Are there any CF cards which can match the performance of a real SSD?

I'm using a cheap 128GB M.2 SATA SSD (easy to find) in an M.2 to SATA enclosure, with a SATA->IDE adapter plugged in the back. My SFF desktop PC doesn't have space for an adapter that plugs into the motherboard. An adapter you plug into the drive doesn't need an extra power connector either.

There's also M.2 SATA to 44pin IDE enclosures meant for laptops.

What would be interesting, but not something I've been able to find, would be a PCI card that directly takes a M.2 SATA drive. That would be a really clean solution.

a real SSD?

Define "real" SSD.

You also need to temper your expectations with IDE-to-SATA adapters on very old PCs (early Pentiums and older). These adapters use Ultra DMA transfer modes and ATAPI standards that aren't backward compatible with the old IDE standard (controllers prior to EIDE or early ATAPI).

I have a late model 486 motherboard with built-in IDE that refuses to recognize any drive connected to my IDE-to-SATA adapter.

These adapters would work with Ultra DMA add-on boards, though.

I went the CF-card route on my 486 laptop (512MB CF card) and a pentium MMX laptop (4GB CF IIRC). Both work wonderfully.

Oetker wrote on 2021-02-06, 15:56:

I'm using a cheap 128GB M.2 SATA SSD (easy to find) in an M.2 to SATA enclosure, with a SATA->IDE adapter plugged in the back. My SFF desktop PC doesn't have space for an adapter that plugs into the motherboard. An adapter you plug into the drive doesn't need an extra power connector either.

There's also M.2 SATA to 44pin IDE enclosures meant for laptops.

What would be interesting, but not something I've been able to find, would be a PCI card that directly takes a M.2 SATA drive. That would be a really clean solution.

Yeah, I thought about mentioning these but didn’t. Indeed. These are also ways to do it. 😀 and will probably be comperable to a regular 2.5” ssd

I like the pci sata m.2 idea

The Serpent Rider wrote on 2021-02-06, 16:01:

a real SSD?

Define "real" SSD.

Like a 2.5" SATA SSD designed to be used as a hard disk

maxtherabbit wrote on 2021-02-06, 18:36:

The Serpent Rider wrote on 2021-02-06, 16:01:

a real SSD?

Define "real" SSD.

Like a 2.5" SATA SSD designed to be used as a hard disk

New CF cards can do around 150MB/s which is more than enough, but they are almost always a lot more expensive than an SSD for an equivalent capacity and they are not built for random reads/write so I wouldn't expect any DRAM cache (not that this would matter at all for DOS but you might feel it some in windows 98). I am also not sure about how well new, ultra fast CF cards work with the mostly passive IDE converter interfaces. When using CF cards for myself I always chose older models to avoid the headaches.

I have an 8gb compact flash card that I used briefly with a socket 7 mmx, and it is rated for 60MB/s. I never benchmarked it though so I have no idea how fast it actually is. My 20$ kingston 120gb SSDs that I use with everything easily reach 120mb/s sustained read and writes with DMA on a native SATA interface or a promise card. Less of course through IDE to SATA converters, but they have worked reliably for me.

I'm proud of sphere hes learned his shit from his experiments. Although there are quite a few ways to realistically add solid state to an old computer NVME isn't one of them. Even if you got it to work it would be a waste. we did try to tell him that tho.

Warlord wrote on 2021-02-06, 21:03:

I'm proud of sphere hes learned his shit from his experiments. Although there are quite a few ways to realistically add solid state to an old computer NVME isn't one of them. Even if you got it to work it would be a waste.

I respect Sphere478's tenacity, motivation, intellectual curiosity, desire to experiment and willingness to learn . I envy him too, in a way, because I find that I myself have become somewhat complacent and less adventurous and less rigorous in my own pursuits . I think (hope) he's having a lot of fun doing all this and he's teaching us some things along the way .

Cheers to you, Sphere478!
Happy to have you here .

Aww, thanks guys. Yeah, I love crazy builds. A lot of people don’t understand that haha you guys are more adventurous and fun than a lot of groups I’ve been on so I also am happy to be here :p

Warlord wrote on 2021-02-06, 21:03:

I'm proud of sphere hes learned his shit from his experiments. Although there are quite a few ways to realistically add solid state to an old computer NVME isn't one of them. Even if you got it to work it would be a waste. we did try to tell him that tho.

it’s kinda funny m.2 stuck dirrectly in the slot, you would think would be the fastest option even if only marginally faster, but it completely wasn’t even on my radar that it wouldn’t have dma. And thinking back I could have thought of that putting together the pieces but did not haha. Oh well. It was a fun experiment and I can use the adapter and nvme in another computer.

The comment about cf cards not having data buffers is a interesting point I wasn’t aware of that. But since some ssds don’t have them either it makes sense.

mothergoose729 wrote on 2021-02-06, 19:33:

maxtherabbit wrote on 2021-02-06, 18:36:

The Serpent Rider wrote on 2021-02-06, 16:01:

Define "real" SSD.

Like a 2.5" SATA SSD designed to be used as a hard disk

New CF cards can do around 150MB/s which is more than enough, but they are almost always a lot more expensive than an SSD for an equivalent capacity and they are not built for random reads/write so I wouldn't expect any DRAM cache (not that this would matter at all for DOS but you might feel it some in windows 98). I am also not sure about how well new, ultra fast CF cards work with the mostly passive IDE converter interfaces. When using CF cards for myself I always chose older models to avoid the headaches.

I have an 8gb compact flash card that I used briefly with a socket 7 mmx, and it is rated for 60MB/s. I never benchmarked it though so I have no idea how fast it actually is. My 20$ kingston 120gb SSDs that I use with everything easily reach 120mb/s sustained read and writes with DMA on a native SATA interface or a promise card. Less of course through IDE to SATA converters, but they have worked reliably for me.

A "real SSD" in my mind is a solid state storage device with wear leveling and presents a high speed interface that my computer can identify as a fixed storage device. A command buffer is nice too, but not really required.

I've been playing around with the UDMA7 CF devices that support high speed transfers & trim commands. Maybe there are some USB adapters that negotiate the higher speeds, but I have not found any PC based ATA controllers or adapters that will negotiate those high speeds with the CF devices or identify the TRIM support.

Kind of like how there are very fast SD's out there that have an "A2" speed rating and support advanced features like wear leveling & command queue buffers, but I can't even find adapters that support the 10 year old UHS-I transfer mode, much less anything that came out recently.

The mitigating factor is that my 386 wouldn't care anyway. Existing CFs are fast enough.

I bet that the NVMe kernel driver in Debian Jessie had too much CPU overhead. If somebody wrote an NVMe driver for DOS (like DOS CD drivers) it might actually get some decent speed.

Error 0x7CF wrote on 2021-02-06, 23:02:

I bet that the NVMe kernel driver in Debian Jessie had too much CPU overhead. If somebody wrote an NVMe driver for DOS (like DOS CD drivers) it might actually get some decent speed.

windows apparently had the issue also. Cause the core 2 quad could only do about 40 mb/sec

It doesn't have the same problem with just the M.2 to PCIe in a native PCIe slot in core 2 quad system does it? I'd figure that might be a really nice upgrade if the chipset supports PCIe, though definitely overkill for any core 2 quad system.

ya cf cards don't have dram cache. copy speed might be ok but random access and write speed will suffer.

I've never tried a super high end CF card but all the random ones I've tried have had abysmal write speeds and mediocre linear read performance too

I don't remember the disk performance itself feeling *too* terrible compared to a spinning drive of the time, but I have had multiple brand name CF cards get murdered by all the page file swapping and writing Win 9X does.

Like, astonishingly fast. Within a week of heavy gaming. I'd stick to using CF cards with DOS.

douglar wrote on 2021-02-06, 22:35:

A "real SSD" in my mind is a solid state storage device with wear leveling and presents a high speed interface that my computer […]
Show full quote

mothergoose729 wrote on 2021-02-06, 19:33:

maxtherabbit wrote on 2021-02-06, 18:36:

Like a 2.5" SATA SSD designed to be used as a hard disk

New CF cards can do around 150MB/s which is more than enough, but they are almost always a lot more expensive than an SSD for an equivalent capacity and they are not built for random reads/write so I wouldn't expect any DRAM cache (not that this would matter at all for DOS but you might feel it some in windows 98). I am also not sure about how well new, ultra fast CF cards work with the mostly passive IDE converter interfaces. When using CF cards for myself I always chose older models to avoid the headaches.

I have an 8gb compact flash card that I used briefly with a socket 7 mmx, and it is rated for 60MB/s. I never benchmarked it though so I have no idea how fast it actually is. My 20$ kingston 120gb SSDs that I use with everything easily reach 120mb/s sustained read and writes with DMA on a native SATA interface or a promise card. Less of course through IDE to SATA converters, but they have worked reliably for me.

A "real SSD" in my mind is a solid state storage device with wear leveling and presents a high speed interface that my computer can identify as a fixed storage device. A command buffer is nice too, but not really required.

I've been playing around with the UDMA7 CF devices that support high speed transfers & trim commands. Maybe there are some USB adapters that negotiate the higher speeds, but I have not found any PC based ATA controllers or adapters that will negotiate those high speeds with the CF devices or identify the TRIM support.

Kind of like how there are very fast SD's out there that have an "A2" speed rating and support advanced features like wear leveling & command queue buffers, but I can't even find adapters that support the 10 year old UHS-I transfer mode, much less anything that came out recently.

The mitigating factor is that my 386 wouldn't care anyway. Existing CFs are fast enough.

Do you have some examples of those TRIM supporting CF cards ? I would be curious to try some . I have had success running TRIM on SATA SSDs in DOS and Linux through ICH2 IDE port + Jmicron or Marvell IDE to SATA adapter and on a Promise Ultra133 TX2 + Jmicron IDE to SATA adapter . I imagine that either of those controllers should pass TRIM commands when a TRIM capable ATA device is connected directly .

CF and even SD cards (through the likes of an FC-1307A SD to IDE adapter, be careful what you use to partition it if using FAT16 , see Re: Using a vintage multi-track recorder as a mixer, namely the Roland VS-880EX - might apply to other Roland VS- units if interested ) should be fine in a 486 or lower spec machine, IMHO . Even an early Pentium should feel brisk enough with a 25MB/second capable FC-1307A . Beyond that, faster CF cards or adapted SATA SSDs seem like a better idea, again, IMHO .