Re: Small capacity SSD PATA/SATA benchmarks

OK, thanks for the link. That thread went cold was right before I started reading regularly, but had a lot of useful info. Somehow it evaded my best searches on the site.

I recently got a wind fall of available retro hobby funds after selling my Alaris Cougar II and Voodoo 5500, so I purchased 4 different 2GB IDE DOM devices off ebay, along with a CF adapter and an SD adapter.

I'll add benchmarks to your thread when the parts arrive, which will be several weeks out.

I’ve used HyperDisk, KingSpec, and Innodisk at various times mostly without issues but never really compared performance directly. Usually cost is my deciding factor. I do recall an instance were a KingSpec 44pin Dom felt slow, like no improvement over the mechanical drive I was replacing, but it’s possible there was another hardware issue.

I allocated a $100 budget from my recent retro profits for this. I ordered 2GB versions of these DOMs:
* LeiDisk
* OneFavor
* HyperDisk
* APacer
These were all in the $16-$22 range, so they were all bargain bin cheapo I mean competitively priced. The Apacer was just a circuit board with a ATA controller, a flash chip, and a 44 pin connector

Looks pretty bare bones.

I grabbed a generic looking "TopRam"2GB CF and a used Wintec Industrial 2GB CF for $10 each to round out the lot.
I already have an IDE2SD with a assorted SD cards. The adapter has an "FC1307A" controller, which seems pretty common.
I have a Quantum Fireball 6.4GB that I'll use as a reference point.

I would have liked to grab some SCSI2SD stuff, but those cost more than my entire budget, and the only SCSI controllers I have crusty 8 bit things for old CD-Roms. I must have given away that AHA-2940 when my last SCSI drive broke. That might have been 20 years ago.

APACER has an "ATA secure erase" utility that should release all allocated flash pages for "like new" performance. I'll run that before benchmarking. If anyone can point me to any other useful tools to check over-provisioning % or other ATA "under the hood" info, that would be great.
I'd rather not crack open the cases unless I have to. I'll do some "full drive" torture tests at the end to see if I can force the performance to degrade and verify that the ATA Secure Erase brings them back.

This project has turned into more of a compatibility study than a bench marking project.

• The Hyperdisk DOM I got from China doesn't seem to like old IDE controllers without UDMA. Old controllers just don't see it.
• My Paradise 100 TX2 controller doesn't seem to like 486s . Put it in a 486 and it never sees any attached drives.
• The spare 44pin to 40pin IDE adapter that tossed around in my tool box for years seems to be busted. Or maybe all of my 44 pin drives are busted.
• Turns out that my old USB to IDE adapters weren't dead, it was their external 4 pin molex power supplies. I could smell the DOM roasting. Multi-meter confirmed that the voltages & ground were way off. At least the DOM survived the roasting.
• My venerable Quantum Prodrive 240 AT seems to have passed. it had just turned 28. =( Too young!! Was not roasted by the dodgy power supplied. Seems to just be old age. It spins and gets identified (ATA-2!) but I hear the hard drive heads reset and re-seek about once a minute. Kadunkadunkadunkdunk- Brrrrrrr!!!.
• Windows 98 fdisk + LBA48 = headaches. 'nough said

The most notable thing I've seen so far is that while windows 98 could see my second hard drive when I forgot to configure it in the bios, bench marks showed it running at AT-1 speeds.

As for using with very old systems, I found Transcent to be the most compatible brand. A Transcent DOM was the only one that worked without any issues in my IBM 5150 using XT-IDE. All others would either make the system hang after POST or not booting, even if it did install DOS with no errors.

Just ordered an SD to IDE (40p) adapter from eBay. The only one anyone seems to stock. It will go in my VIA Epia M build with Linux, so relatively late IDE host and current OS. Not a great tell-tale for compatibility, but if it doesn't work on that box, it isn't likely to work anywhere. (Which would make it puzzling that it's so ubiquitous...)

Before that, I had been using a 4GB(?) 44-pin DOM that I bought from Logic Supply a decade ago. It was installed in a Mini ITX Pentium M box running Linux. I'm actually replacing that build with the Epia to get floppy support and another IDE channel for my disk checking / imaging box. It had worked great though. Fast and reliable, zero issues. I just don't like dealing with 44-pin IDE unless the motherboard has a 44-pin interface built-in. (The Pentium M did, the Epia does not.)

douglar wrote on 2020-03-02, 19:30:

• The Hyperdisk DOM I got from China doesn't seem to like old IDE controllers without UDMA. Old controllers just don't see it.

This is very true. I got told off for mentioning this in another thread. Glad you confirm it.

konc wrote on 2020-03-03, 11:14:

This is very true. I got told off for mentioning this in another thread. Glad you confirm it.

Don't take it personally. That other guy probably had a different variant of the Hyperdisk DOM that is not affected by this issue and was trying to inform you of his own personal experience using as few words as possible, just to be efficient. =)

I got confirmation that the LeiDisk & OneFavor DOMs finally shipped today after a 33 day wait.

Anyone know of a dos or win98 tool that can force a certain ATA or UDMA speed for an IDE drive ?

Can Xtide Universal Bios do it?