Hack@Home: 16GB mSATA SSD to Amiga IDE - for about £10

[Havie]

Oh poo!!! This is the second adaptor as the first one arrived broken - that'll teach me to pay more for a quick delivery. Will PM you my address so you can send it back and I will return it as faulty. I will attempt to source from a different place.

Good news that the SSD works though so not confined to Scandisk. For those that are interested:

http://www.innodisk.com/Product/Prod...ZXl3b3JkPTE%3d

Also, other good news is my beloved 1200 is winging it's way to have it's caps replaced so fingers crossed there is nothing else wrong with it!

[fgh]

Did you plug them the wrong way around?
As 44pin ide includes power this can fry them..

[TroyWilkins]

I've now got everything I need for this other than the IDE to USB. I do have a question, I plugged it all in (mSATA to 44pin 5volt adapter, 16GB mSATA, 44pin IDE cable) in my A600, double checking, and then double checking again, that I had the cable correctly plugged in (pin 1), and then turned on the A600, holding down both mouse buttons for the early startup menu. Now, I didn't see anything new, only CC0 and DF0, and I'd just like to double check if that is correct, considering I have not been able to create any partitions, let alone format as of yet?

Kickstart ROM is 37.350, so it doesn't have the more advanced diagnostics of the v39 onwards Kickstarts.

I didn't see or smell any smoke, so that's a good sign, I think, hahaha

[Zetr0]

@TroyWilkins

Unfortunately without being prepared the SSD won't have any RDB - because of this it cannot be seen in the early boot menu.

It could be worth giving HD-Install Tools a go to see if it can see it - although it will be tricky to partition and format for PFS3 without a PC =)

[TroyWilkins]

Originally Posted by Zetr0

@TroyWilkins

Unfortunately without being prepared the SSD won't have any RDB - because of this it cannot be seen in the early boot menu.

It could be worth giving HD-Install Tools a go to see if it can see it - although it will be tricky to partition and format for PFS3 without a PC =)

That's what I suspected, but I wasn't sure.

I don't have any 3.5" Amiga formatted double density disk with any HD install tools on it, closest I have is a cut-down Workbench 2.1 disk with just the sound preferences and an anti-virus program on it.

So I'll just have to wait for the USB adapter to arrive... *curses the slow postal service here*

[Havie]

@Zetr0
You have a pm.

[Havie]

Originally Posted by fgh

Did you plug them the wrong way around?
As 44pin ide includes power this can fry them..

No - it worked intermittently and I had already fried a cable previously when I initally got the 4 way ide with no instructions. Smoke, melted cable, panic - luckily although the cable melted, the 4 ide and miggy were both fine (and this was about a year ago). Luckily the wife was out or she would have freaked!!!

[Zetr0]

Originally Posted by Havie

@Zetr0
You have a pm.

Indeed I do, I need to sort out the notification for my lap top - it keeps crashing under firefox when I try to open it - I sense a Windoze re-install in my future!

[TroyWilkins]

@Zetro

Thank you so much for this my good man!

My IDE to USB adapter arrived today, and just now, my A600 booted for the very first time from something other than a 3.5" floppy disk!

I'm currently now copying across things from my PCs hard disk to the SSD (yes, my A600 has a faster hard disk drive than my PC, even if the A600 won't take full advantage of the possible speed hahaha) and then I'll give it a proper test by loading some apps and games, not just workbench. But even on a stock A600 (other than the 604n RAM expansion) this solution seems to work at a speed faster than I was expecting.

But once again, thank you my good man, very much appreciated!

[TroyWilkins]

Originally Posted by Zetr0

Interesting thing I have noticed here is that if I run the test 3 times in succession the system locks up and requires a reboot. Obviously I was curious to ensure that this isn't a strange feature so I copied a 180MB archive file from one partition to another other - unpacked it, tested it, then packed it back up and copied over to the other partition. All in all its quite normal except for the peculiar lock up issue with SysSpeed.

I have been experiencing this issue while copying files using DOpus, it seems to happen if I attempt to copy too much data in the one operation - so for example, attempting to copy the entire contents of my emulated Work: disk in WinUAE to the DH1: I have created on the SSD, it will lock up. But If I tell it to do a few drawers at a time, no dramas. It is a curious bug, and yes, MaxTransfer is set to a sensible value, I've patched scsi.device and am using PFS-AIO.

[nogginthenog]

Has anyone tried IDEFix to see if it fixes the lockup problem?

[TroyWilkins]

Originally Posted by nogginthenog

Has anyone tried IDEFix to see if it fixes the lockup problem?

I didn't think of that, no I have not yet.

[fgh]

I think dopus runs out of memory.
Try copying with cli/shell (copy source destination all clone quiet) or add lots of memory when using dopus.

[TroyWilkins]

Originally Posted by fgh

I think dopus runs out of memory.
Try copying with cli/shell (copy source destination all clone quiet) or add lots of memory when using dopus.

Ahh, good idea, thank you, I shall try that!

[Zetr0]

@TroyWilkins

Originally Posted by TroyWilkins

@Zetro

Thank you so much for this my good man!

My IDE to USB adapter arrived today, and just now, my A600 booted for the very first time from something other than a 3.5" floppy disk!

I'm currently now copying across things from my PCs hard disk to the SSD (yes, my A600 has a faster hard disk drive than my PC, even if the A600 won't take full advantage of the possible speed hahaha) and then I'll give it a proper test by loading some apps and games, not just workbench. But even on a stock A600 (other than the 604n RAM expansion) this solution seems to work at a speed faster than I was expecting.

But once again, thank you my good man, very much appreciated!

Thats very kind to say my friend, I just really enjoy helping out, this little bit of fun will hopefully makes its way into the Amiga Community where it can be refined and eventually made its own by the community. There's still some mileage - with other adaptors like SCSI->IDE bridges, with FAST SCSI II for the Z2 equipped machines and SCSI III for the top end PPC owners!

I am very excited to see what others can do with it and what projects others will make as well - its very humbling indeed! =D

@Thread

Originally Posted by nogginthenog

Has anyone tried IDEFix to see if it fixes the lockup problem?

Originally Posted by TroyWilkins

I didn't think of that, no I have not yet.

Originally Posted by fgh

I think dopus runs out of memory.
Try copying with cli/shell (copy source destination all clone quiet) or add lots of memory when using dopus.

This is very good point, I have been testing these with lots of FAST RAM, with 128MB on the Vampire and 64MB on the Apollo060 - which could explain why I have not experienced any lock-ups with Dopus.

I have a FAST ATA Mk3 to try out at some on the A1200 - this could be interesting - I have the afternoon - its a misery of weather outside - could be a good time to put an Amiga together

[TroyWilkins]

Ok, I tried using the shell, and didn't experience any lockup, athough even with 2MB Chip and 16MB FAST setup (as well as a 68020 with JIT set to unlimited speed) in WinUAE for the emulation, it still used all that RAM up, so much so that I couldn't even open another window while the copy was in progress. But it copied everything without issue, so it would seem the problem was DOpus running out of memory and not an issue with the hardware itself. Thanks for the idea!

[Havie]

Originally Posted by TroyWilkins

I have been experiencing this issue while copying files using DOpus, it seems to happen if I attempt to copy too much data in the one operation - so for example, attempting to copy the entire contents of my emulated Work: disk in WinUAE to the DH1: I have created on the SSD, it will lock up. But If I tell it to do a few drawers at a time, no dramas. It is a curious bug, and yes, MaxTransfer is set to a sensible value, I've patched scsi.device and am using PFS-AIO.

I found this too but when I left the computer alone for a while it started up again! Not sure if it is a memory issue but for me, looked like it had crashed when copying but hadn't. I too found the best solution was just to copy fewer files at a time.

@Zetr0
Hi mate - have you got round to posting the disk back? My new adaptor has arrived and my 1200 has come back all shiny and new from Bebek so keen to set up the ssd.

[Zetr0]

@Setting up the SSD

I would humbly suggest either using a WinUAE install of ClassicWorkbench 3.9 (BB1 & 2), or Classic Workbench 3.5.

From that create the partitions under PFS3-AIO - have a look at the Fitzsteve Youtube link I posted earlier. Interestingly I have yet to test this under SFS - SFS can offer a 20% speed increase over the older PFS3, however requires a minimum 68020 CPU - I am now quiet curious to see how the Vampire V2 will do with that format.

@Havie

Sorry my friend, while I packed this up to post before I left the house for work on Monday - sadly it was only after reading your name come up in my message notification when I got home yesterday evening that I realized I had completely forgot. I will have this in the post first thing tomorrow my friend - I will even treat it to first class postage - sorry about that.

[Havie]

No problem - mate, we all live busy lives!

[xraynorm]

Originally Posted by Zetr0

@xraynorm

I am very pleased this is working for you - I have had a brief look and I believe its correctable with a wire from one of the transistors.

From a brief look at the pair of transistors they are in a "Darlington" configuration which just needs a small correction to bring the power back up to 5v when there is no activity - at the moment it is always in a low state - which allows the LED to stay on.

Hi thanks for your reply.

If you end up doing this, please could you let us know how to do this.

Is it possible to fix this on the led cable or on the led board on the amiga?

Regards