Request for CF Performance Comparisons - comp.sys.apple2

Message from discussion Request for CF Performance Comparisons

Bill Garber

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More options Jul 18, 10:47 am

Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple2

From: "Bill Garber" <willy4...@comcast.net>

Date: Thu, 17 Jul 2008 20:47:10 -0400

Local: Fri, Jul 18 2008 10:47 am

Subject: Re: Request for CF Performance Comparisons

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"pitz" <pitz.w...@gmail.com> wrote in message

news:06a78b38-1714-4d42-ae97-30d3a6c53f2b@34g2000hsf.googlegroups.com...

> 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.

Bill Garber from GS-Electronics
http://www.garberstreet.com

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