CF vs. SD vs. HDD - An Informal Test and Upgrade
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- Опубліковано 5 вер 2024
- Today I'm swapping out the SD card and HDD in my Tiny Pentium with a Dual CF adapter for multiple reasons. But it got me wondering, which is the fastest?
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10:56 When the cat gets ahead of the screen we can see the filter he used to presumably not have the CRT flicker
He explained in a recent video he need to apply filters so with the studio lighting we could see the colors as he do. Check it out is pretty interesting!
NO, his cat is translucent.
To everyone asking what is going on with the CRT, I have a video all about that on my second channel: ua-cam.com/video/CqOoY-o-j-Q/v-deo.html
And DMA was as on as it can be for this motherboard. The options are either "auto" or "off" and all drives were on auto. After the video I attempted to enable DMA for the CF cards, it just causes the system to hang on boot. CF cards seem to need a specific adapter for DMA mode: us.transcend-info.com/Support/FAQ-326
Did you install the VIA chipset drivers ? Maybe this can improve the performance a little compared to windows' generic drivers ?
Also, check one of the tabs when you open up the disk through device manager. Fairly sure that win95/98 has the "enable dma" checkbox
@@DxDeksor per my experience, the only thing that VIA chipset drivers help is how quickly it goes into a BSOD kill cycle.
@@squid11160 Youre right. From Windows Me that options was enabled by default.
@@ZeroHourProductions407 On SiS that option helps too.
Well done on reaching 100K
It's ironic that you "Maxed out the Storage capability" by removing a Maxtor hard drive.
No.
@@i_used_adblock_to_watch_this Why not
Alright this is the first time I noticed the mouse cord in the wound keyboard cable and can I say that is *GENIUS!*
me to
10:29 Who needs scandisk when you can get a complementary cat scan?
No matter how many times they scan me though, I’m still not a cat... 🐈
FYI: Alt+PrtSc does a printscreen of the current window, not the whole desktop...
I believe they didn't add that until Windows 8
Edit: Just tested it in a couple VMs. Apparently it does work as far back as 98.
@@thetechconspiracy2 no, it even works in Win 3.11
i didnt know that
That is very cool, i didn't know that. I love win+shift+s combination in windows 10.
Screen-capping the entire desktop can be a bit cumbersome, if you're like me and use 4 monitors.
I’ve noticed this with the Win98 systems I’ve restored. CF uses UDMA natively, while SD has to go through a conversion to UDMA. You’re always going to get better speed with fewer steps.
On the other hand SD are cheap and plentiful, while, CF are becoming more rare.
It helps that CF is based mostly on IDE protocols and doesn't have to translate read/write data like the SD card does.
I'm wondering is it DMA option in disk at device manager was enabled during that tests. That boost performance significantly. EDIT (im talking about enable it in Windows not only in BIOS).
He posted a comment that said this: "And DMA was as on as it can be for this motherboard. The options are either "auto" or "off" and all drives were on auto."
@@nneeerrrd How is he lame? He literally goes from reading all manuals and using propper tools to fix stuff, to actually reverse engeneering electrically the device so he doesnt plug stuff wrongly.
If you said that to druaga1 wich just goes and "lol lets go, lets find out what it does!", i would understand. But yet doesnt make sense because his content isn't aiming to be a perfect guide to old pcs, but entertainment in awmost (sometimes) blind throubleshooting.
So, again, what are his issues, and who you think is good?
Because, for me akbkuku in therms of profissionalism is one of the bests, and even does some content (in my opinion) way better than lets say, the 8bit guy.
@@David_Phantom I think he refering to BIOS option. In Windows there is check box and it can be on or off. Windows from Millenium enable that option by default.
There's a good chance that the motherboard in this PC doesn't have much more than very basic ATA-2/3 or something. The 10MB/s cap on transfer speeds on all the drives makes me think it didn't support any UDMA (ATA-4) modes. It's worth considering that the CF and hard drive had noticeably better 4k performance than the SD card, and for many older games the random 4k performance MIGHT make those clearly better. I think a lot of times people who didn't grow up working with older PCs don't know what kind of performance to expect and don't realize the SD cards are not usually as fast or reliable as even an era-accurate hard drive in 486/Pentium class machines.
There's also the enable 32 bit disk access and 32 bit file access options in the performance tab of WIndows 9x that help with speed.
You and Adrian's Digital Basement have hit 100K around the same time. Congrats!
I switched to industrial CF cards about 3 years ago, and I haven't looked back. They're faster, more rugged, and hot swaps and dumping files off a modern system are super easy to do.
What about IDE DOM? Is they slower than CF?
Damn, this is the first mention of EIDE vs IDE I've heard in probably 20 years... Good shit man.
Bro I'm so glad you made a comparison video of these types of storage devices!
Have you made sure DMA was enabled, since it's not enabled by default on Windows 9x.
I've only just noticed what you've done with the mouse cable, that's a neat idea. Literally neat in fact.
2:34 You misuse the term EIDE, what you meant is UDMA4, or ATA/66. While EIDE is way older (1994) than the 80-conductor cables, and is not related to those.
Im pretty sure ATA/66 should do at least 30MB/sec
Awesome video and interesting upgrade. Also, thank you for paying your cat tax!
I’ve always been interested in the CF card adapters not so much SD but super nostalgic for the old drives. I honestly prefer my retro PCs to have retro drives it’s a more authentic experience for me and I love the sounds. It’s good to know an IDE drive is it much slower than CF card
The benchtest results don't surprise me that much between SD and CF cards. SD cards requires a decent amount of translation to work with the IDE interface. That translation is going to slow the card down. CF cards on the other hand, the adapter is passive, only there to provide power and a few setting options via jumpers, the card itself is based around the IDE standard so delays via translation simply don't exist.
The other thing I was thinking might be effecting the results is if the SD card was decaying. They simply weren't built for the read write cycles an OS will put them through.
Nice, and surprising - I thought the physical HDD would be the slowest! After I saw you got the CF to IDE adapter in a previous video, I got myself some (singles though), they are brilliant as IDE drives are harder and harder to get, never mind the prices! Thanks for more great content!
I have a number of HDDs I have pulled over the years (In UK) I will attempt to transfer files off onto some CF arrays as I am more interested in the Data and Programmes and less on the media they occupy. I am not sure that 64GB would be enough for me I am currently using at least 50GB for data - lots of spreadsheets, PDFs, vids audio and photos, and 110GB for programs - well mostly downloads and various office applications - and is there a site that shows the optimisation for Win 3.11 / Win9x etc to take out the unwanted items on start up or storage, but I suppose the other computers would be less heavily used, more for taking some of my spare stuff and scanning in new items of information.
I'm into the change of pace. Thank you for the relaxed video! That doesn't mean I'm not looking forward to those awesome, complicated projects you alluded to :)
jfyi: The 80-pin cables where not for E-IDE (Ultra-ATA-2), but for the years younger Ultra-ATA-66+, which is far beyond what this hard drive really could deliver (besides some occasional transfers from the internal cache) and also the mainboard's chipset isn't capable of actually transferring (besides seemingly supporting the standard, as the directly connected sd-adapter is shown as "UDMA 7" in POST.). So: No loss there. :)
And, yeah: These flimsy 80-pin plugs usually die after unplugging them about 5 times..
You probably need to install the VIA 4 in 1 chipset driver to be able to use DMA and get better transfer speeds.
Good idea.
As someone who ran a Voodoo2 SLI setup back in the way-back, I’d highly recommend getting some kind of forced airflow over that card. The problems with Voodoo2 overheat issues (especially with early revision cards) was such an issue that there was a whole cottage industry of cooling fan solutions for the Voodoo 2.
The biggest issues impacted tower case users, because the heat would pool “under” the card (as the chipset was facing downwards, even with a large, well ventilated case, it led to serious overheating issues, causing the card to lockup - the Unreal title sequence was a good stress test). This problem was made worse with SLI, but in my machine just a single card was an issue.
Once I added top of slot fans to move air over the cards, the problem was solved. Given the tight confines of your case, I’d absolutely get a cooling solution for the Voodoo2, even if you’re not experiencing problems, so as to extend the longevity of the card.
Thermal probe with your multimeter.
Hey, just noticed. 100k, sweet dude!
I have really enjoyed watching these videos and especially this build. Over the years I purged all of my old Windows 9x era gaming hardware and this makes me really regret it. I really wish I had the same setup with the voodoo 2 (Really regret getting rid of that) and the same midi card and flash drive setup. I don't even have any of my stuff anymore. One thing is clear, I miss playing Descent with a graphics accelerator and a really nice Midi synth. You could almost just build these and sell them like that and they would go for nostalgia reasons. My only thoughts on cooling are maybe you could drill the front case holes to be bigger and yet still hidden, and you could build a custom shroud off the back of the power supply that mounts a 120mm fan to really pull air out? Idk but the nerd in me and gamer loves this. I have recycled hundreds of computers over the past couple decades and seen a few form factor POS systems and one exactly like that at one point. Cheers thats freaking awesome!
Excellent test. I have CF cards in my Pentium and 486 and it's good to know how well they perform. Cute Cat Scan too 😊👍
I've been using the M.2 to IDE drive adaptors on old laptops to speed them up and handle drive wear with swap files, I normally use the laptops for legacy flash programming and vehicle diagnostics.
Didn't know they had those. I'd have just gone with CF-IDE adapters, since they're pretty cheap compared to M.2, and you don't need SATA speeds on an old machine like that anyways.
I spotted them on eBay when I was looking for the CF to IDE adaptors, the machine I had was an old Pentium 2 laptop and I run Windows 2000 on it for software compatibility, I was worried the swap files would prematurely wear the CF card so I used the m.2 adaptor instead, it's been running pretty well without issues, and there's literally no waiting around at all for any of the software to load, speed wasn't my concern either, but I needed something that could handle the wear leveling better, I've had CF cards die especially when using the machine left of to work as a voltage or current logger, thought this was the best solution.
It's incredible how hardware like this can still be upgraded.
wow, nice round 100k subs! congrats
Awwww, such a sweet cat.
Awesome seeing N64 running on such an old computer.
Pure lovelyness
I have Celeron laptop I may do this to. I will replace P1 I hoped to use my Cf cards in. I am moving away from desktops for power costs. I may also use a PCMCIA to CF card adapter. For laptops there are MSATA to IDE adapters. On laptops, you need to check if your hard drive is 1.8 or 2.5 inches. This is great way to keep old hardware alive. I would image your CF card or SD card regularly. They are Not ssd quality flash devices. Great work
Fascinating, good to know for the future. I've always heard conflicting reports about the speed vs. longevity on various flash storage media in place of spinning rust on 90s era machines.
I always like seeing this tiny little desktop. And the kitty too.
coincidentally i've been considering which of the two I should do for my first old computer, a nice 90s laptop I'm going to run wind 98se off of. Great video for helping me figure out which to do!
So happy to see you hit 100K! Congrats 😃
-Honestly, 64GB in a pentium with a voodoo2, is probably enough. Well I cant argue about that, I had 3.5GB quantum hdd and it was all the rage back then :P
If only current pc were so small and charming today as they were back then. I miss those times.
Interesting test. Does the system feel more responsive than using an SD and HDD?
Great little pc setup. CF cards have always been a good option for the pentium chips.
I tickles my senses when I see how small and compact this case is.
Shelby I love this tiny pentium! I need more of this in my life! Been on the lookout for one of these since your last video because I think this would be just the ultimate machine to own for streaming some classic PC RPGs. If you happen to come across a place that has more of these to sell in your travels, please update us! :)
"compact flash absolutely trounces everything else" right after showing that the hard drive had faster results for every test except 512k read, where it was just a little bit slower?
Very cool! Performance tests are always a win in my book :-) And I love the form factor on that system!!
Great job there! The thing you said regarding editing the bios in order to accept larger HDs than 40gb by default is very interesting, try to make a video about it if possible!
Congrats on 100k!
Also wanted to say, I haven't been seeing your videos in my subscription feed or my notifications despite having you set to All. I'm having to manually check your channel so I've missed quite a lot of videos. I don't know if there's anything you can do about it, but wanted give a heads up.
1:30 WAIT!!! You need to do airflow tests with the drives in there but not being powered.
Any temp readings you do with the HD installed and working is going to be affected A LOT by the heat produced by the hard disks which is not at all insubstantial. I would venture to guess they are putting out at least 5 watts of heat a piece.
If what you are testing is airflow, probably an air-flow meter is merited, but since you probably don't have one, you at least have to unplug the drives so they are not generating heat. The act of physically removing the drives alone will cause the temp to go down regardless of airflow.
Are you ever gonna get back to that mini-computer you bought last year? You did like 1 or 2 videos back when you got it and nothing since.
I’ve been wondering this since I first saw these videos. Please revisit this because a computer like that is something most of us can’t get access to.
Older small form factor PCs always had cooling problems. At least the "generic" ones. Brand name machines like Dell, HP, and Lenovo, especially in their rack-mount server lines, are designed with air "corridors" for channelling airflow where it's needed with the minimum amount of fans, usually involving at least a scoop to funnel air from the front chassis fan directly over the CPU heatsink. Part of the problem is that flush look the late 90's PCs were all going for, which relegated the fresh air intakes to little vents on the bottom of the bezel.
I love this little machine so much. I need to change the SD card adapter in my T22 Thinkpad Win98 machine to the CF adapter I have. I have been struggling to get it to work but I think I need to change the card to fixed disk mode to make the Thinkpad BIOS happy with it. At the moment it just sits there with a blinking cursor.
Congrats on the 100k.
Good job buddy
Is it just me or is this guys voice really calming? make his vids more enjoyable.
I love this little system you built!
Man, I love this little box and just wanna see it in action, even if that means just a camera pointed at a screen while you do some gameplay.
The Tiny Pentium is the cutest thing, please make more videos about it!!
I have a potentially useful tip for getting short 80 conductor IDE cables, old drive enclosures may be a good source for these, I have about 3 from some enclosures from about the mid 2000s. Not sure how easy to detect these might be though...
I know I have a selection of lengths, I keep wanting to measure them, I keep getting caught out with some manufactures not quite sticking to the standard, with and without the twist for some drives and with and without some of the sensing (Compaq I think did that and IBM on some of their own non-clone clones and PC variants !)
So.... I'm a little bit out of the loop on hardware this old but I am seriously wondering if there is something other than the storage devices holding back your speeds. The read speed is just way too consistent compared to not insignificantly different storage media being tested. I would suggest running these tests again in a pc that is known to have better speeds ahead of time. If I had to guess the motherboard ide controller is holding you back in some way maybe?
Of course CF is superior, because the connectors on the card are actual IDE. There is no serial/parallel encoding which happens with an SD card. So there is no transcoding lag. You can get old UDMA CF cards that will work in everything and act like genuine IDE drives. I use CF in all of my retro. No SD.
If not for the thumbnail, I would have wondered what software you would use to do "what we would do with CrystalDisk today". To watch it running on Windows 98 is quite interesting in its own right.
i love the look of that thing !
Speeds seem slow. Is DMA mode enabled? HD controller drivers installed? This thing should pull 40-50 MB/s sequential.
That's a really cool rig. I love SFF stuff with modern components, but never though about doing a retro SFF.
It's interesting seeing how solid state compares, even on old machines
Congratulations on 100K!
I have a couple of ide capable systems I may try this on Some support both SATA And IIDE, but one is A Pentium One made for fFreeDos. I hope to try this solution in them since they are not built for performance anyway. I also have some SD card adapters which plug into a CF card slot. I would love to convert these old machines to all Flash storage. I love keeping these trailing edge tech machines working. Thanks for the info
Just built a 98 / xp dual boot and opted for an SSD to ide because I had a spare one. Does the job.
Happy 100k subs
From a physics perspective, improving the airflow will actually make the exhaust air contain more heat, not less. Imagine if the fan was completely blocked -- no warm air would come out the back at all. The effect on the exhaust temperature is a little less predictable because you might have less air coming out, but the air that does leave is warmer.
Obviously you know internal temperature is best (a cheap multimeter with a thermal probe works in a pinch) but another way to check is to check the case temperature. This works because conservation of energy tells us the heat energy coming out is the same with good airflow and bad, and if it's not coming out the exhaust at the PSU, it's radiating from somewhere else, like the side or top near the video card for example.
I've noticed that the biggest difference between IDE storage options is not speed but rather reliability and compatibility
-CF have issues with CHS/LBA modes with only working in one or the other on certain motherboards/adapters and the data being incompatible between the two modes
-SD cards are almost universally garbage and may fail at any time, read/write speeds vary wildly depending on the phases of the moon and the day of the week
-IDE hard drives are decades old at this point may click to death at any moment, but they are a very reliable performer for compatibility and speed as long as they work at all however
-SATA SSDs on a SATA-to-IDE converter are the best option. Whether it's mSATA or full-sized regular SATA. Performance depends highly on the IDE controller as it's all about how the controller handles ultra low latency devices.
Have you tried mSata drives inside an IDE adapter? I have them in most of my vintage laptops.
80 conductor cables aren’t related to ide/eide. Eide used original cables, 80 conductor cables were defined for later atapi4/udma and only required for >66mbps.
Ide was up to ~8mbps, eide was 16mbps.
Very nice machine!
While a minor pain in the but, a psu swap with the exhaust fan at the back would let you put some extra intake holes into the psu to pull from the side.
Might be easier to just grab a sfx psu and the adapter bracket.
That is one wobbly desk
Your cat is adorable, remind me of one of mine, he rolls up in a little curl and looks like a cinnamon bun.
I've done some tests a few months ago myself so I could replace mech HDDs in my 486dx4 and a P3-500 machine. The benchmarks were done simply in Speedsys so I guess there's no DMA. On the dx4 the best replacement match was a chinese "industrial" 2GB CF, but the P3 worked the best with an old 2GB 120X SD card in a "Sintechi" adapter. Funny thing is that a modern 8Gig Sandisk Ultra SDHC card performed way worse. 2GB is not a maxed out storage capacity option for a P3 so I've bought an aged but fine-working Intel data center grade SLC 80Gig SSD with a SATA-PATA adapter and 80 conductor cables. Tests have not been done on it yet, but I think the outcome will simply depend on the capabilities of the adapter.
Have you enabled disk dma in device manager?
Also alt+print screen does a image from active window only...
Thanks for reminding me what i have to do with my small format computers.
Two possible reasons for the bad performance are: 1) PIO instead of DMA being used (no idea how to check or change that in Windows, I seem to remember that hdparam could change that on Linux). 2) For the solid state media, performance can degrade over time due to lack of TRIM that modern SSDs on modern OSes support. Even SD cards can support TRIM with the right controller and OS (eg the Raspberry Pi supports it).
I remember windows 98 just LOVED defaulting to PIO mode, it was almost a given that at some point during the lifetime of the installation *something* would happen that would cause the mode to be downgraded. You also needed compatible chipset drivers, the default windows IDE drivers did not support DMA at least not with the majority of hardware at the time.
That dual-CF-adapter is a rather perfect fit for a really crammed up retro-PC like that. It almost seems like it was designed for it 👍
We retro-nutters have been grunting around with CF, SD and TF (microSD) adaptors for some time now, almost slowly building up a blind-eye bias towards any other new possible solutions.
I for once seem to have CFs, SDs, TFs, and even USB-flash drives everywhere, from my Spectrums "DivIDE 2k14" and "DiVMMC Future" cartridges to my Gotek-floppy emulators and CDTV, Amigas, retro-PCs, Raspberry PIs and MiST/MiSTER FPGAs. And I have to admit I have grown quite weary of them just randomly out of the blue dying on me for no apparent reason.
- So anyway long rant short, for my Monster Amiga 1200/Checkmate 1500plus build I found these "PATA2SATA3" IDE-adaptors from StarTech which just works like a charm. I have 3 of those in there on an 4xEIDE'99 interface along side a slim laptop style DVD-RW on the last secondary controller as the slave-drive. Which means that I can connect 3 SATA HDD/SDDs to it. I have a 120GB SSD and a 120GB HDD on the inside (both 3½") and a frontloaded drive-bay (next to 2 USB ports) beneath the slim DVD-drive. Which makes me able to quickly pop-in /swap yet another 3½" drive, almost as if it was a ZIP-, Jaz-, or LS120 drive. Nothing special for a modern PC/MAC, but sheer utter madness for an A1200. I seem to have gathered a small stash of 60-160GB 3½" drives taken from old broken laptops over the years. Ridiculously small for modern PCs (I mean I've got USB thumb drives which are bigger), yet perfect for old retros.
- So yet another long rant short (sigh): IDE-To-SATA is a another option worth looking into (although maybe not exactly in this case). Google "StarTech PATA2SATA3" and check it out. But I have also found even more compact and cheaper adaptors on AliExpress that just sort of "clips onto" 3½" drives, thereby taking up very little extra space. I have use one of those in my friends A500/Wicher 508i build with yet another 120GB SSD... and it just works perfectly 😉
- As for the flat IDE cables. They always seem to be either just too short or way to long. But I find that both kinds (40/44 pins) to be not really that hard to crimp myself. And here is another tip: buying them as "IDE cables" of retro-web-shops can be quite expensive. But the flat 40 pin GPIO cables you can get for Raspberry PIs are exactly the same and much cheaper, especially from AliExpress... and a lot more colorful too 😁
voodoo 2 ... those were the times... yeah... nostalgia :D
I noticed you used dd on Linux. Maybe take a look at ddrescue which is way friendlier, provides progress status, and is more reliable than dd.
Aww yes, my favorite machine is back.
I love that computer
I like using mSATA SSDs in IDE adapters. They're fast, robust, and cheap on the secondhand market. You can max out machines without 48-bit LBA support with a 120 gig SSD for around $40 USD.
On my Amiga I have to set block size to 4096 or higher on the SDcard or CF to get good performance.
10 megs a second is still kinda disappointing. I can see why my friends at the time who had scsi were so pleased with their speeds.
I remember an exhaust fan in the format of a PCI card being sold in the late 90s, maybe such solution can help (or even better: if you can swap that PSU with a pico psu and stuff a dedicated exhaust fan? There should be several possiple solutions)
To use larger hard drives in old systems, you can use dynamic drive overlay. Phil's Computer Lab has a bunch of them on his web site in HDD Tools -- OnTrack Disk Manager is my favorite to use for this.
I'm impressed the CF adapter and cards worked--I've had poor results with them. As for the fan, maybe there's a better one to put in the PSU?
6:45 I have that exact adapter, I put in two 16 GB cards and I'm installing 98se on one and xp on the other (been working on it the past few days) .
I never thought of two op sys, clever.
@@highpath4776 you've never heard of dual boot? , or triple and even quadruple boot? Wow!
would you mind telling me which one it is? I seem to be having trouble locating one. Thanks
@@midixiewrecked7011 Heard of, just never thought of doing it as after selecting the disc.
@@sethmiller5413 just search for dual cf card adapter
HX-168 CF-IDE40
I could never get the CF cards to work reliably on my 486. I kept running into intermittent read and/or write errors. Especially noticeable when I was playing Darklands. It would randomly crash from a write or read error.
The only solution I found that worked for me was to use a Disk On Module. No errors when using it.
@@nneeerrrd I used a Transcend 4GB 300X UDMA card. I also tried a Cisco card, but that had the same issues. I then tried 2 different CF adapters, and had the same issue. Also tried several different controller cards, but had the same issue. The R/W issues didn't go away until I tried the DOM.
The more expensive CF cards are much better to use. I also really like using SD cards, they're not IDE compatible so they require an intermediary step to translate things and that seems to help with read/write and not ready errors.
I find the SDs to be a little better than using CF, maybe it is the quality of the adapters or CF cards I've used. CF likes to time out and fail, but the SD doesn't.
The only thing I can figure is the SD adapter has to do work for each action, but CF cards are just straight-through.
10:57 what's with the filter over the screen, is it to remove the black lines from the crt?
I thought he was projecting the screen onto the CRT and that f**ked with my mind 😂😂
I think he adjusted the lens exposition according to the room's light making the screen image show overblown for the camera which he corrected with that darker tint over the monitor, clever trick to be able to record both the screen and the surrounding of the machine
ua-cam.com/video/CqOoY-o-j-Q/v-deo.html
You know, you can buy 44 pin IDE 4 GB or 8 GB SSDs from ebay, look for apacer, transcend, hyperdisk and other brands... they're also called "disk on module" ... a basic 44 pin to 40pin adapter will get them working in a regular 40/80 header.
There's also 16/32 GB IDE SSDs, new or new old stock... and you can still buy ribbon cables or make your own by buying the headers and ribbon cable separately from electronic component stores.
I like your KDE setup.
Cool
2:52 you can find them new on aliexpress
6:30 a little bit of time :D
That's almost an hour
It's sad that we have really fast SD cards, but those IDE-SD adapters are always limited to 25 MB/s and CF cards are really expensive.
Hi
IDA or PATA has a physical speed limit in the hard drive / ide controller, they start as low as 5MBS in early 386 and go up to 33/66/100 as the years get newer the chipset is new and faster
So while a CF card is the good option the SSD in the CF card will not run that much faster, it will be faster than a slow or faulty mechanical drive, but the CF card will just hit the speed barrier of the IDE controller
This is why often you dont see a much improved result
If using any windows or dos above dos 6.22 speedisk and the virtual memory swap file caching will affect results under windows
Back in the day virtual memory slowed down the main hard drive, you saw improvement buy having a physical second hard drive especially on the other IDE cable chain
To make this a simple test it is hard, you would need to format dos 6.22 only and no windows and no smart drive in the config, but there are not many dos only test programs - however there are some dos SMART test programs and utilities and they come with some type of speed test unfortunately they are usually specific to hard drive OEM branding eg western digital / maxtor / samsung / seagate - but there is also commercial generic software that is the same basic thing - i cant recall the name disk doctor or drive doctor / drive tools - if it remember i will add a note
For any PC that has a bios limit ( 286/386 ) where you cannot enter a custom hard drive size, then you need to use hard drive bios overlay to get around this.
Ontrack disk manager is what i use, i have both a Pentium 100 and a Pentium 2-200 that is using CF card adapter and has 64G and 128G CF cards, this is to much for the original bios
What i did was use a floppy drive with the ontrack program use that to select the hard drive ( physical or CF it does not matter ) and it basically sues the current BIOS setting so that the PC see's a drive, and it then uses a customer "wrapper" on the hard drive and you can format and use the drive
This makes the drive usable on older bios machines that have only the old 10/20/40 meg list of drives ( think 286/386) and also 486/pentium 1or 2 where you can type in a setting or a auto but cannot get a combination to match your drive - note these BIOS at times have a physicall maths limit of the 500meg or whatever it is ( my pentium 100 originally came with conner 420meg - which i still have and it works but is very slow in comparison)
Note now that you can see the drive dos has hard drive limits, dos 4-6.22 has a 2gig max partition limit which is the limit of FAT 16 - so even if you have say a 4g CF card and use a drive overlay to have it work in a 286/386/pentium , if you use dos 5-6.22 you can only have max 2G partition - which is fine, make primary partition 2g and secondary partition 2g no problems - this is what my Pentium 100 has on the 4G CF card for dos only - i do have another card i can slot in with win 95 and another with win98 and they use the full space of the cards
Regards
George
It'd be interesting to compare those results to a SCSI2SD adapter? And I think it also makes a difference what kind of cards you use, so it would also be interesting to test different brands with different speed claims. I bought a bunch of "industrial" CF cards off eBay, mainly Cisco and WD SiliconDrive, but my old Sandisk Extreme III card is way faster in my limited testing (copying files in windows). I'm curious whether the same is true for SD cards, and if you couldn't get a little more performance from them in the IDE SD card adapter with a different brand or better model.