CF / SD and large drives FAQ

[TuKo]

Guys, I just figured out that AmigaOS 4.1FE BootDisk contains a 68k scsi.device with version 52.3. Anyone tried it ? I booted it on my A600 fine but I'd like to know if it's worse or better than current 43.46 from Cloanto.

[appiah4]

Is the speed of the compact flash a limiting factor in any way or is the slowest CF ever still faster than the bus they are connected to? Asking because I have a Sandisk Extreme III 2GB that is faster than the Kingston Value 4GB I have but I'd rather cram more whdload games and demos onto it..

[Jope]

Originally Posted by appiah4

Is the speed of the compact flash a limiting factor in any way or is the slowest CF ever still faster than the bus they are connected to? Asking because I have a Sandisk Extreme III 2GB that is faster than the Kingston Value 4GB I have but I'd rather cram more whdload games and demos onto it..

You shouldn't have to care about the speed of the CF card, Amiga IDE will be slower. Get the bigger one. :-)

[appiah4]

Originally Posted by Jope

You shouldn't have to care about the speed of the CF card, Amiga IDE will be slower. Get the bigger one. :-)

I figured as much, but thanks a lot for the confirmation

[ancalimon]

I want to get the largest cf for my A1200 with 8mb ram.

Found a 32gb Kingston 166x selling for 27 Euros. Would it work with Amiga?
http://urun.gittigidiyor.com/fotogra...ulti-253163634

There is also a 64gb for 40Euros, but there is no boxed picture (although it says new on the description)
http://urun.gittigidiyor.com/fotogra...arti-252174493

[fgh]

I have that kingston 166x 32gb, and mine works fine.
But you never know 100% until you try
(They can all change the firmware at random)

[ancalimon]

Originally Posted by fgh

I have that kingston 166x 32gb, and mine works fine.
But you never know 100% until you try
(They can all change the firmware at random)

I got the 64gb one. I hope it works with the cf adapter I have.

[nogginthenog]

I have that exact Kingston 266X in 16 & 32gb. Works fine.

[thomas]

Originally Posted by ancalimon

I want to get the largest cf for my A1200 with 8mb ram.

Found a 32gb Kingston 166x selling for 27 Euros. Would it work with Amiga?

Besides the hardware it also depends on the file system used. To format an FFS partition as a rule of thumb you need as many megabytes of RAM as the partition has gigabytes.

[ancalimon]

Originally Posted by thomas

Besides the hardware it also depends on the file system used. To format an FFS partition as a rule of thumb you need as many megabytes of RAM as the partition has gigabytes.

I probably will use sfs because it is the only filesystem that never gave me any problems.

I just ordered a 128gb cf card and will attempt to use pfs3. I'll echo back my results. I think if I use winuae to format it, with "unlimited" ram, it should be a non-issue. What are the upper bounds of pfs3 partition size?


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[fgh]

PFS3 (normal and AiO version) max partition size is currently 101GiB.
(FFS 45 and SFS with dostype SFS\2 allow larger partitions)

[ancalimon]

Originally Posted by fgh

PFS3 (normal and AiO version) max partition size is currently 101GiB.
(FFS 45 and SFS with dostype SFS\2 allow larger partitions)

I just realized that I used SFS0 for my OS4.1 FE partition on my OS4 hdd and SFS2 for the rest of the drive.. I wonder why I did not use SFS2. Is there even a reason for using sfs0 ?

Originally Posted by esc

I just ordered a 128gb cf card and will attempt to use pfs3. I'll echo back my results. I think if I use winuae to format it, with "unlimited" ram, it should be a non-issue. What are the upper bounds of pfs3 partition size?

Didn't work because the CF cards were pieces of garbage. They were Lexar Professional 1066x 128gb cards. There was no way to remove the existing partition, even if I used dd, even if I used diskpart, it would somehow come back right after I erased it. So it was unusable.

[fgh]

Try prepping them on the amiga.

[ancalimon]

For a long time I have been using CyberstormPPC scsi interface so I did not face any hdd size problem.

But I have two A1200s.One of them has a FASTATA mk4 and Blizzard 060 and I haven't tried playing games with it much.
The other A1200 has an unknown 8mb ram card and 4gb cfcard. Tomorrow the 64gb cars will arrive and I will set everything up.

Question: some whdload games sometimes require options such as nocache and novbr. Will this interfere with using a patched scsi.device? I am asking because softkicking rom modules causes problems with some whdload games.

[ancalimon]

I installed the 64gb CF card on my A1200 060 with FastATA MKIV.
Which ClassicWB should I install for best whdload experience and what should the partition sizes should be?

[Toni Wilen]

16G and 32G "silver" Sandisk Ultra 50MB/s CF cards (https://www.sandisk.com/home/memory-...a-compactflash) use "illegal" CHS geometry = full capacity is available without scsi.device update with DirectSCSI filesystem.

16G confirmed here: http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=85688
I ordered 32G version after I saw above post, it arrived today and I can confirm that it also uses "illegal" CHS geometry. (62041/16/63, "HDX13.04SDCFHS-032G")

Originally Posted by Toni Wilen

16G and 32G "silver" Sandisk Ultra 50MB/s CF cards (https://www.sandisk.com/home/memory-...a-compactflash) use "illegal" CHS geometry = full capacity is available without scsi.device update with DirectSCSI filesystem.

16G confirmed here: http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=85688
I ordered 32G version after I saw above post, it arrived today and I can confirm that it also uses "illegal" CHS geometry. (62041/16/63, "HDX13.04SDCFHS-032G")

To confirm, this makes these CF cards ideal for Amiga usage, right?

[ancalimon]

The Kingston 64GB Ultimate 266X Compact Flash card does not work with the old IDE version of FastATA MKIV when set to PIO4 mode. When set to PIO3 mode, partitions become accessible after a diskchange command.

I wonder if upgrading to the more recent CF version of FastATA MKV would fix this problem. Back in the day Elbox offered a mach chip upgrade to a newer model but they no longer do on their site.