CF vs SD as HDD

[SuperNashwan]

I just wondered what are the pros and cons of using CF cards compared to SD cards as internal HDDs on an A1200.

I've set up both and they both seem to work fine. Reading around suggests CF cards are way more popular but SD cards are significantly cheaper. I haven't done any speed tests so maybe there is a difference there?

[rampartsagain]

i think the question is because cf cards have chips that are heavy duty and sd cards more like light use cards dealing bad with heat.

[FOL]

Is'nt CF's naturally IDE compliant as apposed to sd which require a reader to convert it to IDE standard and therefore generally less compatible.

[thgill]

I have had fantastic results using 16GB and 32GB SDHC Class 10 cards in an A1200 with a simple $10 IDE to SD adapter.

Benchmark wise it benchs maybe 15 to 20% slower than CF, but most likely thats a result of the IDE to SD adapter and not the card as these were Class 10 cards capable of over 10 megabytes a sec write speed and faster read speeds. This is using the regular onboard A1200 ide.

[fgh]

Originally Posted by FOL

Isn't CF's naturally IDE compliant as apposed to sd which require a reader to convert it to IDE standard and therefore generally less compatible.

I prefer SD cards. It is true that SD cards are not IDE devices, so the SD-IDE adapter needs to do that part of the job.
But once you have an adapter that works, you don't need to worry about an incompatible card like you do with CF cards. (so in my opinion SD cards are more compatible, not less)
I tested around 15 SD cards of more than 10 different brands and they all worked well on this £6 adapter.

Edit:
Speed was a bigger factor years ago when SD cards were slower, but shouldn't be any more. Didn't measure myself though - guess Thgill is right.

By the way - be careful with PCMCIA-SD adapters, as many are either 32bit PC-card, or do not support SDHC.

[thgill]

I posted a thread over at Amibay a year or so ago with my experiences using SDHC cards as IDE replacements with some basic benchmarks. The adapter I used was more or less the same as the one fgh linked to.

If memory serves me correctly, using Sysinfo on my 030 A1200, I would see around 2 megabytes a sec with a CF card where as with the SDHC card and adapter it was roughly 1.8 megs a sec.


Plus none of the CF compatibility issues some people report...especially with ACA accelerators.


Ahhh...here is a webcache of my post on Amibay:

http://webcache.googleusercontent.co...&ct=clnk&gl=us



Lots of good info in that thread. I would love to use the same adapter and card on an A1200 that has something like one of the Fast ATA interfaces.

[rkauer]

The only bumper on this road is the SD>IDE adaptor. I have one bought from china that is DOA.

Didn't bother with a refund from Deal Extreme, simply ordered another one, which in turn got caught by Brazilian customs and never delivered to me...

[ptyerman]

Thanks for the link. I have just ordered 3 of them and will install them when they arrive. Just gotta be better than all the compact flash card incompatibility crap! Cheaper cards too.

Originally Posted by fgh

I prefer SD cards. It is true that SD cards are not IDE devices, so the SD-IDE adapter needs to do that part of the job.
But once you have an adapter that works, you don't need to worry about an incompatible card like you do with CF cards. (so in my opinion SD cards are more compatible, not less)
I tested around 15 SD cards of more than 10 different brands and they all worked well on this £6 adapter.

Edit:
Speed was a bigger factor years ago when SD cards were slower, but shouldn't be any more. Didn't measure myself though - guess Thgill is right.

By the way - be careful with PCMCIA-SD adapters, as many are either 32bit PC-card, or do not support SDHC.

[rampartsagain]

well actually i am having issues under winuae formating the cards always message like partitions on unit 0 or sector 0 even with disableharddrivesafetycheck and on my desktop computer with vista occurs error reading the card units saying abort retry ,they are all crazy.
even with execute as administrator rights

[fgh]

Originally Posted by rampartsagain

well actually i am having issues under winuae formating the cards always message like partitions on unit 0 or sector 0 even with disableharddrivesafetycheck and on my desktop computer with vista occurs error reading the card units saying abort retry ,they are all crazy.
even with execute as administrator rights

Can it be that there are windows-partitions (MBR-partitions) on your card?
If you are using a somewhat recent version of WinUAE the disableharddrivesafetycheck parameter is gone and you need to remove all windows partitions on the card for WinUAE to allow writes to it.

You can use the diskpart 'clean' command under Vista or Win 7.
The Win XP version of diskpart cannot access removable media, but you can use free tools like Easeus Partition Master or similar.

[Anemos]

CF is more close to IDE HDD protocol ,no need extra controller chip to emulate the IDE (on board adapter),so is more compatible and stable for long time.. prefer type I,and SANDISK..
I haven testing both..
I vote to CF.

[rkauer]

Don't use a SD card in USB readers, it will go crazy and all sorts of behaviours are expected.

Use the IDE adaptor you have and hook the card directly to the motherboard IDE header or use an external HD interface with the SD adaptor. This way it will work perfectly as intended.

[fgh]

Originally Posted by rkauer

Don't use a SD card in USB readers, it will go crazy and all sorts of behaviours are expected.

Use the IDE adaptor you have and hook the card directly to the motherboard IDE header or use an external HD interface with the SD adaptor. This way it will work perfectly as intended.

That's new to me, been accessing plenty of SD cards over USB on my PC so far. Some information would be useful, for instance examples of the crazy behaviour, and a bit of background perhaps?

[keitha1200]

I suspect (or guess) that SD's will replace CF cards in time. I haven't owned CF camera in years, most seem to be SD cards now. Not unless CF's are used for something else, which I don't know about.

[orange]

Oh, no! more adapters!