28 Aug
2020
28 Aug
'20
9:07 a.m.
After having a run of almost half a dozen IDE hard drive failures recently in
a short period of time (on my older desktops which use them, I've decided that
I should see if there's an IDE emulator (using SD cards) available I could
switch to. (I'm not sure why I had so many failures in such a short period; I
can only conclude that they're too old now, and reaching the end of their
service lives.
So soes anyone have one (or more) they can recommend? (IDE simulators only; I
don't want to have to mess around changing anything more than I _absolutely_
have to)? I did find these guys:
http://store.mesanet.com/index.php?route=product/category&path=74_64
in an online search - the CFADPTHD seems like it's close to what I'd want,
except it's Compact Flash; I'd have preferred SD but I guess converting
their interface to IDE is more work.
Noel
28 Aug
28 Aug
9:15 a.m.
in an online search - the CFADPTHD seems like it's
close to what I'd want,
except it's Compact Flash; I'd have preferred SD but I guess converting
their interface to IDE is more work.
Yeah, I think Compact Flash actually uses the IDE protocol just with a
different form-factor while SD cards are their own thing so a conversion
from SD to IDE is a whole lot more work.
Although, I did find these so I guess you're not the first to want this:
https://www.amazon.com/40Pin-Male-Hard-Drive-Adapter/dp/B01ANIQNK4
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B076597T9H/ref=dp_prsubs_1
https://www.newegg.com/syba-sd-cf-ide-br-ide-to-compact-flash/p/N82E1681218…
https://www.newegg.com/syba-sd-cf-ide-di-ide-to-compact-flash/p/N82E1682299…
https://www.newegg.com/syba-sd-ada45006-ide-to-compact-flash/p/N82E16812186…
10:10 a.m.
On Aug 28, 2020, at 12:15 PM, David Bridgham via
cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
Correct. CF cards talk to a SATA controller, you just have to adjust the pinout.
SD is a packet based storage device on a serial interconnect, minimally one lane wide but
it can also be four lanes (and that's typically how you use it). Apparently it starts
out in a SPI compatible mode, interesting. Also, SD requires a rather complex handshake
at power up to get to the point where you can do I/O.
One oddity I remember from a decade ago is that it has a high speed mode where the clock
speed is doubled. That's not strange. What's strange is that when you do this,
the device switches from clocking data on the rising edge to clocking on the falling edge,
or the other way around, I don't remember which. Fortunately I wasn't the
hardware designer who had to cope with all that strangeness.
paul
in an online search - the CFADPTHD seems like
it's close to what I'd want,
except it's Compact Flash; I'd have preferred SD but I guess converting
their interface to IDE is more work.
Yeah, I think Compact Flash actually uses the IDE protocol just with a
different form-factor while SD cards are their own thing so a conversion
from SD to IDE is a whole lot more work. 
10:40 a.m.
On 8/28/20 10:10 AM, Paul Koning via cctalk wrote:
SD is a packet based storage device on a serial
interconnect
You really do need SMART monitoring on solid-state storage
which may or may not exist in the adapters. SSDs will silently
fail if they run out of sectors to write to.
Also, I discovered recently that there is a maximum number of hours
measured in years on SSDs and systems will start throwing SMART
errors when that is exceeded. I have a few doing that now on systems
with minimal writes but lots of hours.
There are long discussions elsewhere of the dangers of using non-industrial
rated CFs and SDs in storage applications.
11:32 a.m.
On Fri, Aug 28, 2020 at 11:41 AM Al Kossow via cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
wrote:
On 8/28/20 10:10 AM, Paul Koning via cctalk wrote:
For the PATA to SATA adapters, they exist to the extent the SSD supports
them. Smart here is not standardized... but smartmontools has a big enough
database to keep you happy...
SD is a packet based storage device on a serial
interconnect
You really do need SMART monitoring on solid-state storage
which may or may not exist in the adapters. SSDs will silently
fail if they run out of sectors to write to.
Also, I discovered recently that there is a maximum
number of hours
measured in years on SSDs and systems will start throwing SMART
errors when that is exceeded. I have a few doing that now on systems
with minimal writes but lots of hours.
Interesting... I have several SSDs in the field now that have been powered
on for 7 or 8 years... I've not yet seen this behavior, though I do see a
few of them die every month due to old age....
There are long discussions elsewhere of the dangers of
using non-industrial
rated CFs and SDs in storage applications.
Yes. "Only as good as the card you put in." and most of the cards are poo.
Though the latter-day CF cards tend to be quite good since they are for
high end cameras and tend to use relatively good quality NAND to get the
performance those cameras need, endurance goes along for the ride. Most of
the issues with CF and SD cards are in continuous use, though, where
there's lots of writes and not much idle time for the card to do anything
about it and power failures are a lot more common on CF/SD cards with high
write loads than for SSDs...
Warner
1:36 p.m.
On Aug 28, 2020, at 1:40 PM, Al Kossow via cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
On 8/28/20 10:10 AM, Paul Koning via cctalk wrote:
Yes, if they wear out. But the lowest I have seen is around 100 writes per sector, which
means that once you've written 100x the device capacity total (times the "write
amplification" which depends on write size patterns) you'd start to consume spare
sectors, and you don't have a problem until those run out which is still some time
later.
That said, I have seen it happen, with very small CF cards and software that was, by a
coding slip-up, writing every few minutes non-stop.
SD is a packet based storage device on a serial
interconnect
You really do need SMART monitoring on solid-state storage
which may or may not exist in the adapters. SSDs will silently
fail if they run out of sectors to write to. Also, I discovered recently that there is a maximum
number of hours
measured in years on SSDs and systems will start throwing SMART
errors when that is exceeded. I have a few doing that now on systems
with minimal writes but lots of hours.
That's curious. There may be a read retention time limit, though I think that applies
only if the device is powered down. When powered up, the device firmware takes care of
refreshing the sectors, somewhat like memory refresh but with refresh cycles of weeks or
months.
There are long discussions elsewhere of the dangers of
using non-industrial
rated CFs and SDs in storage applications.
Good advice for serious work especially if you're running heavy workloads. I
wouldn't worry about it much for my home firewall. But the servers running
bitsavers.org are an entirely different matter.
One way to look at it: if you are, or should be, using RAID, you should be using
industrial grade SSDs.
paul
30 Aug
30 Aug
9:02 a.m.
On 8/28/20 12:40 PM, Al Kossow via cctalk wrote:
Also, I discovered recently that there is a maximum
number of hours
measured in years on SSDs and systems will start throwing SMART
errors when that is exceeded. I have a few doing that now on systems
with minimal writes but lots of hours.
There are long discussions elsewhere of the dangers of using non-industrial
rated CFs and SDs in storage applications.
I found it next to impossible to find information on what - if any -
technology a particular SSD uses to extend lifespan; while manufacturers
all compete on things like capacity and speed, very few of them seem
interested in telling us how long their product might last.
10:26 a.m.
On Sun, Aug 30, 2020, 10:03 AM Jules Richardson via cctalk <
cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
On 8/28/20 12:40 PM, Al Kossow via cctalk wrote:
Most SATA and NVMe SSDs have a PBW or DWPD number that gives you an
indication of how long it will last. These numbers are usually normalized
to a JEDEC workload. From that you can often extrapolate to your workload
if you know it well enough... It is one of the things I evaluate for
Netflix's CDN....
SD and CF cards almost never do unless they claim industrial use. Ditto USB
sticks, but with more industrial models available.
Warner
Also, I discovered recently that there is a
maximum number of hours
measured in years on SSDs and systems will start throwing SMART
errors when that is exceeded. I have a few doing that now on systems
with minimal writes but lots of hours.
There are long discussions elsewhere of the dangers of using
non-industrial
rated CFs and SDs in storage applications.
I found it next to impossible to find information on what - if any -
technology a particular SSD uses to extend lifespan; while manufacturers
all compete on things like capacity and speed, very few of them seem
interested in telling us how long their product might last.
10:38 a.m.
On Sun, Aug 30, 2020 at 11:02:50AM -0500, Jules Richardson via cctalk wrote:
[...]
I found it next to impossible to find information on
what - if any -
technology a particular SSD uses to extend lifespan; while manufacturers all
compete on things like capacity and speed, very few of them seem interested
in telling us how long their product might last.
The warranty duration is a good starting point. If it's the absolute legal
minimum (i.e. two years in the EU) then that tells you all you need to know.
1:57 p.m.
Technology wise, there is an inherent limitation on the number or
writes with the SSD design.
While it is not as simple to calculate as a mechanical system, it does
have a limitation.
I don't know the exact number with the current technology, earlier
products had write life times in the tens and hundred of millions of
writes.
bb
On Sun, Aug 30, 2020 at 1:38 PM Peter Corlett via cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
On Sun, Aug 30, 2020 at 11:02:50AM -0500, Jules Richardson via cctalk wrote:
[...]
I found it next to impossible to find information
on what - if any -
technology a particular SSD uses to extend lifespan; while manufacturers all
compete on things like capacity and speed, very few of them seem interested
in telling us how long their product might last.
The warranty duration is a good starting point. If it's the absolute legal
minimum (i.e. two years in the EU) then that tells you all you need to know.
28 Aug
28 Aug
11:28 a.m.
On Fri, Aug 28, 2020 at 11:10 AM Paul Koning via cctalk <
cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
Correct. CF cards talk to a SATA controller, you just have to adjust the
pinout.
SD is a packet based storage device on a serial interconnect, minimally
one lane wide but it can also be four lanes (and that's typically how you
use it). Apparently it starts out in a SPI compatible mode, interesting.
Also, SD requires a rather complex handshake at power up to get to the
point where you can do I/O.
There's a number of SD to PATA adapters though where all this goo is put
into a chip and you don't worry too much about it... I've used these and
they are as good as the SD card you put in them...
Warner
On Aug 28, 2020, at 12:15 PM, David Bridgham via
cctalk <
cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
> in an online search - the CFADPTHD seems like it's close to what I'd
want,
except
it's Compact Flash; I'd have preferred SD but I guess converting
their interface to IDE is more work.
Yeah, I think Compact Flash actually uses the IDE protocol just with a
different form-factor while SD cards are their own thing so a conversion
from SD to IDE is a whole lot more work.
12:13 p.m.
On 8/28/20 1:10 PM, Paul Koning wrote:
SD is a packet based storage device on a serial
interconnect, minimally one lane wide but it can also be four lanes (and that's
typically how you use it). Apparently it starts out in a SPI compatible mode,
interesting. Also, SD requires a rather complex handshake at power up to get to the point
where you can do I/O.
I've implemented the SPI protocol in a little micro-coded engine on an
FPGA and have considered upgrading it to the standard interface over one
to four lanes except it looks like the SD licensing says I'm not
supposed to do that without paying them a bunch of money.? And yeah, it
took me a while to work through the initialization dance and it still
fails from time to time (and from SD card to SD card).
However ...
One oddity I remember from a decade ago is that it has
a high speed mode where the clock speed is doubled. That's not strange. What's
strange is that when you do this, the device switches from clocking data on the rising
edge to clocking on the falling edge, or the other way around, I don't remember which.
Fortunately I wasn't the hardware designer who had to cope with all that strangeness.
... this I had totally missed.? Doubling the clock speed (from 25 to 50
MHz) would be relatively easy (once I'm not running this over long
ribbon cable) but switching the clock around like that would have really
confused me, I think.? Thanks for the heads-up.
There's some other speed increase (UHS) that comes along with also
dropping from 3.3V down to 1.8V.? I don't know how to program FPGAs to
do that or even know if they can.
12:31 p.m.
On Fri, Aug 28, 2020 at 1:14 PM David Bridgham via cctalk <
cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
On 8/28/20 1:10 PM, Paul Koning wrote:
I thought it was going from SPI mode to MMC mode that did this, not the
double clocking nor the 1bit to 4bit bus steps.
Warner
SD is a packet based storage device on a serial
interconnect, minimally
one lane wide but it can also be four lanes (and that's
typically how you
use it). Apparently it starts out in a SPI compatible mode, interesting.
Also, SD requires a rather complex handshake at power up to get to the
point where you can do I/O.
I've implemented the SPI protocol in a little micro-coded engine on an
FPGA and have considered upgrading it to the standard interface over one
to four lanes except it looks like the SD licensing says I'm not
supposed to do that without paying them a bunch of money. And yeah, it
took me a while to work through the initialization dance and it still
fails from time to time (and from SD card to SD card).
However ...
One oddity I remember from a decade ago is that
it has a high speed mode
where the clock speed is doubled. That's not strange.
What's strange is
that when you do this, the device switches from clocking data on the rising
edge to clocking on the falling edge, or the other way around, I don't
remember which. Fortunately I wasn't the hardware designer who had to cope
with all that strangeness.
... this I had totally missed. Doubling the clock speed (from 25 to 50
MHz) would be relatively easy (once I'm not running this over long
ribbon cable) but switching the clock around like that would have really
confused me, I think. Thanks for the heads-up.
There's some other speed increase (UHS) that comes along with also
dropping from 3.3V down to 1.8V. I don't know how to program FPGAs to
do that or even know if they can.
12:49 p.m.
On 8/28/20 3:31 PM, Warner Losh wrote:
There's some other speed increase (UHS) that comes along with also
dropping from 3.3V down to 1.8V.? I don't know how to program
FPGAs to
do that or even know if they can.
I thought it was going from SPI mode to MMC mode that did this, not
the double clocking nor the 1bit to 4bit bus steps.
I knew it wasn't either the double clocking or using all four lanes, I
just didn't know what it was called and was too lazy to dig out the SD
protocol spec.
But now I pulled up the spec and it's saying that it's UHS cards that
support the modes that use the lower voltage and there are seven bus
speed modes:
DS (Default Speed)
HS (High Speed)
SDR12
SDR25
SDR50
DDR50
SDR104
DS and HS use 3.3V signaling while the SDR and DDR modes use 1.8V.? Then
UHS-II adds a couple more modes.? SPI mode is separate from all of this,
something just tossed in there for us hobbyists to play around with.
1:40 p.m.
On Aug 28, 2020, at 3:31 PM, Warner Losh via cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
It's been over a decade, but I'm pretty sure that 1 lane to 4 lane mode is just a
width change. But when we started using 50 MHz capable cards and wanted to support those,
I learned about that clock edge changeover. Both are 4 lanes wide, and the fast devices
also support the slower clock and I believe initially come up in that mode. So you end up
issuing a "go fast" command and as part of that you have to tell the FPGA to
switch its latches to the other mode, and you do this dance carefully so you don't see
any false error indications due to the latching mode change.
paul
On 8/28/20 1:10 PM, Paul Koning wrote:
...
One oddity I remember from a decade ago is that it has a high speed mode
where the clock speed is doubled. That's not strange. What's strange is
that when you do this, the device switches from clocking data on the rising
edge to clocking on the falling edge, or the other way around, I don't
remember which. Fortunately I wasn't the hardware designer who had to cope
with all that strangeness.
I thought it was going from SPI mode to MMC mode that did this, not the
double clocking nor the 1bit to 4bit bus steps. 
1 p.m.
On 8/28/20 12:13 PM, David Bridgham via cctalk wrote:
On 8/28/20 1:10 PM, Paul Koning wrote:
I use the 4 bit SDO when accessing SDHCs, adjusting speed according to
whatever the card says.
It's really easy with many microcontrollers. For example, the very
inexpensive STM32F4 series implements it natively, computes CRC
automatically and does it all in double-buffered DMA mode. Runs at
around 180MHz too with lots of GPIOs and a bunch of SRAM.
Plenty of code libraries out there. Why dink around when silicon is
cheap? MCUs are everywhere; in many cases cheaper than discrete logic.
--Chuck
SD is a packet based storage device on a serial
interconnect,
minimally one lane wide but it can also be four lanes (and that's
typically how you use it).? Apparently it starts out in a SPI
compatible mode, interesting.? Also, SD requires a rather complex
handshake at power up to get to the point where you can do I/O.
I've implemented the SPI protocol in a little micro-coded engine on an
FPGA and have considered upgrading it to the standard interface over one
to four lanes except it looks like the SD licensing says I'm not
supposed to do that without paying them a bunch of money.? And yeah, it
took me a while to work through the initialization dance and it still
fails from time to time (and from SD card to SD card).
1:51 p.m.
On 8/28/20 4:00 PM, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote:
Plenty of code libraries out there. Why dink around
when silicon is
cheap? MCUs are everywhere; in many cases cheaper than discrete logic.
Might have been better but I had the FPGA there anyway for other reasons
so I just connected a few pins to the SD card and started writing code.
29 Aug
29 Aug
11:31 a.m.
On 8/28/20 1:51 PM, David Bridgham via cctalk wrote:
On 8/28/20 4:00 PM, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote:
I'll add tangentially that an MCU can not only give you full-4-bit width
SDHC access, but also has a lot of extra goodies, such as USB OTG and
even ethernet built on. Goven modern MCUs, I don't think I'd even
consider using programmable logic for this particular task.
--Chuck
Plenty of code libraries out there.? Why dink
around when silicon is
cheap?? MCUs are everywhere; in many cases cheaper than discrete logic.
Might have been better but I had the FPGA there anyway for other reasons
so I just connected a few pins to the SD card and started writing code.
9:27 a.m.
On Fri, Aug 28, 2020 at 10:19 AM Al Kossow via cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
wrote:
On 8/28/20 9:07 AM, Noel Chiappa via cctalk wrote:
There's also a crap-ton of SATA<->PATA adapters that I've used to good
effect everywhere except in space constrained situations (think laptop).
Warner
I've decided that
I should see if there's an IDE emulator (using SD cards) available I
could
switch to.
You may want to use PATA
disk-on-module.
9:34 a.m.
Check to see if JMicron's sata(drive) to ide(host) is suitable to your
need. They also come with bi-directional switch to select which end goes to
the mainboard. ypu can connect a big ssd or a sata to M2 adapter. But be
aware they have two problems:
- they need +5V power supply, either from the fdd connector or from USB;
- they do not get along with Sun Ultrasparc systems: the sata hdd is
always read-only.
You can also get a pci sata controller.
On Friday, August 28, 2020, Warner Losh via cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
wrote:
On Fri, Aug 28, 2020 at 10:19 AM Al Kossow via cctalk
<
cctalk at classiccmp.org>
wrote:
On 8/28/20 9:07 AM, Noel Chiappa via cctalk
wrote:
There's also a crap-ton of SATA<->PATA adapters that I've used to good
effect everywhere except in space constrained situations (think laptop).
Warner
I've decided that
I should see if there's an IDE emulator (using SD cards) available I
could
switch to.
You may want to use PATA
disk-on-module.
10:52 a.m.
I've standardized on, and been happy with these:
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000415725711.html
There's a lot of vendors that sell them, including on ebay and Amazon. I
haven't really had any problem with those adapters, including on native ISA
IDE controllers and XT-IDE.
There's IDE to CF adapters too, but I find SD cards easier to use and
cheaper/easier to get in bulk.
Pat
On Fri, Aug 28, 2020 at 12:07 PM Noel Chiappa via cctalk <
cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
After having a run of almost half a dozen IDE hard
drive failures recently
in
a short period of time (on my older desktops which use them, I've decided
that
I should see if there's an IDE emulator (using SD cards) available I could
switch to. (I'm not sure why I had so many failures in such a short
period; I
can only conclude that they're too old now, and reaching the end of their
service lives.
So soes anyone have one (or more) they can recommend? (IDE simulators
only; I
don't want to have to mess around changing anything more than I
_absolutely_
have to)? I did find these guys:
http://store.mesanet.com/index.php?route=product/category&path=74_64
in an online search - the CFADPTHD seems like it's close to what I'd want,
except it's Compact Flash; I'd have preferred SD but I guess converting
their interface to IDE is more work.
Noel
1:04 p.m.
On 8/28/20 10:07 AM, Noel Chiappa via cctalk wrote:
After having a run of almost half a dozen IDE hard
drive failures
recently in a short period of time (on my older desktops which use
them, I've decided that I should see if there's an IDE emulator
(using SD cards) available I could switch to.
It's not an SD card per say. At least not directly.
But I am very intrigued by the idea of using a Raspberry Pi to bit-bang IDE.
Link - Raspberry Pi Gets PATA/IDE Drive Via GPIO Header | Hackaday
-
https://hackaday.com/2020/08/10/raspberry-pi-gets-pata-ide-drive-via-gpio-h…
--
Grant. . . .
unix || die
2:53 p.m.
On Fri, 28 Aug 2020 at 18:07, Noel Chiappa via cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
After having a run of almost half a dozen IDE hard drive failures recently in
a short period of time (on my older desktops which use them, I've decided that
I should see if there's an IDE emulator (using SD cards)
SD (and the related MMC, now obsolete, and the many subtypes of SD
such as SDHC, SDIO, SDXC, SDUC etc.) is a complex multiplexed
protocol. MMC used 1 pin, original SD used 4, some of the newer ones
use 8, etc.
But CF card _are_ EIDE. The interface is the IDE interface. Only a
conversion of connector is needed, no controller electronics at all.
CF cards are an old standard now, but professional photographers still
use them, and high-end digital cameras use them -- partly because of
the large storage capacity but also, I suspect, because they are
easier to handle in a hurry, or in suboptimal conditions. SD cards are
too small to manipulate easily wearing gloves, and MicroSD cards can
be lost in a decent carpet.
So my advice is: don't even consider SD. Use CF. Convertors from CD to
44-pin 2.5" hard disk connector and to 40-pin desktop connector are
widespread and very cheap.
CF cards with capacities in megabytes are $10 or under. Cards with
capacities in low numbers of gigabytes are only a little more. You can
get cards in the 256GB range now, for a few hundred bucks.
I think you'll find it much easier -- and cheaper -- to interface CF
cards to EIDE than any variant of SD, which is probably going to
involve multiple convertors and controllers: micro-SD to SD, then
maybe to SATA to PATA, and associated points of failure etc.
--
Liam Proven ? Profile: https://about.me/liamproven
Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? gMail/gTalk/gHangouts: lproven at gmail.com
Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Flickr: lproven ? Skype: liamproven
UK: +44 7939-087884 ? ?R (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
29 Aug
29 Aug
4:17 p.m.
I haven't worked on it in a while due to work commitments. But there is
this:
https://www.retrotronics.org/netpi-ide/
Though I've recently updated the design to use an iCE40, open toolchain,
and changed the form factor to be more of a module.
I need another board spin to make more progress and that is searching
for time in my schedule to compelte.
-Alan
On 2020-08-28 12:07, Noel Chiappa via cctalk wrote:
After having a run of almost half a dozen IDE hard
drive failures
recently in
a short period of time (on my older desktops which use them, I've
decided that
I should see if there's an IDE emulator (using SD cards) available I
could
switch to. (I'm not sure why I had so many failures in such a short
period; I
can only conclude that they're too old now, and reaching the end of
their
service lives.
So soes anyone have one (or more) they can recommend? (IDE simulators
only; I
don't want to have to mess around changing anything more than I
_absolutely_
have to)? I did find these guys:
http://store.mesanet.com/index.php?route=product/category&path=74_64
in an online search - the CFADPTHD seems like it's close to what I'd
want,
except it's Compact Flash; I'd have preferred SD but I guess converting
their interface to IDE is more work.
Noel
1346
days inactive
1348
days old
25 comments
14 participants
participants (14)
-
abuse＠cabal.org.uk -
aek＠bitsavers.org -
alan＠alanlee.org -
bobsmithofd＠gmail.com -
bvasea＠gmail.com -
cclist＠sydex.com -
cctalk＠gtaylor.tnetconsulting.net -
dab＠froghouse.org -
imp＠bsdimp.com -
jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu -
jules.richardson99＠gmail.com -
lproven＠gmail.com -
pat＠vax11.net -
paulkoning＠comcast.net