I'm curious if anyone has had any experience using those no-name compact flash cards you find on EBay in the CF-IDE adapters on your retro rigs. I've always used Sandisk brand to be safe, but the no-names are so very cheap, and I need to purchase a couple more. Anyone have any input?
They die quicker. I use them in systems that don't do much writing on the file system (e.g. Amiga).
I also use quite some no-name brands here and they worked fine so far (in DOS machines).
For benchmarking I use an USB 3.0 card reader and HD Tune.
Access times of ~1ms or below are quite good. 😀
"Time, it seems, doesn't flow. For some it's fast, for some it's slow.
In what to one race is no time at all, another race can rise and fall..." - The Minstrel
//My video channel//
They all, all, died on me. I've been using known brands since (and DOMs) and never had any issue.
Yeah, figured that something that costs 1/3 the price of a name brand product can't be all that great. I might buy a couple small ones though and use them in non-critical DOS machines that need some sort of fixed disk. I'll keep them in one of those slot-style CF-IDE adapters that I can switch out easily if (*when*) one of them dies.
Breaking Compact Flash cards.. How do you do that ? 🤣
- I'm using a takeMS no-name card for almost two years now.
It's the card me and my family use to display family photos and movies on
our old CRT television set in the living room.
The card itself is about from 2003 and is still going strong,
despite beeing tortured to max all the time (by using all capacity).
Edit: You guys are using CF adapters with 3.3v voltage regulators, don't you ?
Don't tell me you're using recent 3.3v cards with a 5v power source.. 😉
"Time, it seems, doesn't flow. For some it's fast, for some it's slow.
In what to one race is no time at all, another race can rise and fall..." - The Minstrel
//My video channel//
That card is certainly not from 2003, as 2 GB on CF was a dream back then.
Anyway, writing breaks the card, not reading. Install Win98 with only 32 MB RAM on it and use it for some weeks.
My card has no date code, but a takeMS 2GB card was mentioned in a 2003 review. 😕
https://www.hartware.de/2003/12/10/nimm-zwei- … -card-mit-1-gb/
Edit: I do use the card almost daily. According to MS, swap files don't hurt flash media/SSDs per se, due to small random reads or larger sequential writes.
Firefox does, however. It killed one of our SSDs already by doing a full cache write every 15 seconds..
"Time, it seems, doesn't flow. For some it's fast, for some it's slow.
In what to one race is no time at all, another race can rise and fall..." - The Minstrel
//My video channel//
wrote:According to MS, swap files don't hurt flash media/SSDs per se, due to small random reads or larger sequential writes.
CF and SSD are not comparable. SSDs have very complicated anti-wear algorithms and overprovisioning, CF cards don't.
Sorry, then. Never mind. 🙁 I heard they behave similar without trim.
CF cards have a wear-leveling, too, this page says.
"Time, it seems, doesn't flow. For some it's fast, for some it's slow.
In what to one race is no time at all, another race can rise and fall..." - The Minstrel
//My video channel//
Yes, but not overprovisioning, so when cells fail, they can't be replaced from the onboard reserve.
All hail the Great Capacitor Brand Finder
