speed, very few of them seem interested > > in telling us how long their product might last. > > The warranty duration is a good starting point. If it's the absolute legal > minimum (i.e. two years in the EU) then that tells you all you need to know. >
Re: Looking for an IDE simulator
On Sun, Aug 30, 2020 at 11:02:50AM -0500, Jules Richardson via cctalk wrote: [...] > I found it next to impossible to find information on what - if any - > technology a particular SSD uses to extend lifespan; while manufacturers all > compete on things like capacity and speed, very few of them seem interested > in telling us how long their product might last. The warranty duration is a good starting point. If it's the absolute legal minimum (i.e. two years in the EU) then that tells you all you need to know.
Re: Looking for an IDE simulator
On Sun, Aug 30, 2020, 10:03 AM Jules Richardson via cctalk < cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote: > On 8/28/20 12:40 PM, Al Kossow via cctalk wrote: > > Also, I discovered recently that there is a maximum number of hours > > measured in years on SSDs and systems will start throwing SMART > > errors when that is exceeded. I have a few doing that now on systems > > with minimal writes but lots of hours. > > > > There are long discussions elsewhere of the dangers of using > non-industrial > > rated CFs and SDs in storage applications. > > I found it next to impossible to find information on what - if any - > technology a particular SSD uses to extend lifespan; while manufacturers > all compete on things like capacity and speed, very few of them seem > interested in telling us how long their product might last. > Most SATA and NVMe SSDs have a PBW or DWPD number that gives you an indication of how long it will last. These numbers are usually normalized to a JEDEC workload. From that you can often extrapolate to your workload if you know it well enough... It is one of the things I evaluate for Netflix's CDN SD and CF cards almost never do unless they claim industrial use. Ditto USB sticks, but with more industrial models available. Warner >
Re: Looking for an IDE simulator
On 8/28/20 12:40 PM, Al Kossow via cctalk wrote: Also, I discovered recently that there is a maximum number of hours measured in years on SSDs and systems will start throwing SMART errors when that is exceeded. I have a few doing that now on systems with minimal writes but lots of hours. There are long discussions elsewhere of the dangers of using non-industrial rated CFs and SDs in storage applications. I found it next to impossible to find information on what - if any - technology a particular SSD uses to extend lifespan; while manufacturers all compete on things like capacity and speed, very few of them seem interested in telling us how long their product might last.
Re: Looking for an IDE simulator
I haven't worked on it in a while due to work commitments. But there is this: https://www.retrotronics.org/netpi-ide/ Though I've recently updated the design to use an iCE40, open toolchain, and changed the form factor to be more of a module. I need another board spin to make more progress and that is searching for time in my schedule to compelte. -Alan On 2020-08-28 12:07, Noel Chiappa via cctalk wrote: After having a run of almost half a dozen IDE hard drive failures recently in a short period of time (on my older desktops which use them, I've decided that I should see if there's an IDE emulator (using SD cards) available I could switch to. (I'm not sure why I had so many failures in such a short period; I can only conclude that they're too old now, and reaching the end of their service lives. So soes anyone have one (or more) they can recommend? (IDE simulators only; I don't want to have to mess around changing anything more than I _absolutely_ have to)? I did find these guys: http://store.mesanet.com/index.php?route=product/category=74_64 in an online search - the CFADPTHD seems like it's close to what I'd want, except it's Compact Flash; I'd have preferred SD but I guess converting their interface to IDE is more work. Noel
Re: Looking for an IDE simulator
On 8/28/20 1:51 PM, David Bridgham via cctalk wrote: > On 8/28/20 4:00 PM, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote: > >> Plenty of code libraries out there. Why dink around when silicon is >> cheap? MCUs are everywhere; in many cases cheaper than discrete logic. > > > Might have been better but I had the FPGA there anyway for other reasons > so I just connected a few pins to the SD card and started writing code. I'll add tangentially that an MCU can not only give you full-4-bit width SDHC access, but also has a lot of extra goodies, such as USB OTG and even ethernet built on. Goven modern MCUs, I don't think I'd even consider using programmable logic for this particular task. --Chuck
Re: Looking for an IDE simulator
On Fri, 28 Aug 2020 at 18:07, Noel Chiappa via cctalk wrote: > > After having a run of almost half a dozen IDE hard drive failures recently in > a short period of time (on my older desktops which use them, I've decided that > I should see if there's an IDE emulator (using SD cards) SD (and the related MMC, now obsolete, and the many subtypes of SD such as SDHC, SDIO, SDXC, SDUC etc.) is a complex multiplexed protocol. MMC used 1 pin, original SD used 4, some of the newer ones use 8, etc. But CF card _are_ EIDE. The interface is the IDE interface. Only a conversion of connector is needed, no controller electronics at all. CF cards are an old standard now, but professional photographers still use them, and high-end digital cameras use them -- partly because of the large storage capacity but also, I suspect, because they are easier to handle in a hurry, or in suboptimal conditions. SD cards are too small to manipulate easily wearing gloves, and MicroSD cards can be lost in a decent carpet. So my advice is: don't even consider SD. Use CF. Convertors from CD to 44-pin 2.5" hard disk connector and to 40-pin desktop connector are widespread and very cheap. CF cards with capacities in megabytes are $10 or under. Cards with capacities in low numbers of gigabytes are only a little more. You can get cards in the 256GB range now, for a few hundred bucks. I think you'll find it much easier -- and cheaper -- to interface CF cards to EIDE than any variant of SD, which is probably going to involve multiple convertors and controllers: micro-SD to SD, then maybe to SATA to PATA, and associated points of failure etc. -- Liam Proven – Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk – gMail/gTalk/gHangouts: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Flickr: lproven – Skype: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 – ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
Re: Looking for an IDE simulator
On 8/28/20 4:00 PM, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote: Plenty of code libraries out there. Why dink around when silicon is cheap? MCUs are everywhere; in many cases cheaper than discrete logic. Might have been better but I had the FPGA there anyway for other reasons so I just connected a few pins to the SD card and started writing code.
Re: Looking for an IDE simulator
> On Aug 28, 2020, at 3:31 PM, Warner Losh via cctalk > wrote: > > >> On 8/28/20 1:10 PM, Paul Koning wrote: >> >> ... >> One oddity I remember from a decade ago is that it has a high speed mode >> where the clock speed is doubled. That's not strange. What's strange is >> that when you do this, the device switches from clocking data on the rising >> edge to clocking on the falling edge, or the other way around, I don't >> remember which. Fortunately I wasn't the hardware designer who had to cope >> with all that strangeness. > > I thought it was going from SPI mode to MMC mode that did this, not the > double clocking nor the 1bit to 4bit bus steps. It's been over a decade, but I'm pretty sure that 1 lane to 4 lane mode is just a width change. But when we started using 50 MHz capable cards and wanted to support those, I learned about that clock edge changeover. Both are 4 lanes wide, and the fast devices also support the slower clock and I believe initially come up in that mode. So you end up issuing a "go fast" command and as part of that you have to tell the FPGA to switch its latches to the other mode, and you do this dance carefully so you don't see any false error indications due to the latching mode change. paul
Re: Looking for an IDE simulator
> On Aug 28, 2020, at 1:40 PM, Al Kossow via cctalk > wrote: > > On 8/28/20 10:10 AM, Paul Koning via cctalk wrote: > >> SD is a packet based storage device on a serial interconnect > You really do need SMART monitoring on solid-state storage > which may or may not exist in the adapters. SSDs will silently > fail if they run out of sectors to write to. Yes, if they wear out. But the lowest I have seen is around 100 writes per sector, which means that once you've written 100x the device capacity total (times the "write amplification" which depends on write size patterns) you'd start to consume spare sectors, and you don't have a problem until those run out which is still some time later. That said, I have seen it happen, with very small CF cards and software that was, by a coding slip-up, writing every few minutes non-stop. > Also, I discovered recently that there is a maximum number of hours > measured in years on SSDs and systems will start throwing SMART > errors when that is exceeded. I have a few doing that now on systems > with minimal writes but lots of hours. That's curious. There may be a read retention time limit, though I think that applies only if the device is powered down. When powered up, the device firmware takes care of refreshing the sectors, somewhat like memory refresh but with refresh cycles of weeks or months. > There are long discussions elsewhere of the dangers of using non-industrial > rated CFs and SDs in storage applications. Good advice for serious work especially if you're running heavy workloads. I wouldn't worry about it much for my home firewall. But the servers running bitsavers.org are an entirely different matter. One way to look at it: if you are, or should be, using RAID, you should be using industrial grade SSDs. paul
Re: Looking for an IDE simulator
On 8/28/20 10:07 AM, Noel Chiappa via cctalk wrote: After having a run of almost half a dozen IDE hard drive failures recently in a short period of time (on my older desktops which use them, I've decided that I should see if there's an IDE emulator (using SD cards) available I could switch to. It's not an SD card per say. At least not directly. But I am very intrigued by the idea of using a Raspberry Pi to bit-bang IDE. Link - Raspberry Pi Gets PATA/IDE Drive Via GPIO Header | Hackaday - https://hackaday.com/2020/08/10/raspberry-pi-gets-pata-ide-drive-via-gpio-header/ -- Grant. . . . unix || die
Re: Looking for an IDE simulator
On 8/28/20 12:13 PM, David Bridgham via cctalk wrote: > On 8/28/20 1:10 PM, Paul Koning wrote: > >> SD is a packet based storage device on a serial interconnect, >> minimally one lane wide but it can also be four lanes (and that's >> typically how you use it). Apparently it starts out in a SPI >> compatible mode, interesting. Also, SD requires a rather complex >> handshake at power up to get to the point where you can do I/O. > > > I've implemented the SPI protocol in a little micro-coded engine on an > FPGA and have considered upgrading it to the standard interface over one > to four lanes except it looks like the SD licensing says I'm not > supposed to do that without paying them a bunch of money. And yeah, it > took me a while to work through the initialization dance and it still > fails from time to time (and from SD card to SD card). I use the 4 bit SDO when accessing SDHCs, adjusting speed according to whatever the card says. It's really easy with many microcontrollers. For example, the very inexpensive STM32F4 series implements it natively, computes CRC automatically and does it all in double-buffered DMA mode. Runs at around 180MHz too with lots of GPIOs and a bunch of SRAM. Plenty of code libraries out there. Why dink around when silicon is cheap? MCUs are everywhere; in many cases cheaper than discrete logic. --Chuck
Re: Looking for an IDE simulator
On 8/28/20 3:31 PM, Warner Losh wrote: There's some other speed increase (UHS) that comes along with also dropping from 3.3V down to 1.8V. I don't know how to program FPGAs to do that or even know if they can. I thought it was going from SPI mode to MMC mode that did this, not the double clocking nor the 1bit to 4bit bus steps. I knew it wasn't either the double clocking or using all four lanes, I just didn't know what it was called and was too lazy to dig out the SD protocol spec. But now I pulled up the spec and it's saying that it's UHS cards that support the modes that use the lower voltage and there are seven bus speed modes: DS (Default Speed) HS (High Speed) SDR12 SDR25 SDR50 DDR50 SDR104 DS and HS use 3.3V signaling while the SDR and DDR modes use 1.8V. Then UHS-II adds a couple more modes. SPI mode is separate from all of this, something just tossed in there for us hobbyists to play around with.
Re: Looking for an IDE simulator
On Fri, Aug 28, 2020 at 1:14 PM David Bridgham via cctalk < cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote: > On 8/28/20 1:10 PM, Paul Koning wrote: > > > SD is a packet based storage device on a serial interconnect, minimally > one lane wide but it can also be four lanes (and that's typically how you > use it). Apparently it starts out in a SPI compatible mode, interesting. > Also, SD requires a rather complex handshake at power up to get to the > point where you can do I/O. > > > I've implemented the SPI protocol in a little micro-coded engine on an > FPGA and have considered upgrading it to the standard interface over one > to four lanes except it looks like the SD licensing says I'm not > supposed to do that without paying them a bunch of money. And yeah, it > took me a while to work through the initialization dance and it still > fails from time to time (and from SD card to SD card). > > However ... > > > > One oddity I remember from a decade ago is that it has a high speed mode > where the clock speed is doubled. That's not strange. What's strange is > that when you do this, the device switches from clocking data on the rising > edge to clocking on the falling edge, or the other way around, I don't > remember which. Fortunately I wasn't the hardware designer who had to cope > with all that strangeness. > > > ... this I had totally missed. Doubling the clock speed (from 25 to 50 > MHz) would be relatively easy (once I'm not running this over long > ribbon cable) but switching the clock around like that would have really > confused me, I think. Thanks for the heads-up. > > There's some other speed increase (UHS) that comes along with also > dropping from 3.3V down to 1.8V. I don't know how to program FPGAs to > do that or even know if they can. > I thought it was going from SPI mode to MMC mode that did this, not the double clocking nor the 1bit to 4bit bus steps. Warner
Re: Looking for an IDE simulator
On 8/28/20 1:10 PM, Paul Koning wrote: SD is a packet based storage device on a serial interconnect, minimally one lane wide but it can also be four lanes (and that's typically how you use it). Apparently it starts out in a SPI compatible mode, interesting. Also, SD requires a rather complex handshake at power up to get to the point where you can do I/O. I've implemented the SPI protocol in a little micro-coded engine on an FPGA and have considered upgrading it to the standard interface over one to four lanes except it looks like the SD licensing says I'm not supposed to do that without paying them a bunch of money. And yeah, it took me a while to work through the initialization dance and it still fails from time to time (and from SD card to SD card). However ... One oddity I remember from a decade ago is that it has a high speed mode where the clock speed is doubled. That's not strange. What's strange is that when you do this, the device switches from clocking data on the rising edge to clocking on the falling edge, or the other way around, I don't remember which. Fortunately I wasn't the hardware designer who had to cope with all that strangeness. ... this I had totally missed. Doubling the clock speed (from 25 to 50 MHz) would be relatively easy (once I'm not running this over long ribbon cable) but switching the clock around like that would have really confused me, I think. Thanks for the heads-up. There's some other speed increase (UHS) that comes along with also dropping from 3.3V down to 1.8V. I don't know how to program FPGAs to do that or even know if they can.
Re: Looking for an IDE simulator
On Fri, Aug 28, 2020 at 11:41 AM Al Kossow via cctalk wrote: > On 8/28/20 10:10 AM, Paul Koning via cctalk wrote: > > > SD is a packet based storage device on a serial interconnect > You really do need SMART monitoring on solid-state storage > which may or may not exist in the adapters. SSDs will silently > fail if they run out of sectors to write to. > For the PATA to SATA adapters, they exist to the extent the SSD supports them. Smart here is not standardized... but smartmontools has a big enough database to keep you happy... > Also, I discovered recently that there is a maximum number of hours > measured in years on SSDs and systems will start throwing SMART > errors when that is exceeded. I have a few doing that now on systems > with minimal writes but lots of hours. > Interesting... I have several SSDs in the field now that have been powered on for 7 or 8 years... I've not yet seen this behavior, though I do see a few of them die every month due to old age > There are long discussions elsewhere of the dangers of using non-industrial > rated CFs and SDs in storage applications. > Yes. "Only as good as the card you put in." and most of the cards are poo. Though the latter-day CF cards tend to be quite good since they are for high end cameras and tend to use relatively good quality NAND to get the performance those cameras need, endurance goes along for the ride. Most of the issues with CF and SD cards are in continuous use, though, where there's lots of writes and not much idle time for the card to do anything about it and power failures are a lot more common on CF/SD cards with high write loads than for SSDs... Warner
Re: Looking for an IDE simulator
On Fri, Aug 28, 2020 at 11:10 AM Paul Koning via cctalk < cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote: > > > > On Aug 28, 2020, at 12:15 PM, David Bridgham via cctalk < > cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote: > > > > > >> in an online search - the CFADPTHD seems like it's close to what I'd > want, > >> except it's Compact Flash; I'd have preferred SD but I guess converting > >> their interface to IDE is more work. > > > > > > Yeah, I think Compact Flash actually uses the IDE protocol just with a > > different form-factor while SD cards are their own thing so a conversion > > from SD to IDE is a whole lot more work. > > Correct. CF cards talk to a SATA controller, you just have to adjust the > pinout. > > SD is a packet based storage device on a serial interconnect, minimally > one lane wide but it can also be four lanes (and that's typically how you > use it). Apparently it starts out in a SPI compatible mode, interesting. > Also, SD requires a rather complex handshake at power up to get to the > point where you can do I/O. > There's a number of SD to PATA adapters though where all this goo is put into a chip and you don't worry too much about it... I've used these and they are as good as the SD card you put in them... Warner
Re: Looking for an IDE simulator
I've standardized on, and been happy with these: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000415725711.html There's a lot of vendors that sell them, including on ebay and Amazon. I haven't really had any problem with those adapters, including on native ISA IDE controllers and XT-IDE. There's IDE to CF adapters too, but I find SD cards easier to use and cheaper/easier to get in bulk. Pat On Fri, Aug 28, 2020 at 12:07 PM Noel Chiappa via cctalk < cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote: > After having a run of almost half a dozen IDE hard drive failures recently > in > a short period of time (on my older desktops which use them, I've decided > that > I should see if there's an IDE emulator (using SD cards) available I could > switch to. (I'm not sure why I had so many failures in such a short > period; I > can only conclude that they're too old now, and reaching the end of their > service lives. > > So soes anyone have one (or more) they can recommend? (IDE simulators > only; I > don't want to have to mess around changing anything more than I > _absolutely_ > have to)? I did find these guys: > > http://store.mesanet.com/index.php?route=product/category=74_64 > > in an online search - the CFADPTHD seems like it's close to what I'd want, > except it's Compact Flash; I'd have preferred SD but I guess converting > their interface to IDE is more work. > > Noel > >
Re: Looking for an IDE simulator
On 8/28/20 10:10 AM, Paul Koning via cctalk wrote: SD is a packet based storage device on a serial interconnect You really do need SMART monitoring on solid-state storage which may or may not exist in the adapters. SSDs will silently fail if they run out of sectors to write to. Also, I discovered recently that there is a maximum number of hours measured in years on SSDs and systems will start throwing SMART errors when that is exceeded. I have a few doing that now on systems with minimal writes but lots of hours. There are long discussions elsewhere of the dangers of using non-industrial rated CFs and SDs in storage applications.
Re: Looking for an IDE simulator
On 8/28/20 9:07 AM, Noel Chiappa via cctalk wrote: After having a run of almost half a dozen IDE hard drive failures recently in a short period of time what brand/model drives have been failing?
Re: Looking for an IDE simulator
> On Aug 28, 2020, at 12:15 PM, David Bridgham via cctalk > wrote: > > >> in an online search - the CFADPTHD seems like it's close to what I'd want, >> except it's Compact Flash; I'd have preferred SD but I guess converting >> their interface to IDE is more work. > > > Yeah, I think Compact Flash actually uses the IDE protocol just with a > different form-factor while SD cards are their own thing so a conversion > from SD to IDE is a whole lot more work. Correct. CF cards talk to a SATA controller, you just have to adjust the pinout. SD is a packet based storage device on a serial interconnect, minimally one lane wide but it can also be four lanes (and that's typically how you use it). Apparently it starts out in a SPI compatible mode, interesting. Also, SD requires a rather complex handshake at power up to get to the point where you can do I/O. One oddity I remember from a decade ago is that it has a high speed mode where the clock speed is doubled. That's not strange. What's strange is that when you do this, the device switches from clocking data on the rising edge to clocking on the falling edge, or the other way around, I don't remember which. Fortunately I wasn't the hardware designer who had to cope with all that strangeness. paul
Re: Looking for an IDE simulator
Check to see if JMicron's sata(drive) to ide(host) is suitable to your need. They also come with bi-directional switch to select which end goes to the mainboard. ypu can connect a big ssd or a sata to M2 adapter. But be aware they have two problems: - they need +5V power supply, either from the fdd connector or from USB; - they do not get along with Sun Ultrasparc systems: the sata hdd is always read-only. You can also get a pci sata controller. On Friday, August 28, 2020, Warner Losh via cctalk wrote: > On Fri, Aug 28, 2020 at 10:19 AM Al Kossow via cctalk < > cctalk@classiccmp.org> > wrote: > > > On 8/28/20 9:07 AM, Noel Chiappa via cctalk wrote: > > > I've decided that > > > I should see if there's an IDE emulator (using SD cards) available I > > could > > > switch to. > > You may want to use PATA disk-on-module. > > > > There's also a crap-ton of SATA<->PATA adapters that I've used to good > effect everywhere except in space constrained situations (think laptop). > > Warner >
Re: Looking for an IDE simulator
On Fri, Aug 28, 2020 at 10:19 AM Al Kossow via cctalk wrote: > On 8/28/20 9:07 AM, Noel Chiappa via cctalk wrote: > > I've decided that > > I should see if there's an IDE emulator (using SD cards) available I > could > > switch to. > You may want to use PATA disk-on-module. > There's also a crap-ton of SATA<->PATA adapters that I've used to good effect everywhere except in space constrained situations (think laptop). Warner
Re: Looking for an IDE simulator
On 8/28/20 9:07 AM, Noel Chiappa via cctalk wrote: I've decided that I should see if there's an IDE emulator (using SD cards) available I could switch to. You may want to use PATA disk-on-module.
Re: Looking for an IDE simulator
> in an online search - the CFADPTHD seems like it's close to what I'd want, > except it's Compact Flash; I'd have preferred SD but I guess converting > their interface to IDE is more work. Yeah, I think Compact Flash actually uses the IDE protocol just with a different form-factor while SD cards are their own thing so a conversion from SD to IDE is a whole lot more work. Although, I did find these so I guess you're not the first to want this: https://www.amazon.com/40Pin-Male-Hard-Drive-Adapter/dp/B01ANIQNK4 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B076597T9H/ref=dp_prsubs_1 https://www.newegg.com/syba-sd-cf-ide-br-ide-to-compact-flash/p/N82E16812186002?Description=ide%20to%20sd%20adapter_re=ide_to%20sd%20adapter-_-12-186-002-_-Product=true https://www.newegg.com/syba-sd-cf-ide-di-ide-to-compact-flash/p/N82E16822998003?Description=ide%20to%20sd%20adapter_re=ide_to%20sd%20adapter-_-22-998-003-_-Product https://www.newegg.com/syba-sd-ada45006-ide-to-compact-flash/p/N82E16812186098?Description=ide%20to%20sd%20adapter_re=ide_to%20sd%20adapter-_-12-186-098-_-Product=true
Looking for an IDE simulator
After having a run of almost half a dozen IDE hard drive failures recently in a short period of time (on my older desktops which use them, I've decided that I should see if there's an IDE emulator (using SD cards) available I could switch to. (I'm not sure why I had so many failures in such a short period; I can only conclude that they're too old now, and reaching the end of their service lives. So soes anyone have one (or more) they can recommend? (IDE simulators only; I don't want to have to mess around changing anything more than I _absolutely_ have to)? I did find these guys: http://store.mesanet.com/index.php?route=product/category=74_64 in an online search - the CFADPTHD seems like it's close to what I'd want, except it's Compact Flash; I'd have preferred SD but I guess converting their interface to IDE is more work. Noel
