stanwebber wrote on 2022-05-23, 22:44:maybe he's talking about fragmentation of the master file table. i know mft is a consideration for some file systems, not sure about vfat though.
FAT doesn't have a MFT. It is literally just an index of clusters (with a fixed size and location).
LSS10999 wrote on 2022-05-24, 01:03:I've several Sandisk CF cards that, while work fine behind a USB CF reader, exhibit all kinds of issues when connected with a CF-IDE adapter.
Good to know about Sandisk cards. Sorry to hear that you had issues. Were they just "Sandisk" or were they "Sandisk Extreme Pro"?
Just wanted to take a second to review what we are talking about here. Sorry if this is basic stuff. Please let me know if I got any of these details wrong.
CF's & DOM's are PATA SSD's. They all have PATA integrated drive electronics. A "CF-IDE adapter" has no smarts in it. It just connects form factors, like a 40 IDE to 44 pin IDE adapter for a laptop drive. It's just some wires. The CF-IDE adapter doesn't figure into the compatibility picture, unlike say a Sinitechi SD to IDE adapter, which is a an ATA to SD translation device. or to a lesser extent, a Sata to Pata converter.
Solid state CF's have been around a long time now. There are probably more flavors of CF devices in the wild today than there are legacy PATA IDE hard drives ever created. So it gets really hard to say "CF's behave this way" any more than you can say "PATA IDE drives behave this way" because there are a lot of different CF devices out there. To complicate it, the CFA continued to make some enchantments on the PATA spec after the ATA association stopped advancing the spec. Not uncommon to see CF devices report that they speak ATA-9, whatever that is.
The "all kinds of issues" that you are reporting are the kind of issues you might see any time you connect any newer IDE storage device into an older controller.
When you connect an PATA storage device (that is newer than ATA-0) to a PATA controller (that is newer than ATA-0), the controller and storage device need to negotiate a compatible transfer protocol & addressing mode before they can get down to business. Sometimes they can have trouble doing that when the storge device presents options that were just not there when the IDE controller's firmware was created and the computer does not handle the situation gracefully. The ATA standards changed rapidly between 1994 and 2004. There were a lot of new features implemented very quickly, and they were not all implemented 100% correctly that the time in the rush to get the latest greatest out the door.
My experience is that I've had the best results selecting "industrial" CF's. They tend to be designed to work with application style work loads and anecdotally are more compatible. Your experience might vary depending on your controller and storage device
For IDE controllers, the oldest and the newest controllers seem to have the fewest issues. Those middle ground IDE controllers ATA-2 (PIO3) through ATA-5 (UDMA 66) are the ones that know enough to get themselves in trouble when talking to contemporary devices. They are the ones that are most likely to ask for stuff that they can't handle.
So anyway, if you find the wrong controller / storage device combo, you are going to have issues, whether it is is connecting an LBA48 hard drive into an ATA-4 controller, or connecting a new CF into whatever is on your work bench. But it's all more of an issue of "New device w/ Old Controller" rather than an issue with the CF form factor.
I'd suggest using a parallel port compact flash card reader like the old Sandisk models, if you're just looking for transferring files. I'e had a lot of luck with one connected to multiple machines in my home environmen in the past.
douglar wrote on 2022-05-24, 13:47:Good to know about Sandisk cards. Sorry to hear that you had issues. Were they just "Sandisk" or were they "Sandisk Extreme Pr […]
LSS10999 wrote on 2022-05-24, 01:03:I've several Sandisk CF cards that, while work fine behind a USB CF reader, exhibit all kinds of issues when connected with a CF-IDE adapter.
Good to know about Sandisk cards. Sorry to hear that you had issues. Were they just "Sandisk" or were they "Sandisk Extreme Pro"?
Just wanted to take a second to review what we are talking about here. Sorry if this is basic stuff. Please let me know if I got any of these details wrong.
CF's & DOM's are PATA SSD's. They all have PATA integrated drive electronics. A "CF-IDE adapter" has no smarts in it. It just connects form factors, like a 40 IDE to 44 pin IDE adapter for a laptop drive. It's just some wires. The CF-IDE adapter doesn't figure into the compatibility picture, unlike say a Sinitechi SD to IDE adapter, which is a an ATA to SD translation device. or to a lesser extent, a Sata to Pata converter.
Solid state CF's have been around a long time now. There are probably more flavors of CF devices in the wild today than there are legacy PATA IDE hard drives ever created. So it gets really hard to say "CF's behave this way" any more than you can say "PATA IDE drives behave this way" because there are a lot of different CF devices out there. To complicate it, the CFA continued to make some enchantments on the PATA spec after the ATA association stopped advancing the spec. Not uncommon to see CF devices report that they speak ATA-9, whatever that is.
The "all kinds of issues" that you are reporting are the kind of issues you might see any time you connect any newer IDE storage device into an older controller.
When you connect an PATA storage device (that is newer than ATA-0) to a PATA controller (that is newer than ATA-0), the controller and storage device need to negotiate a compatible transfer protocol & addressing mode before they can get down to business. Sometimes they can have trouble doing that when the storge device presents options that were just not there when the IDE controller's firmware was created and the computer does not handle the situation gracefully. The ATA standards changed rapidly between 1994 and 2004. There were a lot of new features implemented very quickly, and they were not all implemented 100% correctly that the time in the rush to get the latest greatest out the door.
My experience is that I've had the best results selecting "industrial" CF's. They tend to be designed to work with application style work loads and anecdotally are more compatible. Your experience might vary depending on your controller and storage device
For IDE controllers, the oldest and the newest controllers seem to have the fewest issues. Those middle ground IDE controllers ATA-2 (PIO3) through ATA-5 (UDMA 66) are the ones that know enough to get themselves in trouble when talking to contemporary devices. They are the ones that are most likely to ask for stuff that they can't handle.
So anyway, if you find the wrong controller / storage device combo, you are going to have issues, whether it is is connecting an LBA48 hard drive into an ATA-4 controller, or connecting a new CF into whatever is on your work bench. But it's all more of an issue of "New device w/ Old Controller" rather than an issue with the CF form factor.
Sandisk Extreme ones (not necessarily Pro). These cards are very very problematic when used with CF-IDE adapters.
In comparison, I've some Transcend ones that are better behaved when used with CF-IDE adapters despite they're still configured as Removable.
It's not trivial to find CF cards that are "Fixed Disk" (aka TrueIDE), as being "Industrial" does not 100% translate to being "Fixed". A "Removable" card is not a problem for OSes other than Windows, though.
update: i acquired my usb 3.0 cf reader and ran some benchmarks. i got one of those squarish tf/sd/cf combo readers with a short usb type c cable attached. i used a type c to a adapter plugged into a usb 3.0 pcie card inserted into a pcie x1 slot on an lga775 p45 chipset board.
i consistently get about 26MB/s read, 19MB/s write with the transcend 16gb industrial cf card.
