I cannot provide exact benchmark results right now, but those CF numbers seem correct. The rated speed is for writing, hence the result you got is what should be expected from a reputable brand. Also the CF doesn't use any conversion chip, so it is the best solution. Just make an image every now or then, in case it fails you have a back up.

winterlight wrote on 2020-05-17, 23:32:

Hi guys, […]
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Hi guys,

So I've been trying to compare the read/write speeds of two storage setups for a Win98SE machine for games.

1 - CF Card (Sandisk 16GB ultra CF card with a Syba CF to ide adapter) I'm getting 78Mb/s read and 47Mb/s write through the adapter. This is odd because the card is only rated for 50Mb/s...

2 - SATA SSD (128GB with a SATA to IDE adapter ) I'm getting 31Mb/s read/write through this.

The CF card results seems odd but I like it. I'm considering buying a larger card that has a higher transfer rate since I can't unlock SATA SSD speeds using the IDE/SATA adpater.

I'm doubtful of the speeds I see from the CF card though, especially since they're higher than the card's rating.

Anyone have any experience with benchmarking these? Subjectively they feel roughly the same.

The CF media speed is rated at minimum sustained write speeds, so yeah, the CF numbers look right.
As for SATA to IDE - those numbers look correct but it really depend on which controller is inside the SATA to IDE converter, and how it's interfacing with the IDE controller - the IDE transfer speed often depend on whether the adapter is running UDMA or PIO. In most cases the thing to look for (the performance determinant) is random seek/read/write times and not pure block transfer speeds - you rarely need to transfer large blocks of data off the hard drive unless it's some type of streaming media game.

ragefury32 wrote on 2020-05-18, 00:00:

winterlight wrote on 2020-05-17, 23:32:

Hi guys, […]
Show full quote

Hi guys,

So I've been trying to compare the read/write speeds of two storage setups for a Win98SE machine for games.

1 - CF Card (Sandisk 16GB ultra CF card with a Syba CF to ide adapter) I'm getting 78Mb/s read and 47Mb/s write through the adapter. This is odd because the card is only rated for 50Mb/s...

2 - SATA SSD (128GB with a SATA to IDE adapter ) I'm getting 31Mb/s read/write through this.

The CF card results seems odd but I like it. I'm considering buying a larger card that has a higher transfer rate since I can't unlock SATA SSD speeds using the IDE/SATA adpater.

I'm doubtful of the speeds I see from the CF card though, especially since they're higher than the card's rating.

Anyone have any experience with benchmarking these? Subjectively they feel roughly the same.

The CF media speed is rated at minimum sustained write speeds, so yeah, the CF numbers look right.
As for SATA to IDE - those numbers look correct but it really depend on which controller is inside the SATA to IDE converter, and how it's interfacing with the IDE controller - the IDE transfer speed often depend on whether the adapter is running UDMA or PIO. In most cases the thing to look for is random seek/read/write times and not pure block transfer speeds.

Using the ICH2 IDE controller (ATA66) on my 815E board (P3 1400MHz 512K cache) with an IDE to SATA adapter (unbranded Micron JMD330 based) and Samsung 860EVO, I get 58 MB/sec sustained (read) at 5% CPU usage (DMA mode) in HDTACH 2.61 . With the same IDE to SATA adapter on a Promise Ultra133 TX2 in the same system, I get 90MB/sec sustained at 10% CPU usage (DMA mode) in HDTACH 2.61 .

The difference in Windows 98 SE is hardly noticeable . In pure DOS however, the Promise is much faster because it runs in DMA mode by default and has speeds comparable to those in Windows according to Speedsys . The ICH2, like most (all?) integrated IDE adapter defaults to PIO mode and runs at under 5MB per second according to Speedsys .

Caveats :

The Promise card does not play nice with UMBPCI . I am still investigating that issue .
The ICH2 IDE can be switched to DMA mode in DOS with utils such as UDMA.SYS, UIDE.SYS , etc , but Windows 9x is incompatible with those utilities .

TLDR : If you want better speeds from an SSD, make sure you are running in DMA mode, get a better IDE to SSD adapter and, if necessary, get a PCI IDE controller or a PCI SATA controller that is supported under Windows .