CF card speed comparison

Photon · 27 September 2009, 22:24

These are the CF cards in the test:
- Lexar Premium 2GB, 80x speed
- SanDisk Extreme III 2GB, marked "ESP Technology (tm)"

The test rigs:
- A500-040@28+Trumpcard 500 Pro, CF->IDE->Vesalia SCSI Adapter.
- A1200-030@33+built in IDE
- Stock A600+built in IDE

All 3 IDE-CF adapters are the cheap kind from Hong Kong. Speed was measured in SysInfo V3.24.

Lexar results: (In KB/s)
A600, no Fastmem: 524
A500, 68000, no Fastmem: 915
A500, 68040+32-bit Fastmem: 1854
A1200, 68030, no Fastmem: 1004
A1200, 68030+32-bit Fastmem: 1506

Some interesting aspects are that the 68030 is pretty toothless without its onboard RAM, but that it's not that far behind the 68040 when it does have it.

SanDisk results: (In KB/s)
A600, no Fastmem: 696
A500, 68000, no Fastmem: 975
A500, 68040+32-bit Fastmem: 1837
A1200, 68030, no Fastmem: 1127
A1200, 68030+32-bit Fastmem: 1975

Conclusions:
Since my 68040 accelerator can't add its memory at boot time, not all the code that Sysinfo uses is in Fastram. I suspect this is why the A1200, which has this capability, overtakes it on the same card.

It's easy to see that the SanDisk beats the Lexar in every single test, but the difference is the biggest in the slowest and the fastest rig.

The reason why the A500 without Fastram is MUCH faster than the A600 without Fastram must be in the SCSI controller drivers. It also shows that the Vesalia SCSI-IDE adapter can follow suit up to at least 1800+ KB/s. Good stuff!

alexh · 27 September 2009, 22:41

Are you using any of the IDE software speedups possible with A1200 IDE "scsi.device" interface?

Versalia don't have a SCSI-IDE adapter. They resell the ACard AEC-7720U which is rated upto 20,000KB/s

Photon · 01 October 2009, 12:41

Well, ok.

I associated it with them, since it seemed it was the only place I could get it.

I'm not using optimized drivers. Drivers are from the interface manufacturer, ie. normal WB 3.1 scsi.device in the A600 and A1200.

Using optimized drivers could show if the card could go higher, but since it's PIO, a faster processor reveals the same.

Hm, just ordered two SanDisk Extreme IV's ... There's the "300x" UDMA also, but surely UDMA is not possible in an Amiga?

alexh · 01 October 2009, 12:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by Photon

UDMA is not possible in an Amiga?

Not on the integrated IDE interfaces. PIO0 only.

Photon · 01 October 2009, 19:04

Didn't think so. Well, I should get the Extreme IV's tomorrow, will post results, and hopefully also see what 68030@33->68030@50 gives, yeah!!

DoogUK · 01 October 2009, 19:42

It would be interesting to see the results from these on a fastATA as they support PIO5.

twizzle · 01 October 2009, 20:33

sandisk extreme 111 30mb/s 4 gig
bppc 603e 160/60/50 mhz 256 fast ram
mediator 1200 sx
fast ata111 p105 mode
OS 3.5 + BB1&2
sysinfo ver 3.24 speed DHO bytes/sec = 5.349.877

DoogUK · 01 October 2009, 20:42

I cant get my fastata to work with my 060

twizzle · 01 October 2009, 21:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by DoogUK

I cant get my fastata to work with my 060

my std bl 060 works ok with the fastata 111,
what probs are you getting ?
are you using the latest 060 libs from phase 5 site
what ver of elbox drivers
which OS are you using
any fixe`s ? that might be interfering

DoogUK · 01 October 2009, 21:58

I'll create a new thread for it.

Photon · 01 October 2009, 22:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by DoogUK

It would be interesting to see the results from these on a fastATA as they support PIO5.

You'd have to clue me in as to what a FastATA is in the Amiga-reign... some interface attached to accelerators?

And good idea for a separate thread.

And yes, PIO is faster with an 060. And probably faster still with FastATA.

Can I "get FastATA" for any of my three rigs above?

DoogUK · 01 October 2009, 22:28

Its an enhanced IDE controller for the A1200, there's version for the A4000 too.

http://www.elbox.com/products/fast_ata_1200_mk3.html

Photon · 02 October 2009, 00:32

$100, cool

Worth considering. Can any version be adapted to A600?

Anyway, just upgraded my A1200/030 to kick 3.1 (and put in 128MB 60ns ram instead of 16MB ram, but that didn't affect speed.)

Test results: (still the SanDisk Extreme III)
Kick 3.0 - 1975 MB/s
Kick 3.1 - 2085 MB/s

Don't know if this is just the +-5% difference between Sysinfo speed measurements :P but anyway... I broke the 2MB/s mark, yay!!

Me, I'm just surprised that there is a definite difference between CF cards...

Shouldn't they all be perfectly ample to cope with any Amiga's "power"?

Photon · 02 October 2009, 03:58

"Me, I'm just surprised that there is a definite difference between CF cards... " <-- on the same rig, that is.

There's also the SanDisk Ducati series, which seems to be 11% faster than Extreme IV. Wish I'd known this before buying

Photon · 02 October 2009, 04:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by alexh

Are you using any of the IDE software speedups possible with A1200 IDE "scsi.device" interface?

Versalia don't have a SCSI-IDE adapter. They resell the ACard AEC-7720U which is rated upto 20,000KB/s

What is there, apart from upgrading to kick 3.1? Share!

Zetr0 · 02 October 2009, 06:22

@Photon

2MB is pretty much the max for native Amiga IDE, to push those numbers faster you would have to get-off the Native IDE buss....

OR enhance it with an IDEFix Express (upto 5.5MB persec) although not sure if this would work in an A600, even if it did, the bottle neck would be the 68k chip.

for the A1200 there are options such like the Fast ATA Mk3 (its a little buggy but its a resonable solution)

by far the best is to get FastSCSI for the A1200 / A4000 accelerator cards, these puppies can DMA into their own 32bit space, provide upto 10MB sync access with next to ZERO CPU Load....

@DougUK,

my friend you Fast ATA problem is your 80mhz 060 timing, I replied in your new thread.

NovaCoder · 02 October 2009, 07:06

IDEFix Express + SanDisk Ulta 2 + SpeedyIDE (could never get the stupid IdeFix driver to work) gets me about 4.5mbs on my 1200 (030/50mhz) using SysInfo. While that's not very impressive, it's still 100% better than stock

Zetr0 · 02 October 2009, 14:23

@mr a500

slightly OT, but, with this adapter it may change a few things the way it writes to the card.

When preparing the SD as a harddisk, did you change the MAX Transfers to 0x1feFFFFF ? if so, did you try lowering it a quartet to say 0x1eeFFFF ?

I think if you try this to find its level, but dont go much lower than 0x11eFFFFF if its not gonna work it may just be incompatible.

shame, I was hoping to do some tests with a 16GB SD card of the crimbo period...

mr_a500 · 02 October 2009, 20:18

I set the Maxtransfer to the same as on the CF. It seemed fine and I copied 2Gb of stuff over. After booting, it still all looked OK. When I started using it, I got checksum errors all over the place. It looks like I'll have to wipe everything, keep lowering Maxtransfer and test with a huge file.

I hope I can get it to work. The beauty of SD (aside from being super cheap) is that I can plug it in a USB and using WinUAE copy back and forth from/to PC. I can do that with the CF of course, but with SD, I don't have to open the PC and plug in an IDE adapter.

I wish the part of WinUAE that allows Windows to see Amiga filesystems could be made into a separate program that integrates into Explorer. Actually, I wish I didn't have to use Windows at all. I need a BeOS/Haiku Amiga filesystem.

(or for Linux - but that stupid OS needs filesystem support compiled into the kernel. Unbelievable.)

Photon · 02 October 2009, 20:41

You can also buy a dirt cheap multicard adapter for USB in any consumer electronics store near you

10€ or so. Most of them handle SD (all types), CF, Expresscard... got one myself and WinUAE finds it fine.

So, no IDE adapter needed for PC

many PCs don't even have IDE anymore, so Multicard Readers is the solution nowadays...

Yes, I tested SD in my A1200, with the French SD-IDE adapter I'm selling on amibay. It's fast when reading, but much slower than CF when writing. My card worked fine, it was a PNY 2GB normal SD card. I saw yesterday when looking for the "Ducati" series that there exists some very fast SD cards from SanDisk, so maybe I shouldn't judge them all from my PNY card

This was before I started the speedtest, so I have no figures - but it seemed about as fast as CF loading Workbench.

If you don't do much file copying after setting up the card with WB etc, then it's a decent solution - especiallly for those who have an Emu+Amiga-files on their laptop or netbook and only have SD and Expresscard slots in their machine. (That was my plan when I bought it

)

Bah, despite promises the Extreme IV's didn't arrive today... so no speedtest until Monday... and my Futurlec package is stuck in Paris

27 September 2009, 22:24	#1
Photon Moderator Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: Eksjö / Sweden Posts: 5,602	CF card speed comparison These are the CF cards in the test: - Lexar Premium 2GB, 80x speed - SanDisk Extreme III 2GB, marked "ESP Technology (tm)" The test rigs: - A500-040@28+Trumpcard 500 Pro, CF->IDE->Vesalia SCSI Adapter. - A1200-030@33+built in IDE - Stock A600+built in IDE All 3 IDE-CF adapters are the cheap kind from Hong Kong. Speed was measured in SysInfo V3.24. Lexar results: (In KB/s) A600, no Fastmem: 524 A500, 68000, no Fastmem: 915 A500, 68040+32-bit Fastmem: 1854 A1200, 68030, no Fastmem: 1004 A1200, 68030+32-bit Fastmem: 1506 Some interesting aspects are that the 68030 is pretty toothless without its onboard RAM, but that it's not that far behind the 68040 when it does have it. SanDisk results: (In KB/s) A600, no Fastmem: 696 A500, 68000, no Fastmem: 975 A500, 68040+32-bit Fastmem: 1837 A1200, 68030, no Fastmem: 1127 A1200, 68030+32-bit Fastmem: 1975 Conclusions: Since my 68040 accelerator can't add its memory at boot time, not all the code that Sysinfo uses is in Fastram. I suspect this is why the A1200, which has this capability, overtakes it on the same card. It's easy to see that the SanDisk beats the Lexar in every single test, but the difference is the biggest in the slowest and the fastest rig. The reason why the A500 without Fastram is MUCH faster than the A600 without Fastram must be in the SCSI controller drivers. It also shows that the Vesalia SCSI-IDE adapter can follow suit up to at least 1800+ KB/s. Good stuff!

27 September 2009, 22:41	#2
alexh Thalion Webshrine Join Date: Jan 2004 Location: Oxford Posts: 14,337	Are you using any of the IDE software speedups possible with A1200 IDE "scsi.device" interface? Versalia don't have a SCSI-IDE adapter. They resell the ACard AEC-7720U which is rated upto 20,000KB/s Last edited by alexh; 27 September 2009 at 22:47.

01 October 2009, 20:33	#7
twizzle Registered User Join Date: Sep 2005 Location: taunton.som.uk Age: 73 Posts: 681	sandisk extreme 111 30mb/s 4 gig bppc 603e 160/60/50 mhz 256 fast ram mediator 1200 sx fast ata111 p105 mode OS 3.5 + BB1&2 sysinfo ver 3.24 speed DHO bytes/sec = 5.349.877 Last edited by twizzle; 01 October 2009 at 21:02.

Similar Threads
Thread	Thread Starter	Forum	Replies	Last Post
Cyberstorm PPC vs Blizzard PPC CPU Speed Comparison	CU_AMiGA	support.Hardware	9	15 March 2012 14:25
Transcend 4gb 133x Ultra Speed CF Card in PCMCIA?	Dreedo	support.Hardware	7	11 November 2010 16:36
A500 SCSI interface speed comparison	Photon	support.Hardware	90	02 February 2010 20:33
IDE2CF CF card speed compared to hard drive	HardStep	support.Hardware	5	26 June 2006 22:00

01 October 2009, 12:41	#3
Photon Moderator Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: Eksjö / Sweden Posts: 5,602	Well, ok. I associated it with them, since it seemed it was the only place I could get it. I'm not using optimized drivers. Drivers are from the interface manufacturer, ie. normal WB 3.1 scsi.device in the A600 and A1200. Using optimized drivers could show if the card could go higher, but since it's PIO, a faster processor reveals the same. Hm, just ordered two SanDisk Extreme IV's ... There's the "300x" UDMA also, but surely UDMA is not possible in an Amiga?

01 October 2009, 19:04	#5
Photon Moderator Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: Eksjö / Sweden Posts: 5,602	Didn't think so. Well, I should get the Extreme IV's tomorrow, will post results, and hopefully also see what 68030@33->68030@50 gives, yeah!!

01 October 2009, 19:42	#6
DoogUK Doogster Join Date: Dec 2007 Location: Dorset Posts: 1,069	It would be interesting to see the results from these on a fastATA as they support PIO5.

01 October 2009, 20:42	#8
DoogUK Doogster Join Date: Dec 2007 Location: Dorset Posts: 1,069	I cant get my fastata to work with my 060

01 October 2009, 21:58	#10
DoogUK Doogster Join Date: Dec 2007 Location: Dorset Posts: 1,069	I'll create a new thread for it.

01 October 2009, 22:28	#12
DoogUK Doogster Join Date: Dec 2007 Location: Dorset Posts: 1,069	Its an enhanced IDE controller for the A1200, there's version for the A4000 too. http://www.elbox.com/products/fast_ata_1200_mk3.html

02 October 2009, 00:32	#13
Photon Moderator Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: Eksjö / Sweden Posts: 5,602	$100, cool Worth considering. Can any version be adapted to A600? Anyway, just upgraded my A1200/030 to kick 3.1 (and put in 128MB 60ns ram instead of 16MB ram, but that didn't affect speed.) Test results: (still the SanDisk Extreme III) Kick 3.0 - 1975 MB/s Kick 3.1 - 2085 MB/s Don't know if this is just the +-5% difference between Sysinfo speed measurements :P but anyway... I broke the 2MB/s mark, yay!! Me, I'm just surprised that there is a definite difference between CF cards... Shouldn't they all be perfectly ample to cope with any Amiga's "power"?

02 October 2009, 03:58	#14
Photon Moderator Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: Eksjö / Sweden Posts: 5,602	"Me, I'm just surprised that there is a definite difference between CF cards... " <-- on the same rig, that is. There's also the SanDisk Ducati series, which seems to be 11% faster than Extreme IV. Wish I'd known this before buying

02 October 2009, 06:22	#16
Zetr0 Ya' like it Retr0? Join Date: Jul 2005 Location: United Kingdom Age: 49 Posts: 9,768	@Photon 2MB is pretty much the max for native Amiga IDE, to push those numbers faster you would have to get-off the Native IDE buss.... OR enhance it with an IDEFix Express (upto 5.5MB persec) although not sure if this would work in an A600, even if it did, the bottle neck would be the 68k chip. for the A1200 there are options such like the Fast ATA Mk3 (its a little buggy but its a resonable solution) by far the best is to get FastSCSI for the A1200 / A4000 accelerator cards, these puppies can DMA into their own 32bit space, provide upto 10MB sync access with next to ZERO CPU Load.... @DougUK, my friend you Fast ATA problem is your 80mhz 060 timing, I replied in your new thread.

02 October 2009, 07:06	#17
NovaCoder Registered User Join Date: Sep 2007 Location: Melbourne/Australia Posts: 4,400	IDEFix Express + SanDisk Ulta 2 + SpeedyIDE (could never get the stupid IdeFix driver to work) gets me about 4.5mbs on my 1200 (030/50mhz) using SysInfo. While that's not very impressive, it's still 100% better than stock

02 October 2009, 14:23	#18
Zetr0 Ya' like it Retr0? Join Date: Jul 2005 Location: United Kingdom Age: 49 Posts: 9,768	@mr a500 slightly OT, but, with this adapter it may change a few things the way it writes to the card. When preparing the SD as a harddisk, did you change the MAX Transfers to 0x1feFFFFF ? if so, did you try lowering it a quartet to say 0x1eeFFFF ? I think if you try this to find its level, but dont go much lower than 0x11eFFFFF if its not gonna work it may just be incompatible. shame, I was hoping to do some tests with a 16GB SD card of the crimbo period...

02 October 2009, 20:18	#19
mr_a500 Amiga-based Cyborg Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Canada Posts: 808	I set the Maxtransfer to the same as on the CF. It seemed fine and I copied 2Gb of stuff over. After booting, it still all looked OK. When I started using it, I got checksum errors all over the place. It looks like I'll have to wipe everything, keep lowering Maxtransfer and test with a huge file. I hope I can get it to work. The beauty of SD (aside from being super cheap) is that I can plug it in a USB and using WinUAE copy back and forth from/to PC. I can do that with the CF of course, but with SD, I don't have to open the PC and plug in an IDE adapter. I wish the part of WinUAE that allows Windows to see Amiga filesystems could be made into a separate program that integrates into Explorer. Actually, I wish I didn't have to use Windows at all. I need a BeOS/Haiku Amiga filesystem. (or for Linux - but that stupid OS needs filesystem support compiled into the kernel. Unbelievable.)

02 October 2009, 20:41	#20
Photon Moderator Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: Eksjö / Sweden Posts: 5,602	You can also buy a dirt cheap multicard adapter for USB in any consumer electronics store near you 10€ or so. Most of them handle SD (all types), CF, Expresscard... got one myself and WinUAE finds it fine. So, no IDE adapter needed for PC many PCs don't even have IDE anymore, so Multicard Readers is the solution nowadays... Yes, I tested SD in my A1200, with the French SD-IDE adapter I'm selling on amibay. It's fast when reading, but much slower than CF when writing. My card worked fine, it was a PNY 2GB normal SD card. I saw yesterday when looking for the "Ducati" series that there exists some very fast SD cards from SanDisk, so maybe I shouldn't judge them all from my PNY card This was before I started the speedtest, so I have no figures - but it seemed about as fast as CF loading Workbench. If you don't do much file copying after setting up the card with WB etc, then it's a decent solution - especiallly for those who have an Emu+Amiga-files on their laptop or netbook and only have SD and Expresscard slots in their machine. (That was my plan when I bought it ) Bah, despite promises the Extreme IV's didn't arrive today... so no speedtest until Monday... and my Futurlec package is stuck in Paris

Currently Active Users Viewing This Thread: 1 (0 members and 1 guests)