Why is everything IDE/ATA?

[hth313]

I browsed AmigaKit and it has a new Zorro-3 ATA board. The Vampire uses IDE (and I just learned that IDE and ATA are the same thing).

Looking at hard drives at the Western Digital site and they are all SATA. Wikipedia states that SATA superseded ATA around 2003 and my G5 Mac tower made that year has SATA drives in it.

Even back in the days (1993) the Commodore engineers were embarrassed by having IDE in the A4000.

So, why is everything using IDE/ATA in the Amiga world today? It is 15 years ago the world switched to SATA and all HDs I find in the shop today uses SATA.

[ajk]

I suppose it's just more complex to interface with SATA (PATA is fairly straightforward) and not many Amigas would be able to make use of the faster speeds anyway. Also actual hard drives are not used that often these days, it's the various Flash card solutions that are most common so the availability of drives isn't a major concern.

PATA was a perfectly sensible option in the A1200/A4000 days; at the time it looked like SCSI is on its way out of consumer devices and you could always get it with an expansion board if needed.

[sean_sk]

Originally Posted by hth313

Even back in the days (1993) the Commodore engineers were embarrassed by having IDE in the A4000.

I don't see why this should have been the case since IDE was the standard at that time.

Anyway if IDE is an issue for you, you can always try this:
http://www.vesalia.de/e_ide40sataconv.htm

[Jope]

They were embarrassed with it being PIO IDE.. Had it been DMA IDE, it wouldn't have been such an embarrassment.

[idrougge]

Originally Posted by sean_skroht

I don't see why this should have been the case since IDE was the standard at that time.

Not in the Amiga world. Far from it.

[Mr.Flibble]

IDE was the cheaper solution back then (the better SCSI options were far too expensive), which for an ailing Commodore was really the main factor.

These days? other than cables which are easier to deal with, you get almost no benefit from SATA in a standard Amiga, especially with SSDs etc.

[Daedalus]

Originally Posted by idrougge

Not in the Amiga world. Far from it.

Perhaps not... But in the hard drive world it was, and that made for easy and cheap expansion compared to the superior but expensive SCSI. It made a lot of sense to switch to IDE for the later Amiga models. IDE - at least in its PIO form - is a relatively simple interface, simple enough that it can be bit-banged using standard I/O pins and without needing a dedicated controller chip. That still holds true today, meaning that IDE/PATA is relatively easy to add to new hardware based on PGAs, and doesn't need any additional chips if there are enough pins available on the main chip - all it needs is some code essentially.

(Note, I'm not trivialising its development in new peripherals, just pointing out the simplicity on the hardware side.)

For use with modern storage, as already pointed out, PATA-SATA converters are cheap and easy to find, CF cards are popular to use as storage and are already PATA, and any drive made in this century is going to be fast enough that the Amiga's port implementation becomes the bottleneck, so the extra cost and effort of adding SATA might not always appear to be worth it.

[hth313]

My point is, if I was to get an interface card like this for my A3000, it would be for attaching a real hard drive to it. Otherwise I can just go the SD route.

The A3000 has narrow SCSI and for the last 15 years I have not been able to buy a new physical hard drive for it.

If I get a new machine, or switch interface on the existing machine, I do not want to end up with another standard that for which I cannot buy a new hard drive for. I just want to be able to go into the shop and get a real hard drive for it, today and for many years to come.

I prefer not to staple on an adapter. The fewer things attached the better. Adapters and hacks is what I would put in the A500 and friends, and it does not always make the machine that solid in the end.

Well, I suppose the SD solution is the better one for the A3000, but it is kind of nice that the vintage machine could sound like a vintage machine and make funny noises. Just like you expect a friendly cat would do.

In any case, thanks, I now understand why it is like this.

[zipper]

As long as the SCSI hard drive has the option to be switched to SE mode there is just the adapter problem. 80/68 whatever to your machine - somebody has told he had to use two adapters successively. But it can be done.

[duga]

Originally Posted by hth313

I browsed AmigaKit and it has a new Zorro-3 ATA board. The Vampire uses IDE (and I just learned that IDE and ATA are the same thing).

Looking at hard drives at the Western Digital site and they are all SATA. Wikipedia states that SATA superseded ATA around 2003 and my G5 Mac tower made that year has SATA drives in it.

Even back in the days (1993) the Commodore engineers were embarrassed by having IDE in the A4000.

So, why is everything using IDE/ATA in the Amiga world today? It is 15 years ago the world switched to SATA and all HDs I find in the shop today uses SATA.

Can't find any Zorro 3 ATA boards, link please.

[Daedalus]

SCSI has long been a niche standard, and unfortunately out of mainstream for a long time now. Yep, SATA would be nice (and is nice when you're using next-gen machines), so maybe there's an opening for the various hardware guys in the community. Even a clumsy solution using a bridge chip to provide the SATA from a bit-banged PATA implementation would work, essentially taking adaptors out of the equation. I'm sure it would sell well (in Amiga terms).

And who knows, maybe a few years down the line SATA as we know it will suddenly become obsolete too. I know it's currently backwards compatible, but they said the same about USB and Firewire at one point...

[hth313]

Originally Posted by duga

Can't find any Zorro 3 ATA boards, link please.

http://amigakit.amiga.store/product_...roducts_id=381

There is a Z2 board design product too: http://amigakit.amiga.store/product_...oducts_id=1318

[duga]

Originally Posted by hth313

http://amigakit.amiga.store/product_...roducts_id=381

There is a Z2 board design product too: http://amigakit.amiga.store/product_...oducts_id=1318

Ah yes, FastATA. Thanks.

[hth313]

Do not get me wrong, I am very happy we have these products available.

It just would be even better for me if I could go into a shop and pick any modern mainstream (cheap and good) drive and just plug it directly into it. This is because I want to have the option of using a mechanical drive.

For the A3000 I probably will eventually go the SD card route if there is no Z3 SATA interface. Link: http://amigakit.amiga.store/product_...oducts_id=1314
How much transfer speed can I expect in a standard 25Mhz A3000 from such device?

[ajk]

I put an ACARD SATA-to-SCSI drive converter in my A3000. It takes any 2.5" SATA drive and interfaces it with the system quite nicely and is fairly future-proof. The only down side is that these things are rather expensive.

[Juz400]

Cripes! that A-Data is expensive,
I had a brainwave, RaspberryPi as a SCSI interface!
As always, Im late to the party!

https://hackaday.com/2017/05/01/the-...a-scsi-device/

Anyone given it a go?
Im sure you could fill all the LUN`s with devices with a good bit of software

[idrougge]

That Raspberry Pi solution costs almost as much as an Adata, unless you're a dab hand at soldering.

[pandy71]

Originally Posted by hth313

So, why is everything using IDE/ATA in the Amiga world today? It is 15 years ago the world switched to SATA and all HDs I find in the shop today uses SATA.

Hope you are aware that SATA is fast serial interface (point to point, differential, low voltage multi Gigabit per second) and there is no easy way to interface SATA with old 5V logic. You can use or adapter from PATA to SATA (so translation is performed by dedicated chip) or implement SATA with using expensive FPGA (need to be equipped with fast serializer capable to fullfill SATA requirements - those are usually only in more expensive FPGA's.
PATA is not as bad as urban mythology says - due of HW limitations classic Amiga HW PATA is not used fully (and without DMA as mentioned already Amiga more limit PATA - usually slowest PIO modes). Every PATA harddrive has RAM and this RAM can be R/W usually way faster than Amiga allowing.

[daxb]

If Amiga would use PATA UltraDMA (PIO5) 66/100/133, then "everything" would be fine for mass storage and speed. But only PIO 0 to 4 is used and with low transfer rates. However, now it is too late and we have to life with it.

[pandy71]

Originally Posted by daxb

If Amiga would use PATA UltraDMA (PIO5) 66/100/133, then "everything" would be fine for mass storage and speed. But only PIO 0 to 4 is used and with low transfer rates. However, now it is too late and we have to life with it.

Why "it is too late"? Should be not a big issue to create DMA controller and implement DMA for PATA. Low speed is outcome of overall available bandwidth within Amiga SoC. Also instead creating HW DMA clever programmer may use modern hybrid (SW+HW) approach - for example software emulating HW with XMOS SoC or even better - some PRU from TI - PRU's are integral part of some ARM family offered by TI for example Sitara family used in https://beagleboard.org/pocket - PRU's seem to be nice tool for Amiga, 200MHz speed is more than required for example to real time capture Amiga DMA data (for example audio samples can be captured directly from Audio DMA and later processed independently from Paula), emulate CPU interface (and use ARM as software MC68k emulator) - UDMA should be not a big issue.