Amiga questions you've always been too embarrassed to ask - Page 142

rabidgerry · 16 June 2021, 17:51

Just I have a Fast ATA MKII and I am in two minds about it which is why I initially ask.

Like am I really going to get a nice pay off? Or headache.

grond · 16 June 2021, 18:38

Even the harddisks of old were a massive speed-up compared to floppy disks. It didn't matter that much, though, whether your harddisk did 1.2 MB/s or 1.5MB/s. What did the FDD do? 80KB/s? Amiga files are usually in the dozens of KBs to single digit MB range. Other factors are limiting in an Amiga which is why you won't notice all that much of a speed-up if you get a MB/s more. HDDs (dozens of MB/s) vs. SDDs (up to GB/s) in modern day PCs have more notable effects as we are routinely handling files in the GB size range.

Lord Aga · 17 June 2021, 16:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by rabidgerry

Just I have a Fast ATA MKII and I am in two minds about it which is why I initially ask.
Like am I really going to get a nice pay off? Or headache.

I see where you're coming from. Personally I wouldn't bother.

If you have a turbo card, or even just some FAST RAM, the transfer should be more than enough to enjoy everything Amiga

rabidgerry · 17 June 2021, 17:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lord Aga

I see where you're coming from. Personally I wouldn't bother.

If you have a turbo card, or even just some FAST RAM, the transfer should be more than enough to enjoy everything Amiga

I knew someone would say that, but then this is why I asked. I have an Apollo 1260 with 64mb of ram. On my ACA 1233n the IDE speeder gets me around 6.5 mb/s. With the Apollo I get around 2.1 mb/s.

Daedalus · 17 June 2021, 18:14

Well, given the option, if all other factors aren't of any consequence, there's nothing wrong with going for a faster drive. The speed of any drive these days will be restricted by the Amiga's IDE bus, so anything that gives you 10MB/s or more will already be able to outpace even the IDE speeder setup, and pretty much any decent device these days should be able to sustain those speeds. What made more of a difference back in the day with mechanical drives was seek time, especially when accessing lots of small files, a heavily fragmented drive or when accessing multiple files at once where more of the time was spent moving the heads than actually transferring data. Solid state drives don't have seek times as such, so that's largely irrelevant these days too.

rabidgerry · 17 June 2021, 20:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by Daedalus

Well, given the option, if all other factors aren't of any consequence, there's nothing wrong with going for a faster drive. The speed of any drive these days will be restricted by the Amiga's IDE bus, so anything that gives you 10MB/s or more will already be able to outpace even the IDE speeder setup, and pretty much any decent device these days should be able to sustain those speeds. What made more of a difference back in the day with mechanical drives was seek time, especially when accessing lots of small files, a heavily fragmented drive or when accessing multiple files at once where more of the time was spent moving the heads than actually transferring data. Solid state drives don't have seek times as such, so that's largely irrelevant these days too.

For clarity's sake, do you mean an actual hard drive and not CF/SD drives or are you including those or differentiating between the two?

I did an experiment myself and copied the exact same image of a drive onto an SD card (class10 U1) just to see if I got any more mb/s using that over a CF card rates 133x. I got a little more, but not much. This was simply to see if a faster rated card would boost the rate without any additional gadgets. When using the IDE speeder on my ACA card the same 133x CF card was getting that 6.5 mb/s. So I know a 133x card is capable of 20mb/s so if the IDE is the bottle neck how do the extra hardware break through that?

Sorry for all the questions.

Daedalus · 17 June 2021, 21:18

I was kinda covering both - ultimately it doesn't matter in terms of throughput. You'll get small differences from device to device, but that SD card is capable of 10MB/s and the CF card is capable of 20MB/s so both will saturate the IDE port and give similar speeds. Mechanical hard drives should easily be able to exceed 10MB/s too unless they're very old indeed, but this performance will be affected significantly by seek times, so that comes into play too...

The IDE speeder pulls a couple of tricks to improve throughput, but these are applied at an interface level, so it shouldn't matter what sort of device is attached - mechanical hard drives should benefit as well as CF/SD cards.

rabidgerry · 17 June 2021, 21:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by Daedalus

I was kinda covering both - ultimately it doesn't matter in terms of throughput. You'll get small differences from device to device, but that SD card is capable of 10MB/s and the CF card is capable of 20MB/s so both will saturate the IDE port and give similar speeds. Mechanical hard drives should easily be able to exceed 10MB/s too unless they're very old indeed, but this performance will be affected significantly by seek times, so that comes into play too...

The IDE speeder pulls a couple of tricks to improve throughput, but these are applied at an interface level, so it shouldn't matter what sort of device is attached - mechanical hard drives should benefit as well as CF/SD cards.

Thanks

I'll probably install the Fast ATA, you know how us Amigans just can't help tinkering

kremiso · 03 July 2021, 12:17

Never had a real A500 plus, so i'll ask here
it is possible to connect the old halfmeg expansion (a501 or compatibles) also on this?

can't remember at all

Jope · 03 July 2021, 18:34

I remember it working, you get 512kB more chip.

NLS · 03 July 2021, 23:23

1.5MB chip?
Not so sure.
AGA was capable of 2MB chip.
I think it added it as 512Kb slow.

Daedalus · 03 July 2021, 23:42

ECS is also capable of 2MB chip RAM - just look at the A600 and A3000. 1MB expansions for the 500+ also make it up to 2MB of chip RAM, so there's no reason the 512kB expansion wouldn't be added as chip RAM.

The RTC on the 512kB memory expansion won't be used however.

NLS · 04 July 2021, 00:10

Indeed you are right.

kremiso · 04 July 2021, 14:22

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jope

I remember it working, you get 512kB more chip.

thank you
i was trying to search on google without luck

NLS · 06 July 2021, 13:35

I keep hearing people downloading more RAM in modern computers (I haven't tried yet).
Could the Amiga download more RAM?
Or because of the slower speeds, old tcp/ip stack limitations and not real Internet yet, it was not possible?

ajk · 06 July 2021, 15:16

Uh... what do you mean by RAM in this context?

NLS · 06 July 2021, 15:53

Random Access Memory

crazyc · 06 July 2021, 15:59

Ok, I am going to have to ask... what do you mean download more ram? What am I missing as on the face of it this is like asking if you could download a new dvd drive..?

NLS · 06 July 2021, 16:39

Well don't ask me. I keep reading this happening (?).
There are sites for this.

crazyc · 06 July 2021, 16:40

Perhaps if you could provide a link it would give some context?

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16 June 2021, 17:51	#2821
rabidgerry Registered User Join Date: Nov 2018 Location: Belfast Posts: 1,512	Just I have a Fast ATA MKII and I am in two minds about it which is why I initially ask. Like am I really going to get a nice pay off? Or headache.

16 June 2021, 18:38	#2822
grond Registered User Join Date: Jun 2015 Location: Germany Posts: 1,918	Even the harddisks of old were a massive speed-up compared to floppy disks. It didn't matter that much, though, whether your harddisk did 1.2 MB/s or 1.5MB/s. What did the FDD do? 80KB/s? Amiga files are usually in the dozens of KBs to single digit MB range. Other factors are limiting in an Amiga which is why you won't notice all that much of a speed-up if you get a MB/s more. HDDs (dozens of MB/s) vs. SDDs (up to GB/s) in modern day PCs have more notable effects as we are routinely handling files in the GB size range.

17 June 2021, 18:14	#2825
Daedalus Registered User Join Date: Jun 2009 Location: Dublin, then Glasgow Posts: 6,334	Well, given the option, if all other factors aren't of any consequence, there's nothing wrong with going for a faster drive. The speed of any drive these days will be restricted by the Amiga's IDE bus, so anything that gives you 10MB/s or more will already be able to outpace even the IDE speeder setup, and pretty much any decent device these days should be able to sustain those speeds. What made more of a difference back in the day with mechanical drives was seek time, especially when accessing lots of small files, a heavily fragmented drive or when accessing multiple files at once where more of the time was spent moving the heads than actually transferring data. Solid state drives don't have seek times as such, so that's largely irrelevant these days too.

17 June 2021, 21:18	#2827
Daedalus Registered User Join Date: Jun 2009 Location: Dublin, then Glasgow Posts: 6,334	I was kinda covering both - ultimately it doesn't matter in terms of throughput. You'll get small differences from device to device, but that SD card is capable of 10MB/s and the CF card is capable of 20MB/s so both will saturate the IDE port and give similar speeds. Mechanical hard drives should easily be able to exceed 10MB/s too unless they're very old indeed, but this performance will be affected significantly by seek times, so that comes into play too... The IDE speeder pulls a couple of tricks to improve throughput, but these are applied at an interface level, so it shouldn't matter what sort of device is attached - mechanical hard drives should benefit as well as CF/SD cards.

03 July 2021, 12:17	#2829
kremiso Registered User Join Date: Dec 2020 Location: Italy Posts: 1,897	Never had a real A500 plus, so i'll ask here it is possible to connect the old halfmeg expansion (a501 or compatibles) also on this? can't remember at all

03 July 2021, 18:34	#2830
Jope - Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: Helsinki / Finland Age: 43 Posts: 9,861	I remember it working, you get 512kB more chip.

03 July 2021, 23:23	#2831
NLS Ancient User Join Date: Apr 2007 Location: GREECE Age: 50 Posts: 757	1.5MB chip? Not so sure. AGA was capable of 2MB chip. I think it added it as 512Kb slow.

03 July 2021, 23:42	#2832
Daedalus Registered User Join Date: Jun 2009 Location: Dublin, then Glasgow Posts: 6,334	ECS is also capable of 2MB chip RAM - just look at the A600 and A3000. 1MB expansions for the 500+ also make it up to 2MB of chip RAM, so there's no reason the 512kB expansion wouldn't be added as chip RAM. The RTC on the 512kB memory expansion won't be used however.

04 July 2021, 00:10	#2833
NLS Ancient User Join Date: Apr 2007 Location: GREECE Age: 50 Posts: 757	Indeed you are right.

06 July 2021, 13:35	#2835
NLS Ancient User Join Date: Apr 2007 Location: GREECE Age: 50 Posts: 757	I keep hearing people downloading more RAM in modern computers (I haven't tried yet). Could the Amiga download more RAM? Or because of the slower speeds, old tcp/ip stack limitations and not real Internet yet, it was not possible?

06 July 2021, 15:16	#2836
ajk Registered User Join Date: May 2010 Location: Helsinki, Finland Posts: 1,341	Uh... what do you mean by RAM in this context?

06 July 2021, 15:53	#2837
NLS Ancient User Join Date: Apr 2007 Location: GREECE Age: 50 Posts: 757	Random Access Memory

06 July 2021, 15:59	#2838
crazyc Registered User Join Date: May 2012 Location: Gravesend - UK Posts: 927	Ok, I am going to have to ask... what do you mean download more ram? What am I missing as on the face of it this is like asking if you could download a new dvd drive..?

06 July 2021, 16:39	#2839
NLS Ancient User Join Date: Apr 2007 Location: GREECE Age: 50 Posts: 757	Well don't ask me. I keep reading this happening (?). There are sites for this.

06 July 2021, 16:40	#2840
crazyc Registered User Join Date: May 2012 Location: Gravesend - UK Posts: 927	Perhaps if you could provide a link it would give some context?

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