Here are some results using the Lexar Professional UDMA 300x CF drives. My favorite CF<->IDE and CF<->SATA converters are from Addonics http://www.addonics.com/products/flash_memory_reader/adidecf.asp
Here are some typical boot messages from one of my servers with the Lexar/Addonics combo: wd0 at pciide1 channel 1 drive 0: <LEXAR ATA FLASH CARD> wd0: 1-sector PIO, LBA, 7631MB, 15630048 sectors wd0(pciide1:1:0): using PIO mode 4, Ultra-DMA mode 2 I ran the same commands that others in this thread tried, here are my results: # dd if=/dev/zero of=nulls bs=65536 count=1600 1600+0 records in 1600+0 records out 104857600 bytes transferred in 65.142 secs (1609668 bytes/sec) # dd if=nulls of=/dev/null bs=65536 1600+0 records in 1600+0 records out 104857600 bytes transferred in 21.049 secs (4981460 bytes/sec) # dd if=nulls of=/dev/null bs=65536 1600+0 records in 1600+0 records out 104857600 bytes transferred in 0.051 secs (2036109439 bytes/sec) # dd if=nulls of=/dev/null bs=65536 1600+0 records in 1600+0 records out 104857600 bytes transferred in 0.051 secs (2044286745 bytes/sec) # uname -a OpenBSD svn01.clark-communications.com 4.2 GENERIC#0 amd64 # sysctl hw hw.machine=amd64 hw.model=Dual Core AMD Opteron(tm) Processor 275 HE hw.ncpu=1 hw.byteorder=1234 hw.physmem=4226789376 hw.usermem=4226785280 hw.pagesize=4096 hw.disknames=cd0,wd0,sd0 hw.diskcount=3 hw.sensors.admcts0.temp0=37.00 degC (Internal) hw.sensors.admcts0.temp1=46.00 degC (External) hw.sensors.admcts0.temp2=-90.00 degC (External) hw.sensors.admcts0.fan2=2647 RPM hw.sensors.admcts0.volt0=3.30 VDC (Vbat) hw.sensors.admcts0.volt1=3.32 VDC (3.3 V standby) hw.sensors.admcts0.volt2=3.30 VDC (3.3 V main) hw.sensors.admcts0.volt3=5.41 VDC (5 V) hw.sensors.admcts0.volt4=1.17 VDC (Vccp) hw.sensors.admcts0.volt5=12.06 VDC (12 V) hw.sensors.admcts0.volt6=-0.60 VDC (-12 V) hw.sensors.arc0.drive0=online (sd0), OK hw.cpuspeed=2205 hw.vendor=RIOWORKS hw.product=HDAMA hw.serialno=0123456789