Re: [Freedos-user] IDE <-> CF adapters
I need cf chips internally maked as fixed - extremely rare.KomputerBay is the only one that I know of. Will do a search for your source, thanks. cheers DS On Sun, 27 Dec 2020 07:12:07 +0100 "Frantisek Rysanek" writes: > On 26 Dec 2020 at 17:13, Dale E Sterner wrote: > > > I've been using the same cf card for years. OS's > > 2000 an higher can only run on KomputerBay cf chips. > > These versions of windows check for fixed or removable. > > XP will give you a memory error on a Sandisk card but > > it still will run poorly. > > Sandisk does make a fixed version but you can't buy them. > > Only industrial customers can buy Sandisk fixed versions. > > I tried ; they hang up on you. > > > > cheers > > DS > > Innodisk are almost strictly industrial, and they assemble to order > (or have stock) from single pieces up, aiming for long-term product > lifecycles/availability. Consequently the lead time is a few days > EXW, plus transportation to wherever in the world you are. They > probably wouldn't sell to individual customers directly, but you > should try talking to a local distributor advertising their stuff. > Some disties may have a modest stock of some CF model that might as > well suit your needs off the shelf. > > Frank > > > ___ > Freedos-user mailing list > Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user > Sponsored by https://www.newser.com/?utm_source=part_medium=uol_campaign=rss_taglines_more Almost 1.3M People Went Through US Airports Sunday http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3141/5fea48fdaf93a48fd7cbcst04duc1 Neighbor Recalls Chilling Reply From Nashville Suspect http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3141/5fea48fdd41c848fd7cbcst04duc2 Gaming Tycoon Is Dead After Poisoning http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3141/5fea48fe3f7548fd7cbcst04duc3 ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] IDE <-> CF adapters
Dec 27, 2020 3:03:02 AM Frantisek Rysanek : > On 27 Dec 2020 at 6:42, Jon Brase wrote: > >> OK, if modern SATA gets 75, then 25 isn't too concerning. I was >> worried it might be more like an order of magnitude (or two) >> difference. >> > Um... note that real HDDs have a memory buffer, acting as a > write-back cache. Not sure how much RAM the CF cards have, > possibly a couple hundred kilobytes. > 10-15 years ago, not sure if 2 or 8 MB was the norm in spinning rust. Mostly my point is that the old PATA drive I'm replacing isn't going to outperform a modern drive, so if the random access performance of a modern drive is only 75 IOps / sec, then my old drive isn't going to outstrip the 25 that a CF card gets by too much, so hopefully I won't lose too much performance replacing the old drive with CF (unless a new CF card can be expected to have enough less cache than a 15-25 year old spinning rust drive to make a difference). But yeah, using a modern SATA drive with lots of cache is an intriguing idea. ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] IDE <-> CF adapters
On 27 Dec 2020 at 6:42, Jon Brase wrote: > > Dec 27, 2020 12:05:46 AM Frantisek Rysanek > : > > > On 26 Dec 2020 at 22:40, Jon Brase wrote: > >> > > > 40 MB of RAM in Windows95 - that's something I once had in a > Pentium > > 75 MHz :-) > > Possibly the same model of machine, given that both RAM and CPU > match, and 40 MiB is a rather idiosyncratic amount of RAM (add > opposed to a power of two). Mine's an AST, forget the exact model > number and can't check right now. > No it wasn't the same model. In july 99, I got myself conscripted to have our (then) mandatory military service over with. After a short boot camp, I was assigned to a position in the office of a unit someplace in the countryside - the job involved keeping track of the headcounts, reporting the counts of the three daily meals required to the kitchen, keeping stock of clothing for them and a small ammunition stock. When I arrived, the office had a Compaq desktop with a Pentium 75 and 8 MB of RAM, grinding away at MS Office 6 under Windows 95. And I had two colleagues in the office me who were several months my seniors on the job. And from my first weekend off, I brought back 32 MB of second-hand RAM and was delighted to find out that it worked in the machine. On the next day, my comrades said something like "Frank dunno what you've done to the computer, but it it's blazing fast now." Nine months later, when my time has come to leave the army, I left the RAM in the machine. > > exceed 25 totally random IOps. Modern 7200rpm desktop SATA > drives > > during the last 15 years can typically achieve some 75 random > IOps. > > About 60 IOps for laptop drives. And those numbers do not grow > > significantly during the years, with new disk drive generations. > > OK, if modern SATA gets 75, then 25 isn't too concerning. I was > worried it might be more like an order of magnitude (or two) > difference. > Um... note that real HDDs have a memory buffer, acting as a write-back cache. Not sure how much RAM the CF cards have, possibly a couple hundred kilobytes. 10-15 years ago, not sure if 2 or 8 MB was the norm in spinning rust. Currently, the basic volume is about 32 MB maybe? , with some higher end PMR drives sporting 64 MB. And then there are SMR drives with 128 or 256 MB of RAM buffer, often called "cache" in the marketing materials, but I suspect that it's more like a working buffer for a single shingled track or segment (sequence of tracks?) that needs to be assembled before writing. Not sure if the whole "shingle buffer" can actually work as a write-back cache. If it could, that would be your perfect "RAM-based swap device, initialized from disk on startup". Just add a SATA/IDE converter. Take a look at the cheapest 2.5" Seagate Barracuda (ST1000LM048 or some such) for instance. Even if the RAM buffer is not enough to cover your whole swap, your modest swap space would likely fit inside the disk drive's "PMR zone", so you possibly wouldn't ever swap into the bulk SMR area which acts like molasses when it comes to tiny random writes. Frank ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] IDE <-> CF adapters
Dec 27, 2020 12:05:46 AM Frantisek Rysanek : > On 26 Dec 2020 at 22:40, Jon Brase wrote: >> > 40 MB of RAM in Windows95 - that's something I once had in a Pentium > 75 MHz :-) Possibly the same model of machine, given that both RAM and CPU match, and 40 MiB is a rather idiosyncratic amount of RAM (add opposed to a power of two). Mine's an AST, forget the exact model number and can't check right now. > > Linux on 40 MB of RAM... there was a time this was perfectly okay, > including a GUI. I believe something like RedHat 6.2 or Debian 3-4 > would fly on that setup. Currently it's running Debian 4, with a repository mirror served from my main desktop. I've run the numbers, and 6 should be able to run too, but it's actually the installer that constrains things. Debian 6 doesn't have drivers for older PATA stacks in the initrd for the install medium, and needs more memory than 40 MiB before it gets to the point in the installer where it can load additional drivers, so it can't mount swap early enough and fails to install. Debian 4 is able to recognize the HDD from the get-go, and can thus use swap to get around memory limitations. I think an in-place upgrade 4 -> 5 -> 6 should let me get Debian 6 onto the machine, and that project is planned after the migration to new storage. > I haven't seen a harddisk of that era for a decade or so, and I don't > recall testing one with hddtest - but based on the average seek times > quoted in the old days (12 to 16 ms), and based on the audio > impression I recall, I'd say that the hard drives of that era would > exceed 25 totally random IOps. Modern 7200rpm desktop SATA drives > during the last 15 years can typically achieve some 75 random IOps. > About 60 IOps for laptop drives. And those numbers do not grow > significantly during the years, with new disk drive generations. OK, if modern SATA gets 75, then 25 isn't too concerning. I was worried it might be more like an order of magnitude (or two) difference. > > and I'd like to say that you consistently respond in a way that makes > me believe that you know your trade, when it comes to partitioning > and the various size boundaries - you have my thumbs up :-) > Thanks! ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] IDE <-> CF adapters
On 26 Dec 2020 at 17:13, Dale E Sterner wrote: > I've been using the same cf card for years. OS's > 2000 an higher can only run on KomputerBay cf chips. > These versions of windows check for fixed or removable. > XP will give you a memory error on a Sandisk card but > it still will run poorly. > Sandisk does make a fixed version but you can't buy them. > Only industrial customers can buy Sandisk fixed versions. > I tried ; they hang up on you. > > cheers > DS Innodisk are almost strictly industrial, and they assemble to order (or have stock) from single pieces up, aiming for long-term product lifecycles/availability. Consequently the lead time is a few days EXW, plus transportation to wherever in the world you are. They probably wouldn't sell to individual customers directly, but you should try talking to a local distributor advertising their stuff. Some disties may have a modest stock of some CF model that might as well suit your needs off the shelf. Frank ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] IDE <-> CF adapters
On 26 Dec 2020 at 22:40, Jon Brase wrote: > > Actually I anticipate swap usage at about double physical RAM (for a > total memory usage of 3x physical RAM). I'm using Debian to > administer the machine (with DOS/Win95 for actual retrocomputing), > and empirically that runs well (shell only) with that amount of swap > (at least with the swap partition on a magnetic disk). If I start > XFCE, then it starts thrashing, but I don't really need a graphical > environment there. > [...] > As above, I'm not going for quite 4x RAM for swap, but the exact > numbers in the current magnetic disk configuration are 40 MiB RAM, > 80 MiB swap, and I plan to overprovision swap significantly on CF to > spread out write wear. Part of what I'm trying to figure out is what > kind of overprovisioning I'll need to get a decent lifetime for the > swap device. > 40 MB of RAM in Windows95 - that's something I once had in a Pentium 75 MHz :-) and it worked pretty well for the applications of that time. So suppose that you give it 128 MB of swap, on a 1 GB drive. That will extend the lifetime 8 times compared to a Flash drive with exactly 128 MB, if using the same NAND technology. But again it's really the cumulative number of write transactions, rather than the size of the swap file, that is inversely proportional to calendar lifetime. And again I cannot quantify this any better or absolutely. Linux on 40 MB of RAM... there was a time this was perfectly okay, including a GUI. I believe something like RedHat 6.2 or Debian 3-4 would fly on that setup. Obviously it would have an ancient web browser and e.g. when editing photoes you might run into the limit of available RAM :-) 40 MB should actually be enough even for modern kernels to boot, but a modern user space probably wouldn't be happy, even with some lightweight WM / desktop. > > Don't be surprised to see 25 IOps or even > > less, pauses lasting a couple seconds etc. A pretty far cry from > > those ~4k IOps that you might come to expect, based on random > > read performance. > > 25 IOps doesn't sound good. How does that compare to a similar I/O > pattern on a late 90s/early 2000s magnetic disk? > I haven't seen a harddisk of that era for a decade or so, and I don't recall testing one with hddtest - but based on the average seek times quoted in the old days (12 to 16 ms), and based on the audio impression I recall, I'd say that the hard drives of that era would exceed 25 totally random IOps. Modern 7200rpm desktop SATA drives during the last 15 years can typically achieve some 75 random IOps. About 60 IOps for laptop drives. And those numbers do not grow significantly during the years, with new disk drive generations. These are unapologetic figures, with seeks genererated by /dev/urandom and "direct access" (no caching). The random seek positions alone pretty much prevent any cache from being effective :-) > Well, the absolute ideal for swap, if I could find it, would be an > IDE device that used a couple GiB of modern DRAM and initialized > itself at boot from some partitioning plan > exactly :-) > > > I actually wanted to say this: if you > > only have use for maybe 1 GB of swap, it's no problem that your > > partition can only be 2 GB, > > Actually only 512 MiB for anything DOS will be touching (or when > BIOS first sees the drive), but that won't be a problem for the > Linux swap partition once I've done the whole "trick the BIOS" > dance. > and I'd like to say that you consistently respond in a way that makes me believe that you know your trade, when it comes to partitioning and the various size boundaries - you have my thumbs up :-) Frank ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] IDE <-> CF adapters
Dec 26, 2020 3:47:44 PM Frantisek Rysanek : > I've noticed that you want to have about 4 times the swap space > compared to physical RAM. This means to me that your historical > machine is starved of RAM, and you envisage enhancing the volume of > RAM by a quick swap space. Hmm. > The actual success of that idea will depend on how large your typical > "DRAM working set" actually is. Actually I anticipate swap usage at about double physical RAM (for a total memory usage of 3x physical RAM). I'm using Debian to administer the machine (with DOS/Win95 for actual retrocomputing), and empirically that runs well (shell only) with that amount of swap (at least with the swap partition on a magnetic disk). If I start XFCE, then it starts thrashing, but I don't really need a graphical environment there. > It gets worse. If your machine thrashes the swap space intensively, > generating lots of those tiny write transactions, a typical CF card > will quickly get its relatively tiny transaction buffer (and "SLC > zone", if used) full of pending writes and will slow down noticeably > at the outer ATA interface. Don't be surprised to see 25 IOps or even > less, pauses lasting a couple seconds etc. A pretty far cry from > those ~4k IOps that you might come to expect, based on random read > performance. 25 IOps doesn't sound good. How does that compare to a similar I/O pattern on a late 90s/early 2000s magnetic disk? > > Try comparing your CF-based swap-on-flash solution with an > alternative setup, using some SATA-based SSD/CFast/mSATA > and a SATA/IDE converter. How about converting this all the way to a > small Optane drive :-) Those have like 6k of permitted overwrites, if > memory serves - and have really short latencies. Except that ehh... > they seem to be NVMe = PCI-e based, rather than SATA. Ahh well. Well, the absolute ideal for swap, if I could find it, would be an IDE device that used a couple GiB of modern DRAM and initialized itself at boot from some partitioning plan (for instance "1 Linux swap partition", or "1 Linux swap partition, 1 empty FAT partition"), or an image on a read only flash device. There's no need for a swap device to actually be non-volatile (beyond keeping formatting information for the OS to recognize it as a swap device), and DRAM doesn't have write limits. > I can't seem to find any figure, how much RAM your machine actually > has, just that you want 4 times that much in swap. As above, I'm not going for quite 4x RAM for swap, but the exact numbers in the current magnetic disk configuration are 40 MiB RAM, 80 MiB swap, and I plan to overprovision swap significantly on CF to spread out write wear. Part of what I'm trying to figure out is what kind of overprovisioning I'll need to get a decent lifetime for the swap device. > I actually wanted to say this: if you > only have use for maybe 1 GB of swap, it's no problem that your > partition can only be 2 GB, Actually only 512 MiB for anything DOS will be touching (or when BIOS first sees the drive), but that won't be a problem for the Linux swap partition once I've done the whole "trick the BIOS" dance. ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] IDE <-> CF adapters
I've been using the same cf card for years. OS's 2000 an higher can only run on KomputerBay cf chips. These versions of windows check for fixed or removable. XP will give you a memory error on a Sandisk card but it still will run poorly. Sandisk does make a fixed version but you can't buy them. Only industrial customers can buy Sandisk fixed versions. I tried ; they hang up on you. cheers DS On Fri, 25 Dec 2020 22:24:42 +0100 "Frantisek Rysanek" writes: > On 24 Dec 2020 at 13:10, ZB wrote: > > On Tue, Dec 22, 2020 at 02:37:44PM +0100, DosWorld via > Freedos-user > > wrote: > > > >> 1. This is bad idea - use flash cards for swap or more modern os > >> (like all windows). I had experience with 16 TF cards, which die > >> after 1 year (rewrite limit). All 16 cards work in non-overloaded > >> machines. > > > > My CF card is used as "HDD" 3rd month - we'll see in 9 months will > > it survive. > > > > I doubt it "must die" after a year of use - consider all that > > photocameras that use CF cards; their owners probably had to buy > new CF > > cards each year. > > > Practical experience, using CF cards as a boot drive in > "miscellaneous embedded/industrial" computers where the OS and disk > don't have much to do: > > A) standard desktop Windows (XP or earlier) with swapping left > operational, 1 year of lifetime sounds about right. > > B) Windows Embedded (XP or later) with swap turned off and > preferably > with the drive operated in read-only mode (Write Filter enabled): > the CF card would live forever. > > Note that if you need to use the flash drive as a swap medium, with > SLC you have roughly 20 times the lifetime, compared to MLC. > > But it's generally advisable to avoid swapping altogether. Also > think > about logging, Windows updates etc. > > We've also seen MLC CF cards die after 3 months, when used as the > system drive in a SCADA machine, where the software kept making a > backup of the current "state" as often as it could (writing a chunk > of data to a file on the flash a couple times per second, > apparently). > > Swapping means writing tiny transactions (4 kB) at random offsets, > which practically means that the dual-stage mapping mechanism to > flash rows and erase blocks will have a lot of janitoring to do. > This will multiply the volume written. > Compared to that, photoes are stored in pretty much sequential > fashion (JPEG's, each several MB in size) and there are not nearly > as > many of them as the number of writes coming from Windows that keep > running 24x7. How many photoes can a human shoot - a couple dozen a > day? A couple hundred? > > When using smal flash form factors as boot drives (CF, similar IDE > Flash "plugs" or SD for instance, CFast, mSATA or M.2), avoid > wishful > thinking. > And, 2.5" Flash SSD's are not necessarily better. > I'm speaking machines for business/industrial use. > If this is a toy machine, you probably have your own idea :-) > > >> 2. Use last generation of motherboard for Pentium-1 (as minimum) > >> with VIA Apollo chipset (designed for Pentium and Amd K6/K6-2) - > >> only this chipset understand ATA100 native and allow connect CF > >> via simple IDE-CF reductor > > > > I use that CF card with old 486 Soyo-SiS mobo (and the "simple > > reductor"). > > > >> (intel VX/HX - NO). As i understand, problem is - no support > >> ATA100 in older IDE-controllers. In other case, you need use > >> PCI-IDE cards or special modern ISA-IDE controllers (designed > >> specially for use with CF). > > > > I use that CF card with old VLB IDE controller. Seems to be > working > > just fine, the only problem is 2 GB limit; it can't "see" any > larger > > partition. > > Anyway it's not related to CF card, but to controller rather > > > CF cards are generally backwards compatible with the old PIO modes > (DMA-less transfers, polling for every single byte). > Thus, in theory, they should work against any old IDE controller. > A CF card that supports UDMA100 should run just fine in a system > that > can only do PIO, or run limited to UDMA33 for instance. > > As for size limits, I agree that some BIOSes did actually have such > a > limit in the past. It doesn't seem to be an inherent limit of > IDE/ATA > or LBA28 (those have other limits of their own). > Other than that, 2 GB is a limit of FAT16, per volume = not > necessarily a BIOS issue. Though I cannot rule out that a particular > > BIOS would in fact inspect the partition table and would not approve > > of partitions larger than some arbitrary size :-) Over the years, > I've seen various "innovative BIOS heuristics" in the boot sequence. > > http://www.dewassoc.com/kbase/hard_drives/hard_drive_size_barriers.htm > https://tldp.org/HOWTO/Large-Disk-HOWTO-4.html > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_file_systems > > And another matter is that, especially in the old days, the ATA > flash > target controllers (and their firmware) were not as
Re: [Freedos-user] IDE <-> CF adapters
On 25 Dec 2020 at 22:36, Jon Brase wrote: > Dec 25, 2020 3:26:42 PM Frantisek Rysanek > : > > > A) standard desktop Windows (XP or earlier) with swapping left > operational, 1 year of lifetime sounds about right. > > It sounds like you're using the card for the OS + swap, though, > rather than having separate cards for the OS and swap. My plan is to > separate them, and probably to overprovision the swap device > significantly. > allright - using a dedicated physical CF card for swap, and another one for the system itself, is definitely a good idea. As a way of protecting the OS boot files. If the swap drive dies, the system boot drive will likely survive, and you only need to replace and format the dedicated swap drive. It's a good start. As for the question if this is good enough, even with the dedicated swap drive, depends on your actual circumstances (swap load = volume and patterns). I suggest that you try this with a cheap MLC card for the swap drive and see how long it survives in your daily practice. And then maybe consider switching to an SLC card to get 20 times the endurance. Trying to protect your system boot partition by making a dedicated swap partition, on a shared flash drive, is moot / futile. The two layers of block mapping below LBA are oblivious of your partitioning above the LBA layer. The wear leveling mechanism inside the drive will happily shuffle blocks belonging to your "read only system boot partition" and mix them with the volatile swap partition, under the hood - for the sake of keeping the erase count per erase block level across the space of the underlying NAND chips (to utilize the available erase count evenly). When unrecoverable errors inevitably start to occur, the drive as a whole is gonna die, your system boot partition won't be accessibe either. I've noticed that you want to have about 4 times the swap space compared to physical RAM. This means to me that your historical machine is starved of RAM, and you envisage enhancing the volume of RAM by a quick swap space. Hmm. The actual success of that idea will depend on how large your typical "DRAM working set" actually is. If you have a flock of apps running at the same time, allocating lots of virtual memory, but only a fraction of that virtual memory needs to be in RAM at any one time (a timespan of say a couple dozen seconds), you're good to go. I can imagine a scenario where you have a myriad desktop apps open, but most of them are just waiting on the taskbar and are out of focus - so that Windows swap them out eventually, which causes no sorrow. But if you need to have much of that virtual space in the "working set" at the same time, your solution with a flash-based drive probably won't satisfy you, performance-wise. If I consider a single channel of 64bit PC133 SDRAM (for instance), that's 1 GBps of sequential transfer rate. UDMA100 is only 100 MBps at its very best. Also, while the latency of your RAM is about 60 ns, for the CF card it's possibly a couple hundred microseconds for reading. It gets worse. If your machine thrashes the swap space intensively, generating lots of those tiny write transactions, a typical CF card will quickly get its relatively tiny transaction buffer (and "SLC zone", if used) full of pending writes and will slow down noticeably at the outer ATA interface. Don't be surprised to see 25 IOps or even less, pauses lasting a couple seconds etc. A pretty far cry from those ~4k IOps that you might come to expect, based on random read performance. => If you're serious about upgrading your legacy machine in this way, I suggest that you purchase two CF/IDE adaptors and some cheap CF card and try for yourself. If you have a chance to test your CF cards on an IDE channel under Linux, consider trying this simple proggie of mine: http://support.fccps.cz/download/adv/frr/hddtest-1.1.tgz There are certainly other load generators / benchmarks. And there's the iostat tool, from the Sysstat package, which can show you the IOps load at the block layer, generated by any kind of software. Don't trash the CF card with random *writes* for too long, as such a test quickly eats away its available erase count. Try comparing your CF-based swap-on-flash solution with an alternative setup, using some SATA-based SSD/CFast/mSATA and a SATA/IDE converter. How about converting this all the way to a small Optane drive :-) Those have like 6k of permitted overwrites, if memory serves - and have really short latencies. Except that ehh... they seem to be NVMe = PCI-e based, rather than SATA. Ahh well. I can't seem to find any figure, how much RAM your machine actually has, just that you want 4 times that much in swap. AFAICT Windows 98 had a problem using more than 512 MB of physical RAM, not sure about how much swap they could use - but let's assume that 4 GB total would be a maximum for a 32bit OS. I actually wanted to say this: if you only have use for
Re: [Freedos-user] IDE <-> CF adapters
Dec 25, 2020 3:26:42 PM Frantisek Rysanek : > A) standard desktop Windows (XP or earlier) with swapping left operational, 1 > year of lifetime sounds about right. It sounds like you're using the card for the OS + swap, though, rather than having separate cards for the OS and swap. My plan is to separate them, and probably to overprovision the swap device significantly. Could people that are quoting lifetimes for CF cards used as swap provide the following information?: 1) Are you combining swap and file partitions on the same CF card? 2) What overprovisioning factor are you using (total device size divided by sum of typical runtime swap usage plus any files stored on the device)? 3) How deeply is the machine typically swapping (total memory usage including swap divided by available RAM) For the machine I'm considering, the answers are: 1) No 2) To be determined, based on answers I get here 3) About 3:1 > Though I cannot rule out that a particular BIOS would in fact inspect the > partition table and would not approve of partitions larger than some > arbitrary size :-) The BIOS for the machine in question does this whenever it sees a change in hardware on a given ATA connector. However, if you sneakily take the drive to another machine, change the partition table, and connect it back to the same ATA connector, it will happily use the drive with the new partition table. Win95 and Linux are then able to work with any over-sized partitions. ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] IDE <-> CF adapters
On 24 Dec 2020 at 13:10, ZB wrote: > On Tue, Dec 22, 2020 at 02:37:44PM +0100, DosWorld via Freedos-user > wrote: > >> 1. This is bad idea - use flash cards for swap or more modern os >> (like all windows). I had experience with 16 TF cards, which die >> after 1 year (rewrite limit). All 16 cards work in non-overloaded >> machines. > > My CF card is used as "HDD" 3rd month - we'll see in 9 months will > it survive. > > I doubt it "must die" after a year of use - consider all that > photocameras that use CF cards; their owners probably had to buy new CF > cards each year. > Practical experience, using CF cards as a boot drive in "miscellaneous embedded/industrial" computers where the OS and disk don't have much to do: A) standard desktop Windows (XP or earlier) with swapping left operational, 1 year of lifetime sounds about right. B) Windows Embedded (XP or later) with swap turned off and preferably with the drive operated in read-only mode (Write Filter enabled): the CF card would live forever. Note that if you need to use the flash drive as a swap medium, with SLC you have roughly 20 times the lifetime, compared to MLC. But it's generally advisable to avoid swapping altogether. Also think about logging, Windows updates etc. We've also seen MLC CF cards die after 3 months, when used as the system drive in a SCADA machine, where the software kept making a backup of the current "state" as often as it could (writing a chunk of data to a file on the flash a couple times per second, apparently). Swapping means writing tiny transactions (4 kB) at random offsets, which practically means that the dual-stage mapping mechanism to flash rows and erase blocks will have a lot of janitoring to do. This will multiply the volume written. Compared to that, photoes are stored in pretty much sequential fashion (JPEG's, each several MB in size) and there are not nearly as many of them as the number of writes coming from Windows that keep running 24x7. How many photoes can a human shoot - a couple dozen a day? A couple hundred? When using smal flash form factors as boot drives (CF, similar IDE Flash "plugs" or SD for instance, CFast, mSATA or M.2), avoid wishful thinking. And, 2.5" Flash SSD's are not necessarily better. I'm speaking machines for business/industrial use. If this is a toy machine, you probably have your own idea :-) >> 2. Use last generation of motherboard for Pentium-1 (as minimum) >> with VIA Apollo chipset (designed for Pentium and Amd K6/K6-2) - >> only this chipset understand ATA100 native and allow connect CF >> via simple IDE-CF reductor > > I use that CF card with old 486 Soyo-SiS mobo (and the "simple > reductor"). > >> (intel VX/HX - NO). As i understand, problem is - no support >> ATA100 in older IDE-controllers. In other case, you need use >> PCI-IDE cards or special modern ISA-IDE controllers (designed >> specially for use with CF). > > I use that CF card with old VLB IDE controller. Seems to be working > just fine, the only problem is 2 GB limit; it can't "see" any larger > partition. > Anyway it's not related to CF card, but to controller rather > CF cards are generally backwards compatible with the old PIO modes (DMA-less transfers, polling for every single byte). Thus, in theory, they should work against any old IDE controller. A CF card that supports UDMA100 should run just fine in a system that can only do PIO, or run limited to UDMA33 for instance. As for size limits, I agree that some BIOSes did actually have such a limit in the past. It doesn't seem to be an inherent limit of IDE/ATA or LBA28 (those have other limits of their own). Other than that, 2 GB is a limit of FAT16, per volume = not necessarily a BIOS issue. Though I cannot rule out that a particular BIOS would in fact inspect the partition table and would not approve of partitions larger than some arbitrary size :-) Over the years, I've seen various "innovative BIOS heuristics" in the boot sequence. http://www.dewassoc.com/kbase/hard_drives/hard_drive_size_barriers.htm https://tldp.org/HOWTO/Large-Disk-HOWTO-4.html https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_file_systems And another matter is that, especially in the old days, the ATA flash target controllers (and their firmware) were not as universally compatible with various IDE hosts as were the magnetic disk drives. Over the years, Intel has crystallized as the dominant brand in terms of ATA HBA ports sold, and thus, every ATA Flash maker tested against Intel first and foremost, but hardly against any other vendor's HBA's... thus, it is not uncommon to find flash drives that work with Intel IDE HBA's but have a problem against particular lesser brands of chipsets. I have sympathy for your hardware archaeology :-) Frank ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] IDE <-> CF adapters
On Thu, Dec 24, 2020 at 02:00:31PM +0100, tom ehlert wrote: > this obviously doesn't depend on time, but on the way you use it, in > particular how much you write to it. BTW: professional photographers use their CF-cards much more intensively than I am using it as HDD replacement. Here's a whole thread about this: https://www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/3018717 -- regards, Zbigniew ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] IDE <-> CF adapters
On Thu, Dec 24, 2020 at 02:00:31PM +0100, tom ehlert wrote: > > >> 1. This is bad idea - use flash cards for swap or more modern os (like all > >> windows). I had experience with 16 TF cards, which die after 1 year > >> (rewrite > >> limit). All 16 cards work in non-overloaded machines. > > > My CF card is used as "HDD" 3rd month - we'll see in 9 months will it > > survive. > > > I doubt it "must die" after a year of use - consider all that photocameras > > that use CF cards; their owners probably had to buy new CF cards each year. > > this obviously doesn't depend on time, but on the way you use it, in > particular how much you write to it. As you probably see I addressed the statement of "DosWorld" poster - it wasn't my idea, and I still doubt it. > also there is no such thing as 'CF card'. Maybe all these suppliers have no idea what they offer; who knows: https://www.amazon.com/CompactFlash-Memory-Cards/b?node=1197392 > that said, a modern CF card might survive a year as swap device. ...so we're back at this "one year" again, despite all these explanations :] -- regards, Zbigniew ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] IDE <-> CF adapters
>> 1. This is bad idea - use flash cards for swap or more modern os (like all >> windows). I had experience with 16 TF cards, which die after 1 year (rewrite >> limit). All 16 cards work in non-overloaded machines. > My CF card is used as "HDD" 3rd month - we'll see in 9 months will it survive. > I doubt it "must die" after a year of use - consider all that photocameras > that use CF cards; their owners probably had to buy new CF cards each year. this obviously doesn't depend on time, but on the way you use it, in particular how much you write to it. also there is no such thing as 'CF card'. CF was introduced 1994. even though DOS is still the same as in 1994, CF cards have *hugely* changed. early generations had no wear leveling; error correctionwas seriously bad, and you had manufacturers cutting corners. they only had to survive in cameras for a couple of overwrite, not 1000's of overwrites. and if a sector goes unreadable, you lose a single photo. so what's the problem? SSD's - which are based on the same flash storage chips - were always much more robust against errors, because losing data is BAD. that said, a modern CF card might survive a year as swap device. I still wouldn't do it. Tom ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] IDE <-> CF adapters
On Tue, Dec 22, 2020 at 02:37:44PM +0100, DosWorld via Freedos-user wrote: > 1. This is bad idea - use flash cards for swap or more modern os (like all > windows). I had experience with 16 TF cards, which die after 1 year (rewrite > limit). All 16 cards work in non-overloaded machines. My CF card is used as "HDD" 3rd month - we'll see in 9 months will it survive. I doubt it "must die" after a year of use - consider all that photocameras that use CF cards; their owners probably had to buy new CF cards each year. > 2. Use last generation of motherboard for Pentium-1 (as minimum) with VIA > Apollo chipset (designed for Pentium and Amd K6/K6-2) - only this chipset > understand ATA100 native and allow connect CF via simple IDE-CF reductor I use that CF card with old 486 Soyo-SiS mobo (and the "simple reductor"). > (intel VX/HX - NO). As i understand, problem is - no support ATA100 in > older IDE-controllers. In other case, you need use PCI-IDE cards or special > modern ISA-IDE controllers (designed specially for use with CF). I use that CF card with old VLB IDE controller. Seems to be working just fine, the only problem is 2 GB limit; it can't "see" any larger partition. Anyway it's not related to CF card, but to controller rather -- regards, Zbigniew ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] IDE <-> CF adapters
Hello everybody, my past experience with embedded PC computers includes a decade when CompactFlash was the bread and butter bootdisk flash format for the computers that we used to sell at the time. As for IDE/CF conversion adapters, I recall a time when the CF cards did not support DMA operation, and consequently many earlier IDE/CF adapters did not support DMA either. Which was fun when the first CF cards arrived that *did* in fact support DMA. You'd get them "detected" by the BIOS (INQUIRY worked), but then reading the MBR failed :-) So I suggest that you get some converter that does support DMA = does have the two signals required routed on the PCB. As a particular CF/IDE adaptor model still available today, I'd like to mention the Delock model 91624 . https://www.delock.com/produkt/91624/merkmale.html I cannot see DMA mentioned in its description, but I'm pretty sure it's the surviving later generation of the board that does support DMA. Pay attention to the cable that you're using. For UDMA above 33MBps, you need the dense 80wire cable. The aforementioned DeLock adaptor does have that missing pin in the 40pin header that allows you to plug in that modern IDE cable. If you use a sparse 40wire cable (or 44wire for that matter) you'd better keep it as short as possible, otherwise you get IDE transaction errors. If you stumble upon Geode-based PC hardware, be aware that especially its older generations used to have a problem with specific "ATA target controller" chip models that were popular in certain old CF card models. The symptoms span from mild rot (OS fails to boot after a successful installation) to heavy brain damage (ATA transaction failures during OS installation). I recall seeing a wave of such cards when the popular size was 16 - 64 MB, the controller chip brand was SSS (which you could only find out by cracking the card's mechanical shell open). And I seem to have recently stumbled upon an older piece of a 1GB CF card being flakey in an old Geode-based machine. As for CF card brands... SanDisk is not a bad choice, overall their flash products are top notch within the general/consumer market. For industrial-grade CF cards, I can warmly recommend Innodisk, though at the same time I should declare my vested interest (I work as a support techie with a small national distributor of this brand). https://www.innodisk.com/en/products/flash-storage/cf-card For instance their iCF4000 family are all SLC-based and the current models work fine with Geode motherboards of all vintages. The SLC silicon technology can sustain maybe 50k total rewrites. Innodisk also have something called "iSLC", which apparently means using just the most-significant bit per cell, thus using the MLC memory in SLC-like mode. This yields about 20-30k rewrites for a lower cost. But even the SLC-based iCF4000 at 1 GB can cost maybe 30-40 EURO, depending on some further "flavours" of the card (temperature range for instance) and depending on where you can buy (and you also need to consider carriage!). Be aware that swapping is generally not a very nice load on flash cards, as the write transaction may be smaller than a flash row size (page size), i.e. the written volume gets "multiplied". A nice intro into flash space allocation / wear leveling algorithms in cards with block layer abstraction: https://lwn.net/Articles/428584/ The IDE LBA sector size is 512 B. The x86 VM page size is 4 kB (unless huge pages are configured). The flash row size (page size) can be a couple dozen kB. The erase block size is megabytes, rather than hundreds of kB. Inside an ATA/SATA Flash drive or USB mass storage drive, there are two floors of space allocation (mapping) from the "virtual" LBA layer 1) to "minimum writeable size" rows (pages) and 2) to the erase blocks. And quite some janitoring is going on in shuffling these allocation units around. Innodisk have some software tools (Windows only, AFAICT) to tell you the average and maximum number of overwrites (internally kept track of per erase block, apparently). These two figures are apparently somehow encoded in a proprietary SMART variable - details available from Innodisk techsupport by email. Sorry to hear that 32bit Linux is no longer as straightforward as I used to appreciate it for the last two decades or so. It is true that I myself do not have any need for 32bit kernels anymore, as pretty much all embedded x86 PC's that we have sold over the last 5+ years (maybe more like a decade) already have 64bit cores :-) so even my PXEbooting test environment now has 64bit kernels and I don't remember the last time I got an error message trying to boot that on a 32bit CPU. I could try compiling a modern 32bit kernel with a minimal instruction set just for sport, but I don't really have the time... I hope this helps :-) Frank ___ Freedos-user mailing list
Re: [Freedos-user] IDE <-> CF adapters
Check the speed of the cf chip. If too fast for your machine, it might not work. If over 266x I have problems. Sandisk chips are high quality but they are internally marked as removable. Alot of programs are made to refuse to run on removables. Komputerbay cf chips are internally marked as fixed, a big advantage on computers. cheers DS On Mon, 21 Dec 2020 16:46:28 -0600 Jon Brase writes: > IDE <-> Compact Flash adapters seem to be popular for extending the > life > of old computing hardware, and I'm looking at replacing the magnetic > > disks on my old machines with CF. > > However, there seem to be issues with ensuring that the motherboard > <-> > adapter <-> CF card chain is all compatible. I presume that there > are > likely a fair number of people on this list that have already done > this. > Can anyone provide recommendations as far as manufacturers/devices > to > seek or avoid? > > Furthermore, I use Linux to administer my DOS machines (stuff like > file > transfers to the rest of the network), and on the older of the two, > the > Linux installation is quite swap-dependent. Obviously, the > write-lifetime limitations of flash memory are a concern here. Would > it > be best to just buy a bunch of small CF cards and replace them as > they > die, or to get a few over-large CF cards and rely on the card > firmware > to do write levelling, or to just hold on to magnetic storage until > I > can't find any more drives? > > Lastly, are there any good solutions for mounting multiple CF > adapters > at the front of a 5.25" drive bay? Most of the adapters I've found > that > seem to be meant for external mounting seem to either be meant to > fit in > a rear PCI slot or to fit a single adapter at the front of a 3.5" > bay, > but it seems like the dimensions are such that most adapters could > fit 2 > wide x 2 high in a 5.25" bay if there were any way to mount them. > > Jon Brase > > > > ___ > Freedos-user mailing list > Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user > Sponsored by https://www.newser.com/?utm_source=part_medium=uol_campaign=rss_taglines_more Here's Another Reason to Hate 2020 http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3141/5fe2216885fd72168494bst01duc1 The Man Behind Slim Jims Is Dead of COVID http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3141/5fe22168a6f802168494bst01duc2 Country Sees First COVID Transmission in 8 Months http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3141/5fe22168c706c2168494bst01duc3 ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] IDE <-> CF adapters
> I have a 486 Toshiba laptop and a 286 desktop. Both use CF cards as their > only storage, connected through cheap mechanical CF<->IDE adapters. It works > perfectly. > Which size (MB) this cards ? ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] IDE <-> CF adapters
On 22/12/2020 14:37, DosWorld via Freedos-user wrote: 2. Use last generation of motherboard for Pentium-1 (as minimum) with VIA Apollo chipset (designed for Pentium and Amd K6/K6-2) - only this chipset understand ATA100 native and allow connect CF via simple IDE-CF reductor I have a 486 Toshiba laptop and a 286 desktop. Both use CF cards as their only storage, connected through cheap mechanical CF<->IDE adapters. It works perfectly. Mateusz ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] IDE <-> CF adapters
>> 1. This is bad idea - use flash cards for swap or more modern os (like all >> windows). I had experience with 16 TF cards, which die after 1 year (rewrite >> limit). All 16 cards work in non-overloaded machines. >> Another point - try use SSD. Like PCIE in "PCIE to IDE" box (one year ago, i saw 8GB PCIE and this type of box on ali). I think, they less sensitive for rewriting. ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] IDE <-> CF adapters
> Primary master: 512 MiB DOS partition, Win 95 above 512 MiB > Primary slave: possible 512 MiB DOS partition, Linux home and root above 512 > MiB, plus anything Unixy I feel like experimenting with. > Secondary master: 512 MiB FAT partition for Win 3/9x page files, Linux swap > above 512 MiB. > Secondary slave: CD-ROM > 1. This is bad idea - use flash cards for swap or more modern os (like all windows). I had experience with 16 TF cards, which die after 1 year (rewrite limit). All 16 cards work in non-overloaded machines. 2. Use last generation of motherboard for Pentium-1 (as minimum) with VIA Apollo chipset (designed for Pentium and Amd K6/K6-2) - only this chipset understand ATA100 native and allow connect CF via simple IDE-CF reductor (intel VX/HX - NO). As i understand, problem is - no support ATA100 in older IDE-controllers. In other case, you need use PCI-IDE cards or special modern ISA-IDE controllers (designed specially for use with CF). ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] IDE <-> CF adapters
Hi! If you say you have a 512 MB BIOS limit, your limit probably is 512 * 63 * 16 * 1024 bytes, in other words a limit in the number of "heads" (those do not relate to actual surfaces). Are you sure FreeDOS is affected when you use LBA? Note that the limit is only 504 * 1024 * 1024 bytes, so depending on how you count the 512 MB for the first partition, you might already be beyond the limit. And of course you could consider updating your BIOS to fix the "528 MB" problem, or install a MBR-installed workaround such as ontrack / ezdrive :-) I wonder if UHDD could help you, too, as long as the boot files are in the first 504 MB. You could get yourself a converter to connect SATA drives (SSD or mechanical) to your IDE computer: I think SATA will stay available for a long time and you can always use the first 504 (528) MB even without extra drivers or BIOS fixes. Typical SATA / IDE converter brands could be DeLock or Digitus, but be careful to get a converter in the right direction ;-) Or one which works in both directions, of course. All cheap. Regards, Eric ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] IDE <-> CF adapters
>Remember FAT16 partitions are limited to 2GiB in MS/PC-DOS. >So, drives are limited to 8GiB. The BIOS on this machine doesn't like partitions outside of the first 512 MiB of the disk, so DOS is limited to 512 MiB per disk (but I'm able to run Linux and Win95 beyond that point). ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] IDE <-> CF adapters
>Regarding your Linux: On a modern computer, you probably want >to use a RAM filesystem for temporary files. But you say you >need a lot of swap, so this is probably no option for you. I >can predict that if your swap is on CF, your Linux will be at >least as slow as it was with a harddisk ;-) My primary goal is to future-proof the machine (as I anticipate CF to be available further into the future than IDE magnetic storage), a secondary goal that is fulfilled by the small size of CF cards is to fit multiple drives into the machine (there's only one free drive bay, but three free IDE connectors). I figure on a layout like this: Primary master: 512 MiB DOS partition, Win 95 above 512 MiB Primary slave: possible 512 MiB DOS partition, Linux home and root above 512 MiB, plus anything Unixy I feel like experimenting with. Secondary master: 512 MiB FAT partition for Win 3/9x page files, Linux swap above 512 MiB. Secondary slave: CD-ROM The 512 MiB partitions at the beginning of each disk are due to limitations in the machine's BIOS, which Linux and Win95 don't seem to be affected by (except that when the BIOS first sees a disk, all partitions must reside within the first 512 MiB, or the BIOS will refuse to use the disk. If the partition table is changed later, everything works fine as long as DOS isn't in a partition that hours beyond 512 MiB). I figure I'll have a dedicated drive for swap in order to: a) Not have swap competing with file I/O for reads/writes to the same disk. b) Minimize filesystem damage if the swap device busts its write lifetime. ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] IDE <-> CF adapters
Hi, I have two CF adapters. A front side floppy size Startech one in an Athlon XP system that had an AsRock VIA motherboard until a few days ago when I upgraded it to an EPoX nForce 2 motherboard. Then I have another chinese one that is mounted on the back in an extension bracket on an IBM Aptiva P200 MMX with an Ali motherboard. I have never had any problem with any of these 3 motherboards. I have three kinds of CF cards. One 32Gb Sandisk that I use for FreeBSD and earlier for Windows XP and Arch Linux 32 on the Athlon, one 1Gb brandless one that came with an ALIX 2D3 that I use for FreeDOS on both PCs and a bunch of 2Gb and 4Gb Apacer ones for DR-DOS, MS-DOS, Windows NT 4 and Windows 95 on the Aptiva. All work fine on any combination. Note that microdrives also work in CF adapters but these are 3000 and some RPMs. So they are very slow. If I need a swap file, I'll just put it on a regular hard drive. I use a cheap Silicon Image SATA PCI card in the Aptiva and use it with a 160Gb hard drive from a laptop I upgraded to an SSD. Works great in NT4 and I can put the swap file on there. I have two 320Gb hard drives in RAID 1 with a 3ware 8006-@LP in the Athlon XP system and would just put the swap file on there if I needed one. You won't run into any removable bit problems unless you install something newer than NT4. Usually cards that don't have the removable bit set are those advertised as "Industrial". Windows XP will install without complaining on a CF with the removable bit set but some dumb software can refuse to install because of it. Linux and FreeBSD do not care whether the removable bit is set or not. No DOS family OS cares about that either. None of the BIOSes I used with the CF adapters treat the CF differently than a hard drive but I think that has more to do with the CF adapter than with the CF cards. Be warned that up to date Linux is bitrotting hard on 32 bit machines. I used to have Arch Linux 32 on the Athlon system and besides the problem of a lot of software throwing SIGILL because they are compiled with SSE2 instructions, the kernel is pretty unstable too last I checked. A lot of Linux people being paid by big corporations don't give a shit about testing on older hardware. I have since moved to FreeBSD which still works great on 32bit. Also up to date Linux will mostlikely not work with anything less than 128 Mb of RAM without X. ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] IDE <-> CF adapters
Remember FAT16 partitions are limited to 2GiB in MS/PC-DOS. So, drives are limited to 8GiB. Check out industrial Flash modules or DiskOnModule. Read a little about them here: http://www.glitchwrks.com/2010/12/16/xtide Note: Expensive compared to more modern SATA devices. https://www.amazon.com/s?k=IDE+DOM=nb_sb_noss_2 Even some IDE SSD's. On Mon, Dec 21, 2020 at 4:48 PM Jon Brase wrote: > IDE <-> Compact Flash adapters seem to be popular for extending the life > of old computing hardware, and I'm looking at replacing the magnetic > disks on my old machines with CF. > > However, there seem to be issues with ensuring that the motherboard <-> > adapter <-> CF card chain is all compatible. I presume that there are > likely a fair number of people on this list that have already done this. > Can anyone provide recommendations as far as manufacturers/devices to > seek or avoid? > > Furthermore, I use Linux to administer my DOS machines (stuff like file > transfers to the rest of the network), and on the older of the two, the > Linux installation is quite swap-dependent. Obviously, the > write-lifetime limitations of flash memory are a concern here. Would it > be best to just buy a bunch of small CF cards and replace them as they > die, or to get a few over-large CF cards and rely on the card firmware > to do write levelling, or to just hold on to magnetic storage until I > can't find any more drives? > > Lastly, are there any good solutions for mounting multiple CF adapters > at the front of a 5.25" drive bay? Most of the adapters I've found that > seem to be meant for external mounting seem to either be meant to fit in > a rear PCI slot or to fit a single adapter at the front of a 3.5" bay, > but it seems like the dimensions are such that most adapters could fit 2 > wide x 2 high in a 5.25" bay if there were any way to mount them. > > Jon Brase > > > > ___ > Freedos-user mailing list > Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user > ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] IDE <-> CF adapters
I have bought about 25 of these and have only had an issue with one not working. Not a compatibility issue but a bad solder point on the connector. https://www.ebay.com/itm/Compact-Flash-CF-to-3-5-Female-40-Pin-IDE-Bootable-Adapter-Converter-Card/111977195791?hash=item1a125c690f:g:9Z8AAOSw3mpXGwt~ On Mon, Dec 21, 2020 at 4:48 PM Jon Brase wrote: > IDE <-> Compact Flash adapters seem to be popular for extending the life > of old computing hardware, and I'm looking at replacing the magnetic > disks on my old machines with CF. > > However, there seem to be issues with ensuring that the motherboard <-> > adapter <-> CF card chain is all compatible. I presume that there are > likely a fair number of people on this list that have already done this. > Can anyone provide recommendations as far as manufacturers/devices to > seek or avoid? > > Furthermore, I use Linux to administer my DOS machines (stuff like file > transfers to the rest of the network), and on the older of the two, the > Linux installation is quite swap-dependent. Obviously, the > write-lifetime limitations of flash memory are a concern here. Would it > be best to just buy a bunch of small CF cards and replace them as they > die, or to get a few over-large CF cards and rely on the card firmware > to do write levelling, or to just hold on to magnetic storage until I > can't find any more drives? > > Lastly, are there any good solutions for mounting multiple CF adapters > at the front of a 5.25" drive bay? Most of the adapters I've found that > seem to be meant for external mounting seem to either be meant to fit in > a rear PCI slot or to fit a single adapter at the front of a 3.5" bay, > but it seems like the dimensions are such that most adapters could fit 2 > wide x 2 high in a 5.25" bay if there were any way to mount them. > > Jon Brase > > > > ___ > Freedos-user mailing list > Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user > ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] IDE <-> CF adapters
Hi! This indeed is a fun topic. CF "disks" are supposed to understand IDE and you can have purely mechanical adapters to use them with IDE controllers in your PC. But be aware that CF were originally popular in good digital photographic, so they are tuned towards writing a few, large files during a photoshoot, not for accessing many small files in DOS. I have tried to use a CF for temp files in Linux 10+ years ago with two goals: Give the mechanical harddisk the opportunity to spin down and save noise and energy and gain some speed. Neither of the goals really worked out. I had to kick a lot of apps and things to stop writing temp files to other places to get any resting periods for the harddisk and the CF often was slower than the harddisk for typical temp file activities, or it had to pause to do some bookkeeping once in a while. So do not expect spectacular results in DOS, but it still is fun to have a small memory card as DOS "harddisk" without big efforts. Well. If your CF properly boots. And if your CF does not self-identify as "could be swapped any moment like floppy disks" or anything like that. So things can still happen which confuse your BIOS or DOS, but it might just as well work :-) Robert has tried a few CF brands recently, so he will probably answer your question with more recent experiences than me :-) Regarding your Linux: On a modern computer, you probably want to use a RAM filesystem for temporary files. But you say you need a lot of swap, so this is probably no option for you. I can predict that if your swap is on CF, your Linux will be at least as slow as it was with a harddisk ;-) I would not worry too much about wearing out the CF: The swap is small compared to the total size of the CF and often it is how much you write in terms of multiples of total disk size which determines how long your flash media will work. Based on Robert's recent comments, I do not think that it will be a problem to acquire enough CF cards, in case you worry to wear them out too soon. If you want something more durable, you could probably invest into SD card adapters, although it will be more indirect - SD does not speak IDE, so the adapter has to have some built-in intelligence, unlike for CF to IDE. I have some adapters which just plug to one end of the IDE cable, but there also are adapters to plug directly into a mainboard. In both cases, you probably also need power, via floppy or harddisk style power connectors for example. You could probably just glue the adapter to some cardboard and stick that to a drive bay so things are not falling around? Regards, Eric ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] IDE <-> CF adapters
IDE <-> Compact Flash adapters seem to be popular for extending the life of old computing hardware, and I'm looking at replacing the magnetic disks on my old machines with CF. However, there seem to be issues with ensuring that the motherboard <-> adapter <-> CF card chain is all compatible. I presume that there are likely a fair number of people on this list that have already done this. Can anyone provide recommendations as far as manufacturers/devices to seek or avoid? Furthermore, I use Linux to administer my DOS machines (stuff like file transfers to the rest of the network), and on the older of the two, the Linux installation is quite swap-dependent. Obviously, the write-lifetime limitations of flash memory are a concern here. Would it be best to just buy a bunch of small CF cards and replace them as they die, or to get a few over-large CF cards and rely on the card firmware to do write levelling, or to just hold on to magnetic storage until I can't find any more drives? Lastly, are there any good solutions for mounting multiple CF adapters at the front of a 5.25" drive bay? Most of the adapters I've found that seem to be meant for external mounting seem to either be meant to fit in a rear PCI slot or to fit a single adapter at the front of a 3.5" bay, but it seems like the dimensions are such that most adapters could fit 2 wide x 2 high in a 5.25" bay if there were any way to mount them. Jon Brase ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
