I'm sold at using a CF card as my primary "hard disk". No moving parts, and some (though certainly not all) CF cards have almost the same MTBF rating as hard disks. I'm currently using a CFFA setup for my IIgs.
What I want to find is how it compares, in terms of performance, with other CF-based setups, assuming that the CF interface is not the bottleneck (i.e., using a very fast CF).
I'm curious if using a Focus controller and an IDE-CF adapter is better than a CFFA or MicroDrive setup. Or even a complex setup such as a RAMFAST (or HS-SCSI) + SCSI-IDE adapter + IDE-CF adapter. There are some SCSI-CF adapters out there, but not very common.
Can anyone who has more than one of the above setups provide some performance characteristics of each?
> I'm sold at using a CF card as my primary "hard disk". No moving > parts, and some (though certainly not all) CF cards have almost the > same MTBF rating as hard disks. I'm currently using a CFFA setup for > my IIgs.
> What I want to find is how it compares, in terms of performance, with > other CF-based setups, assuming that the CF interface is not the > bottleneck (i.e., using a very fast CF).
> I'm curious if using a Focus controller and an IDE-CF adapter is > better than a CFFA or MicroDrive setup. Or even a complex setup such > as a RAMFAST (or HS-SCSI) + SCSI-IDE adapter + IDE-CF adapter. There > are some SCSI-CF adapters out there, but not very common.
> Can anyone who has more than one of the above setups provide some > performance characteristics of each?
> /Peter
Hi Peter,
Other than speed, which is not an issue for me whatsoever, the Microdrive in a IIgs is the best, hands down, only because you can set up the first, main, partition as a GS/OS volume, to boot by default, but, you can also set up a ProDOS volume on another partition and boot that by holding OPTION on startup, and press the number of that partition, and VOILA!, you're in ProDOS.
For IIe, CFFA works for me, and quite well I might add. In fact, I have been pulling stuff out to see what I can sell, and I seem to have 6 CFFA cards of various versions. Including one that is sold and wrapped for shipment. Oh, and I just bought the Slot Expander and CFFA1 for my Replica. Shows you how I feel about the CFFA, I guess, eh?
As far as Focus goes, I just last night finally got the hard drive off of it, and plugged on the CF adapter. I still have to put a CF card in, partition, format, and load it up to find out. I'll come back and post how I feel once I do.
It is all really a matter of preference once you try them out yourself.
pitz wrote: > I'm sold at using a CF card as my primary "hard disk". No moving > parts, and some (though certainly not all) CF cards have almost the > same MTBF rating as hard disks. I'm currently using a CFFA setup for > my IIgs.
I've been using the same CF card for a few years, and have never had any problem. The same is not true for three different hard drives.
Of course, the hard drives are now all "old" drives, and deserve to be able to fail in peace, but I have no reason to worry about the reliability of CF card(s) (which are wear-leveled) and trivially backed-up and restored to new cards, if necessary.
> What I want to find is how it compares, in terms of performance, with > other CF-based setups, assuming that the CF interface is not the > bottleneck (i.e., using a very fast CF).
On an 8MHz accelerated //e, the speed of the CFFA never seems to be a bottleneck at all.
I would also be interested in speed comparisons for typical file operations, but, subjectively, it's plenty fast enough not to be an issue.
> I'm curious if using a Focus controller and an IDE-CF adapter is > better than a CFFA or MicroDrive setup. Or even a complex setup such > as a RAMFAST (or HS-SCSI) + SCSI-IDE adapter + IDE-CF adapter. There > are some SCSI-CF adapters out there, but not very common.
> Can anyone who has more than one of the above setups provide some > performance characteristics of each?
> pitz wrote: > > I'm sold at using a CF card as my primary "hard disk". No moving > > parts, and some (though certainly not all) CF cards have almost the > > same MTBF rating as hard disks. I'm currently using a CFFA setup for > > my IIgs.
> I've been using the same CF card for a few years, and have never > had any problem. The same is not true for three different hard > drives.
> Of course, the hard drives are now all "old" drives, and deserve > to be able to fail in peace, but I have no reason to worry about > the reliability of CF card(s) (which are wear-leveled) and trivially > backed-up and restored to new cards, if necessary.
> > What I want to find is how it compares, in terms of performance, with > > other CF-based setups, assuming that the CF interface is not the > > bottleneck (i.e., using a very fast CF).
> On an 8MHz accelerated //e, the speed of the CFFA never seems to > be a bottleneck at all.
> I would also be interested in speed comparisons for typical file > operations, but, subjectively, it's plenty fast enough not to be > an issue.
> > I'm curious if using a Focus controller and an IDE-CF adapter is > > better than a CFFA or MicroDrive setup. Or even a complex setup such > > as a RAMFAST (or HS-SCSI) + SCSI-IDE adapter + IDE-CF adapter. There > > are some SCSI-CF adapters out there, but not very common.
> > Can anyone who has more than one of the above setups provide some > > performance characteristics of each?
