Re: [Emc-users] Compact Flash card for Hard Drive
Hi Kirk, You must be very lucky. I have a whole stack of dead drives. When a hard drive fails it is very often catastrophic failure and you lose everything. One day it's working fine, the next day it won't boot. With Flash if you do get a failure it is likely to only be a few bits which can be detected and often recovered with parity and error checking. The quoted number of write cycles is the guaranteed minimum and most sectors will handle far more. I use a flash microcontroller that has a rated life of 100 write cycles. Some of my development boards have probably had ten times that or more and I have never had a programming failure. With the setup I use on my lathe for example you don't notice any difference in usability. You can load and save files exactly as you would with a hard drive. The only noticeable difference is that you lose the log files if you reboot. Les Kirk Wallace wrote: I am not trying to disagree, but my experience has not indicated that hard drives are unreliable. I haven't had a hard drive fail on me for over ten years. Usually the whole PC gets replaced before a drive goes out, and I usually get second hand PC's as a replacement. My file server drive is at least eight years old. So from my experience, generally, hard drives are pretty darn reliable. Right from the get go, with flash, there is all this talk about memory cell life, and how best to get by with having data storage without actually using it. I get the feeling that you never know when they will fail and I just don't need the extra stress in my what's left of my life. It seems like getting a gallon of ice cream and leaving it in the freezer, so you will always have some. In my house, everyone thinks it's there to be eaten, so you can't be shy. -- Let Crystal Reports handle the reporting - Free Crystal Reports 2008 30-Day trial. Simplify your report design, integration and deployment - and focus on what you do best, core application coding. Discover what's new with Crystal Reports now. http://p.sf.net/sfu/bobj-july ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
Re: [Emc-users] Compact Flash card for Hard Drive
Just as another data point, many of the Netbooks come with a solid state drive, and most are running some form of linux too. An example would be the Asus EePC, for which Crucial suggest the following: http://www.crucial.com/uk/store/mpartspecs.aspx?mtbpoid=255C2650A5CA7304 -- atp -- Let Crystal Reports handle the reporting - Free Crystal Reports 2008 30-Day trial. Simplify your report design, integration and deployment - and focus on what you do best, core application coding. Discover what's new with Crystal Reports now. http://p.sf.net/sfu/bobj-july ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
Re: [Emc-users] Compact Flash card for Hard Drive
On Mon, 23 Nov 2009 08:06:18 +, you wrote: You must be very lucky. I have a whole stack of dead drives. When a hard drive fails it is very often catastrophic failure and you lose everything. One day it's working fine, the next day it won't boot. You must have had the same batch of Craptor IDE drives (Maxtor's) I had. All failed at 3 years plus a month or two (70 odd in total) a year since. Another thirty PC's fitted with Seagate drives and installed at the same time are still going strong, as are a handful with Western Digital Drives. I've got a couple of servers with Seagate Ultra SCSI's in that are now 8 years old and are still working fine. They've been relegated to non critical tasks and they will get trashed when they eventually fail. Steve Blackmore -- -- Let Crystal Reports handle the reporting - Free Crystal Reports 2008 30-Day trial. Simplify your report design, integration and deployment - and focus on what you do best, core application coding. Discover what's new with Crystal Reports now. http://p.sf.net/sfu/bobj-july ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
Re: [Emc-users] Compact Flash card for Hard Drive
I've been a diehard Seagate fan but recently I have heard some people having problems with 1TB Seagate drives.At some point the dropping price and the increasing density is going to become a quality issue - perhaps that day is close? Yes, I lived through the Maxtor problems also. I got a lot less than 3 years out of several. Fujitsu also had a bunch of hard drive issues about 8 years ago. The problem was so severe that Siemens sent techs out to large installations with boxes of replacement drives to do the swap outs before they died in the field in Industrial PC applications.Those retrofits must have cost a small fortune. Is your lathe still happily cutting threads? I cut some axle spindles the other day and the first one off the machine accepted a 1 long - 1-14 nut perfectly. The pitch was right on. I'm using a 200 ppr encoder in counter mode and the PC has no problem tracking the index at up to 1200 rpm so far. I calculated a 1500 rpm top speed before it loses index sync. Threading has been rock solid reliable so far. I ran out of stock after 7 parts. Dave Steve Blackmore wrote: On Mon, 23 Nov 2009 08:06:18 +, you wrote: You must be very lucky. I have a whole stack of dead drives. When a hard drive fails it is very often catastrophic failure and you lose everything. One day it's working fine, the next day it won't boot. You must have had the same batch of Craptor IDE drives (Maxtor's) I had. All failed at 3 years plus a month or two (70 odd in total) a year since. Another thirty PC's fitted with Seagate drives and installed at the same time are still going strong, as are a handful with Western Digital Drives. I've got a couple of servers with Seagate Ultra SCSI's in that are now 8 years old and are still working fine. They've been relegated to non critical tasks and they will get trashed when they eventually fail. Steve Blackmore -- -- Let Crystal Reports handle the reporting - Free Crystal Reports 2008 30-Day trial. Simplify your report design, integration and deployment - and focus on what you do best, core application coding. Discover what's new with Crystal Reports now. http://p.sf.net/sfu/bobj-july ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users -- Let Crystal Reports handle the reporting - Free Crystal Reports 2008 30-Day trial. Simplify your report design, integration and deployment - and focus on what you do best, core application coding. Discover what's new with Crystal Reports now. http://p.sf.net/sfu/bobj-july ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
Re: [Emc-users] Compact Flash card for Hard Drive
The trick is to turn off virtual memory. Obviously you must have enough ram to handle this. If you are just running emc then the memory requirements are fairly low. 512M works well on my lathe. There are other workarounds as I describe on the wiki page. Les RogerN wrote: I'm not sure if this is relevant with Linux, but we have some Siemens MicroBox PLC's at work, they run Windows XP embedded IIRC. They have a compact flash drive and they have to protect the CF because Windows will try to read/write constantly as virtual memory and wear the CF cards out shortly. Then we have the problem that if we reboot, cycle power, or lose power, the settings are lost and we have to re-enter settings that have changed since last save with the write filter off. Anyway, if Linux uses a drive as virtual memory, I would think it would have the potential to wear out a CF card fairly quickly, though their may already be work arounds for it. RogerN -- Let Crystal Reports handle the reporting - Free Crystal Reports 2008 30-Day trial. Simplify your report design, integration and deployment - and focus on what you do best, core application coding. Discover what's new with Crystal Reports now. http://p.sf.net/sfu/bobj-july ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
Re: [Emc-users] Compact Flash card for Hard Drive
There are two potential issues with CF cards in IDE adapters. Some adapters don't implement UDMA correctly which can cause problems. With windows you get intermittent read and write errors. With Linux the kernel usually crashes when it tries to mount the drive. Also some cards report themselves as removable storage. Windows won't install on a removable drive. You can however get around this by installing on a hard drive then making an image of the hard drive and copying it on to the CF card. You then need to use a boot manager such as Grub or the one that comes with xfdisk. Les Dave wrote: I have some Windows based systems running off CF cards. I found that some low dollar IDE to CF adapters simply would not work to boot windows reliably. I ended up buying some more expensive Addonics SATA to CF adapters and that solved the boot issues that I ran into.I used Transcend 133X CF cards and the systems I did have been running for about 1 1/2 years now - with zero failures. I used part of the Windows XP embedded OS software so I could turn off the random disk writes entirely. Some CF cards simply cannot boot an OS. -- Let Crystal Reports handle the reporting - Free Crystal Reports 2008 30-Day trial. Simplify your report design, integration and deployment - and focus on what you do best, core application coding. Discover what's new with Crystal Reports now. http://p.sf.net/sfu/bobj-july ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
Re: [Emc-users] Compact Flash card for Hard Drive
Is there any advantage to using a CF or thumb drive as opposed to a 2.5 or 1 hard disk? Physical size should not be a big issue since most machines and equipment boxes usually are fairly large. The difference in power consumption and price between a flash drive and a small hard disk compared to other power and money sinks is negligible. A hard drive is a little more convenient to set up. I just have an Inquiring mind. I'm thinking if you guys are going through the trouble, there must be a reason for it? -- Kirk Wallace http://www.wallacecompany.com/machine_shop/ http://www.wallacecompany.com/E45/index.html California, USA -- Let Crystal Reports handle the reporting - Free Crystal Reports 2008 30-Day trial. Simplify your report design, integration and deployment - and focus on what you do best, core application coding. Discover what's new with Crystal Reports now. http://p.sf.net/sfu/bobj-july ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
Re: [Emc-users] Compact Flash card for Hard Drive
Kirk, My machine which is located in a conditioned by God shop goes through terrible cycles of temperature and humidity. I found by stressing hard drives this way, I was loosing about 1 year! I changed to the CF card (solid state drive if you will) and found the machine to be much more reliable and somewhat faster than the drives I was using. Art 1:17 AM 11/22/2009, you wrote: Is there any advantage to using a CF or thumb drive as opposed to a 2.5 or 1 hard disk? Physical size should not be a big issue since most machines and equipment boxes usually are fairly large. The difference in power consumption and price between a flash drive and a small hard disk compared to other power and money sinks is negligible. A hard drive is a little more convenient to set up. I just have an Inquiring mind. I'm thinking if you guys are going through the trouble, there must be a reason for it? -- Kirk Wallace http://www.wallacecompany.com/machine_shop/ http://www.wallacecompany.com/E45/index.html California, USA -- Let Crystal Reports handle the reporting - Free Crystal Reports 2008 30-Day trial. Simplify your report design, integration and deployment - and focus on what you do best, core application coding. Discover what's new with Crystal Reports now. http://p.sf.net/sfu/bobj-july ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
Re: [Emc-users] Compact Flash card for Hard Drive
RogerN wrote: Anyway, if Linux uses a drive as virtual memory, I would think it would have the potential to wear out a CF card fairly quickly, though their may already be work arounds for it. You have to overload memory on a Linux system pretty badly to make it start swapping. I have run some desktop systems for years with NO swap space and they run fine unless you make unusally heavy demands on the memory. Jon -- Let Crystal Reports handle the reporting - Free Crystal Reports 2008 30-Day trial. Simplify your report design, integration and deployment - and focus on what you do best, core application coding. Discover what's new with Crystal Reports now. http://p.sf.net/sfu/bobj-july ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
Re: [Emc-users] Compact Flash card for Hard Drive
The main reason for me is reliability. Generally hard drives are the least reliable part of a computer. I am fed up with swapping out failed hard drives. Les Kirk Wallace wrote: Is there any advantage to using a CF or thumb drive as opposed to a 2.5 or 1 hard disk? Physical size should not be a big issue since most machines and equipment boxes usually are fairly large. The difference in power consumption and price between a flash drive and a small hard disk compared to other power and money sinks is negligible. A hard drive is a little more convenient to set up. I just have an Inquiring mind. I'm thinking if you guys are going through the trouble, there must be a reason for it? -- Let Crystal Reports handle the reporting - Free Crystal Reports 2008 30-Day trial. Simplify your report design, integration and deployment - and focus on what you do best, core application coding. Discover what's new with Crystal Reports now. http://p.sf.net/sfu/bobj-july ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
Re: [Emc-users] Compact Flash card for Hard Drive
On Sun, 2009-11-22 at 22:46 +, Leslie Newell wrote: The main reason for me is reliability. Generally hard drives are the least reliable part of a computer. I am fed up with swapping out failed hard drives. Les I am not trying to disagree, but my experience has not indicated that hard drives are unreliable. I haven't had a hard drive fail on me for over ten years. Usually the whole PC gets replaced before a drive goes out, and I usually get second hand PC's as a replacement. My file server drive is at least eight years old. So from my experience, generally, hard drives are pretty darn reliable. Right from the get go, with flash, there is all this talk about memory cell life, and how best to get by with having data storage without actually using it. I get the feeling that you never know when they will fail and I just don't need the extra stress in my what's left of my life. It seems like getting a gallon of ice cream and leaving it in the freezer, so you will always have some. In my house, everyone thinks it's there to be eaten, so you can't be shy. -- Kirk Wallace http://www.wallacecompany.com/machine_shop/ http://www.wallacecompany.com/E45/index.html California, USA -- Let Crystal Reports handle the reporting - Free Crystal Reports 2008 30-Day trial. Simplify your report design, integration and deployment - and focus on what you do best, core application coding. Discover what's new with Crystal Reports now. http://p.sf.net/sfu/bobj-july ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
Re: [Emc-users] Compact Flash card for Hard Drive
You can oftentimes set things up so writes never occur to the CF card unless it is deliberate. In that case they really should never wear out since they are not being rewritten.Flash cards are suppose to be good for at least 10 years as far as data retention. I don't expect any hard drive to last much more than 5 years of continuous operation. I swap them out before they get too old. I've had them die in a year and I have had them die in the 3 year time frame. After 5 years I think you are on borrowed time. It is like anything mechanical which is under constant motion, it has a definite mechanical life due to the motion. Flash cards have no mechanical life limitations due to motion. Dave Kirk Wallace wrote: On Sun, 2009-11-22 at 22:46 +, Leslie Newell wrote: The main reason for me is reliability. Generally hard drives are the least reliable part of a computer. I am fed up with swapping out failed hard drives. Les I am not trying to disagree, but my experience has not indicated that hard drives are unreliable. I haven't had a hard drive fail on me for over ten years. Usually the whole PC gets replaced before a drive goes out, and I usually get second hand PC's as a replacement. My file server drive is at least eight years old. So from my experience, generally, hard drives are pretty darn reliable. Right from the get go, with flash, there is all this talk about memory cell life, and how best to get by with having data storage without actually using it. I get the feeling that you never know when they will fail and I just don't need the extra stress in my what's left of my life. It seems like getting a gallon of ice cream and leaving it in the freezer, so you will always have some. In my house, everyone thinks it's there to be eaten, so you can't be shy. -- Let Crystal Reports handle the reporting - Free Crystal Reports 2008 30-Day trial. Simplify your report design, integration and deployment - and focus on what you do best, core application coding. Discover what's new with Crystal Reports now. http://p.sf.net/sfu/bobj-july ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
Re: [Emc-users] Compact Flash card for Hard Drive
On Sat, Nov 21, 2009 at 10:34 PM, David Winter davidwin...@hondaracing.freeserve.co.uk wrote: Dear All, Anyone used a CF card as a hard drive? I thought I read here that someone has done it but I searched the wiki and didn't find anything. I have a card and adapter which I have partitioned with fdisk and formatted using format c: /s ( DOS ) but my PC won't boot from it. All help and advice gratefully received. BTW, I have no idea how to set my BIOS for this card, which is a 8 GB Kingston 133x card. I don't know if it needs CHS,, LBA, Large , what sort of UDMA access, etc. I thing more reliable using SSD instead CF, SSD was design for replace hardisk not CF. But SSD more high price than hardisk and CF, but more realibe too. Kurniadi -- Let Crystal Reports handle the reporting - Free Crystal Reports 2008 30-Day trial. Simplify your report design, integration and deployment - and focus on what you do best, core application coding. Discover what's new with Crystal Reports now. http://p.sf.net/sfu/bobj-july ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
Re: [Emc-users] Compact Flash card for Hard Drive
- Original Message - From: Kirk Wallace kwall...@wallacecompany.com To: Enhanced Machine Controller (EMC) emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net Sent: Sunday, November 22, 2009 5:25 PM Subject: Re: [Emc-users] Compact Flash card for Hard Drive On Sun, 2009-11-22 at 22:46 +, Leslie Newell wrote: The main reason for me is reliability. Generally hard drives are the least reliable part of a computer. I am fed up with swapping out failed hard drives. Les I am not trying to disagree, but my experience has not indicated that hard drives are unreliable. I haven't had a hard drive fail on me for over ten years. Usually the whole PC gets replaced before a drive goes out, and I usually get second hand PC's as a replacement. My file server drive is at least eight years old. So from my experience, generally, hard drives are pretty darn reliable. Right from the get go, with flash, there is all this talk about memory cell life, and how best to get by with having data storage without actually using it. I get the feeling that you never know when they will fail and I just don't need the extra stress in my what's left of my life. It seems like getting a gallon of ice cream and leaving it in the freezer, so you will always have some. In my house, everyone thinks it's there to be eaten, so you can't be shy. -- Kirk Wallace http://www.wallacecompany.com/machine_shop/ http://www.wallacecompany.com/E45/index.html California, USA In my experience it seems to have a lot to do with environment. At work (tire factory) the carbon black in the air gets on the traces of the hard drives, reliability is a problem. One department tried spraying hard drives with conformal coating and greatly extended their life. The tech's from that department said it made a difference in hard drives lasting a couple of months to lasting years. Thought if some are having trouble with hard drive failure, conformal coating on the circuit board may be worth a try. RogerN -- Let Crystal Reports handle the reporting - Free Crystal Reports 2008 30-Day trial. Simplify your report design, integration and deployment - and focus on what you do best, core application coding. Discover what's new with Crystal Reports now. http://p.sf.net/sfu/bobj-july ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
Re: [Emc-users] Compact Flash card for Hard Drive
Well. I did a search of MTBF for Compact flash cards and I found everything from 500,000 hours to 4 million hours of operation. Since 500,000 hours is 57 years, then 4,000,000 hours is about 450 years. I'm ok with a 57 year life span. I recently bought and installed a bunch of 30 year shingles and wondered if I was wasting my money.. :-) Dave kurniadi wrote: On Sat, Nov 21, 2009 at 10:34 PM, David Winter davidwin...@hondaracing.freeserve.co.uk wrote: Dear All, Anyone used a CF card as a hard drive? I thought I read here that someone has done it but I searched the wiki and didn't find anything. I have a card and adapter which I have partitioned with fdisk and formatted using format c: /s ( DOS ) but my PC won't boot from it. All help and advice gratefully received. BTW,I have no idea how to set my BIOS for this card, which is a 8 GB Kingston 133x card.I don't know if it needs CHS,, LBA, Large , what sort of UDMA access, etc. I thing more reliable using SSD instead CF, SSD was design for replace hardisk not CF. But SSD more high price than hardisk and CF, but more realibe too. Kurniadi -- Let Crystal Reports handle the reporting - Free Crystal Reports 2008 30-Day trial. Simplify your report design, integration and deployment - and focus on what you do best, core application coding. Discover what's new with Crystal Reports now. http://p.sf.net/sfu/bobj-july ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users -- Let Crystal Reports handle the reporting - Free Crystal Reports 2008 30-Day trial. Simplify your report design, integration and deployment - and focus on what you do best, core application coding. Discover what's new with Crystal Reports now. http://p.sf.net/sfu/bobj-july ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
Re: [Emc-users] Compact Flash card for Hard Drive
Dave wrote: Well. I did a search of MTBF for Compact flash cards and I found everything from 500,000 hours to 4 million hours of operation. Since 500,000 hours is 57 years, then 4,000,000 hours is about 450 years. This MTBF stuff is TOTAL crap! It all comes from a reliability estimation guide by the Defense Electronics Supply Center that was written during the Vietnam war to quantify equipment reliability for military equipment in the field, and doesn't have a life figure for integrated circuits, but they do have numbers for discrete transistors and resistors. You estimate the worst-case internal temperature for each component and plug it all into a formula, with the number of each kind of component, and it is supposed to give you an MTBF (or actually FIT, failure in Time) figure for the entire unit. It is so far out of date compared to the components we use today, it would be totally laughable, if the uneducated weren't taking these phony numbers as Gospel! I've seen disk drives with 800,000 hour MTBF listed on the data sheet. When you pin them down, they say Oh, that is for the electronic part only, not the heads, spindle bearings, disc platters, etc. The latest batch of ultra-sub micron scale chips are predicted to have a MUCH lower MTBF than previous generations, due to electromigration and hot carrier effects. Jon -- Let Crystal Reports handle the reporting - Free Crystal Reports 2008 30-Day trial. Simplify your report design, integration and deployment - and focus on what you do best, core application coding. Discover what's new with Crystal Reports now. http://p.sf.net/sfu/bobj-july ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
[Emc-users] Compact Flash card for Hard Drive
Dear All, Anyone used a CF card as a hard drive? I thought I read here that someone has done it but I searched the wiki and didn't find anything. I have a card and adapter which I have partitioned with fdisk and formatted using format c: /s ( DOS ) but my PC won't boot from it. All help and advice gratefully received. BTW,I have no idea how to set my BIOS for this card, which is a 8 GB Kingston 133x card.I don't know if it needs CHS,, LBA, Large , what sort of UDMA access, etc. Thanks in advance, David Winter. P.S. Thanks to everyone who contribute to EMC2, only wish I was smart enough to contribute :-( -- Let Crystal Reports handle the reporting - Free Crystal Reports 2008 30-Day trial. Simplify your report design, integration and deployment - and focus on what you do best, core application coding. Discover what's new with Crystal Reports now. http://p.sf.net/sfu/bobj-july ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
Re: [Emc-users] Compact Flash card for Hard Drive
David Winter wrote: Dear All, Anyone used a CF card as a hard drive? I thought I read here that someone has done it Les Newell did it. but I searched the wiki and didn't find anything. Here's his wiki page: http://wiki.linuxcnc.org/cgi-bin/emcinfo.pl?Install_To_CompactFlash I have a card and adapter which I have partitioned with fdisk and formatted using format c: /s ( DOS ) but my PC won't boot from it. What to do next depends on what the PC does at boot time. If it finds the CF card but won't boot from it, it may just be a boot loader problem (fdisk /mbr might help this). If it can't find the device at all, then you may have to fiddle with the BIOS settings. If it's recognized in the BIOS and you can set it as the boot drive, then you should be good to go - the Linux install will set up the boot loader for you. All help and advice gratefully received. BTW,I have no idea how to set my BIOS for this card, which is a 8 GB Kingston 133x card.I don't know if it needs CHS,, LBA, Large , what sort of UDMA access, etc. UDMA is probably not necessary. 1 x is 150 kB/second, or the speed of an audio CD. The 133x card is therefore about 20 MB/second, which is pretty slow by hard disk standards. It should be OK to set UDMA on, since the BIOS or Linux will fall back to the highest supported mode anyway. I think LBA is the best mode in general, but you may need Large for one reason or another. - Steve -- Let Crystal Reports handle the reporting - Free Crystal Reports 2008 30-Day trial. Simplify your report design, integration and deployment - and focus on what you do best, core application coding. Discover what's new with Crystal Reports now. http://p.sf.net/sfu/bobj-july ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
Re: [Emc-users] Compact Flash card for Hard Drive
David, I googled 'boot linux from compact flash' and got 831,000 results. I looked at a couple, for example www.linuxjournal.com/article/4551 which seemed to give a pretty good explanation of how to boot linux from a CF card. Several people have done this, I think one of the guy's in the CAMS CNC group did it with EMC2 but I am not sure, the memory may be playing tricks on me today. I hope this helps. John Guenther 'Ye Olde Pen Maker' Sterling, VIrginia On Sat, 2009-11-21 at 15:34 +, David Winter wrote: Dear All, Anyone used a CF card as a hard drive? I thought I read here that someone has done it but I searched the wiki and didn't find anything. I have a card and adapter which I have partitioned with fdisk and formatted using format c: /s ( DOS ) but my PC won't boot from it. All help and advice gratefully received. BTW,I have no idea how to set my BIOS for this card, which is a 8 GB Kingston 133x card.I don't know if it needs CHS,, LBA, Large , what sort of UDMA access, etc. Thanks in advance, David Winter. P.S. Thanks to everyone who contribute to EMC2, only wish I was smart enough to contribute :-( -- Let Crystal Reports handle the reporting - Free Crystal Reports 2008 30-Day trial. Simplify your report design, integration and deployment - and focus on what you do best, core application coding. Discover what's new with Crystal Reports now. http://p.sf.net/sfu/bobj-july ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users -- Let Crystal Reports handle the reporting - Free Crystal Reports 2008 30-Day trial. Simplify your report design, integration and deployment - and focus on what you do best, core application coding. Discover what's new with Crystal Reports now. http://p.sf.net/sfu/bobj-july ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
Re: [Emc-users] Compact Flash card for Hard Drive
I have done quite a few of these now. Unless you know your card adapter can handle UDMA, disable it. Not all card adapters are wired for UDMA and you get all sorts of problems if you try to use UDMA on them. As far as I know all SATA CF card adapters can handle UDMA. It may give you a bit more speed so once you get everything working, try enabling UDMA and see if it makes any difference. Some cards identify themselves as removable storage. This makes it difficult to install Windows but Linux doesn't seem to mind. Les UDMA is probably not necessary. 1 x is 150 kB/second, or the speed of an audio CD. The 133x card is therefore about 20 MB/second, which is pretty slow by hard disk standards. It should be OK to set UDMA on, since the BIOS or Linux will fall back to the highest supported mode anyway. I think LBA is the best mode in general, but you may need Large for one reason or another. -- Let Crystal Reports handle the reporting - Free Crystal Reports 2008 30-Day trial. Simplify your report design, integration and deployment - and focus on what you do best, core application coding. Discover what's new with Crystal Reports now. http://p.sf.net/sfu/bobj-july ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
Re: [Emc-users] Compact Flash card for Hard Drive
On Saturday 21 November 2009, David Winter wrote: Dear All, Anyone used a CF card as a hard drive? I thought I read here that someone has done it but I searched the wiki and didn't find anything. I have a card and adapter which I have partitioned with fdisk and formatted using format c: /s ( DOS ) but my PC won't boot from it. All help and advice gratefully received. BTW,I have no idea how to set my BIOS for this card, which is a 8 GB Kingston 133x card.I don't know if it needs CHS,, LBA, Large , what sort of UDMA access, etc. Thanks in advance, David Winter. P.S. Thanks to everyone who contribute to EMC2, only wish I was smart enough to contribute :-( Your time may well come, David. As far as using a cf card for a hard drive, the limited write cycle lifetime of the cf would make that a bit of a tossup for long term dependability when using a normal filesystem that does its housekeeping in the background, so it _must_ be treated as absolutely read-only in day to day operations. That said, I have a box sitting on the next table, an old K6-iii and 384 megs of dram in it, that is booting from a cf card plugged into an adapter which in turn is plugged onto the end of an 80 wire EIDE cable and is effectively drive 0 (C to the winderz folks). There are no other drives in that box, just a couple of 100 megabit ethernet cards and an atheros based wireless 802-11a/b/g card. It runs headless although I can put a monitor and keyboard on it if I should have to. With uptimes measured in years, the monitor has probably died of neglect by now, its an old 19 crt that was getting flaky anyway. I do most maintenance by logging into its web server from the LAN side, and WAN side logins are disabled. It runs a router program called dd-wrt, the best kept secret in bulletproof routers there is. No one, and it is being attacked many times a second, has ever gotten past it that I did not give the password to first. One of the ethernet cards faces the DSL modem, the other an 8 port switch that the rest of my stuff is plugged into. None of the machines on this side of dd-wrt runs a firewall, its not needed. It (iptables) would probably be good insurance, but its also something else that needs to be maintained. dd-wrt (a busybox derivative) treats it as read-only unless an update has been downloaded and is being installed. Best of both worlds in this case. But booting a normal linux like the version we use for emc, that uses ext3 as the filesystem would probably use it up in a week or 2. -- Cheers, Gene There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order. -Ed Howdershelt (Author) The NRA is offering FREE Associate memberships to anyone who wants them. https://www.nrahq.org/nrabonus/accept-membership.asp You know what they say -- the sweetest word in the English language is revenge. -- Peter Beard -- Let Crystal Reports handle the reporting - Free Crystal Reports 2008 30-Day trial. Simplify your report design, integration and deployment - and focus on what you do best, core application coding. Discover what's new with Crystal Reports now. http://p.sf.net/sfu/bobj-july ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
Re: [Emc-users] Compact Flash card for Hard Drive
I have Linux boxes that boot off a CFLASH things to know: - CFLASH will wear out so create a RAM-drive for your logs. - Get a big CFALASH so the wear leveling can do it's thing. - Turn off atime - so it won't write every time you read. Doing this is cleaner in Debian ( EMC belongs on Debian anyway IMHO - not the more bleeding edge Ubuntu ) Karl Schmidt EMail k...@xtronics.com Transtronics, Inc. WEB http://xtronics.com 3209 West 9th Street Ph (785) 841-3089 Lawrence, KS 66049 FAX (785) 841-0434 I was seldom able to see an opportunity until it had ceased to be one. -- Mark Twain -- Let Crystal Reports handle the reporting - Free Crystal Reports 2008 30-Day trial. Simplify your report design, integration and deployment - and focus on what you do best, core application coding. Discover what's new with Crystal Reports now. http://p.sf.net/sfu/bobj-july ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
Re: [Emc-users] Compact Flash card for Hard Drive
Hi Gene, But booting a normal linux like the version we use for emc, that uses ext3 as the filesystem would probably use it up in a week or 2. Don't underestimate the number of write cycles a CF card can handle. As long as you disable atime and stick the logs into a ram drive, as I describe in the wiki, a CF card will last a very long time. I even run unmodified copies of Windows on CF cards and I have never had a failure. Les -- Let Crystal Reports handle the reporting - Free Crystal Reports 2008 30-Day trial. Simplify your report design, integration and deployment - and focus on what you do best, core application coding. Discover what's new with Crystal Reports now. http://p.sf.net/sfu/bobj-july ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
Re: [Emc-users] Compact Flash card for Hard Drive
It seems to me that UBUNTU is debian, sort of. On Sat, 2009-11-21 at 11:45 -0600, Karl Schmidt wrote: I have Linux boxes that boot off a CFLASH things to know: - CFLASH will wear out so create a RAM-drive for your logs. - Get a big CFALASH so the wear leveling can do it's thing. - Turn off atime - so it won't write every time you read. Doing this is cleaner in Debian ( EMC belongs on Debian anyway IMHO - not the more bleeding edge Ubuntu ) Karl Schmidt EMail k...@xtronics.com Transtronics, Inc. WEB http://xtronics.com 3209 West 9th Street Ph (785) 841-3089 Lawrence, KS 66049 FAX (785) 841-0434 I was seldom able to see an opportunity until it had ceased to be one. -- Mark Twain -- Let Crystal Reports handle the reporting - Free Crystal Reports 2008 30-Day trial. Simplify your report design, integration and deployment - and focus on what you do best, core application coding. Discover what's new with Crystal Reports now. http://p.sf.net/sfu/bobj-july ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users -- Let Crystal Reports handle the reporting - Free Crystal Reports 2008 30-Day trial. Simplify your report design, integration and deployment - and focus on what you do best, core application coding. Discover what's new with Crystal Reports now. http://p.sf.net/sfu/bobj-july ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
Re: [Emc-users] Compact Flash card for Hard Drive
David Winter wrote: Dear All, Anyone used a CF card as a hard drive? They are kind of slow. Not too bad to read, but still can be a couple megabytes a second, depending a lot on the adaptor. But, the write speed can be REALLY slow, vastly slower than a normal hard drive. I think you can now get IDE to CF card adaptors, so any old BIOS can handle it. I thought I read here that someone has done it but I searched the wiki and didn't find anything. I have a card and adapter which I have partitioned with fdisk and formatted using format c: /s ( DOS ) but my PC won't boot from it. This is a USB CF card adaptor? Many older BIOSs will not boot from USB. Jon -- Let Crystal Reports handle the reporting - Free Crystal Reports 2008 30-Day trial. Simplify your report design, integration and deployment - and focus on what you do best, core application coding. Discover what's new with Crystal Reports now. http://p.sf.net/sfu/bobj-july ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
Re: [Emc-users] Compact Flash card for Hard Drive
I'm not sure if this is relevant with Linux, but we have some Siemens MicroBox PLC's at work, they run Windows XP embedded IIRC. They have a compact flash drive and they have to protect the CF because Windows will try to read/write constantly as virtual memory and wear the CF cards out shortly. Then we have the problem that if we reboot, cycle power, or lose power, the settings are lost and we have to re-enter settings that have changed since last save with the write filter off. Anyway, if Linux uses a drive as virtual memory, I would think it would have the potential to wear out a CF card fairly quickly, though their may already be work arounds for it. RogerN - Original Message - From: David Winter davidwin...@hondaracing.freeserve.co.uk To: emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net Sent: Saturday, November 21, 2009 9:34 AM Subject: [Emc-users] Compact Flash card for Hard Drive Dear All, Anyone used a CF card as a hard drive? I thought I read here that someone has done it but I searched the wiki and didn't find anything. I have a card and adapter which I have partitioned with fdisk and formatted using format c: /s ( DOS ) but my PC won't boot from it. All help and advice gratefully received. BTW,I have no idea how to set my BIOS for this card, which is a 8 GB Kingston 133x card.I don't know if it needs CHS,, LBA, Large , what sort of UDMA access, etc. Thanks in advance, David Winter. P.S. Thanks to everyone who contribute to EMC2, only wish I was smart enough to contribute :-( -- Let Crystal Reports handle the reporting - Free Crystal Reports 2008 30-Day trial. Simplify your report design, integration and deployment - and focus on what you do best, core application coding. Discover what's new with Crystal Reports now. http://p.sf.net/sfu/bobj-july ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users -- Let Crystal Reports handle the reporting - Free Crystal Reports 2008 30-Day trial. Simplify your report design, integration and deployment - and focus on what you do best, core application coding. Discover what's new with Crystal Reports now. http://p.sf.net/sfu/bobj-july ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
Re: [Emc-users] Compact Flash card for Hard Drive
I have some Windows based systems running off CF cards. I found that some low dollar IDE to CF adapters simply would not work to boot windows reliably. I ended up buying some more expensive Addonics SATA to CF adapters and that solved the boot issues that I ran into.I used Transcend 133X CF cards and the systems I did have been running for about 1 1/2 years now - with zero failures. I used part of the Windows XP embedded OS software so I could turn off the random disk writes entirely. Some CF cards simply cannot boot an OS. Dave Jon Elson wrote: David Winter wrote: Dear All, Anyone used a CF card as a hard drive? They are kind of slow. Not too bad to read, but still can be a couple megabytes a second, depending a lot on the adaptor. But, the write speed can be REALLY slow, vastly slower than a normal hard drive. I think you can now get IDE to CF card adaptors, so any old BIOS can handle it. I thought I read here that someone has done it but I searched the wiki and didn't find anything. I have a card and adapter which I have partitioned with fdisk and formatted using format c: /s ( DOS ) but my PC won't boot from it. This is a USB CF card adaptor? Many older BIOSs will not boot from USB. Jon -- Let Crystal Reports handle the reporting - Free Crystal Reports 2008 30-Day trial. Simplify your report design, integration and deployment - and focus on what you do best, core application coding. Discover what's new with Crystal Reports now. http://p.sf.net/sfu/bobj-july ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users -- Let Crystal Reports handle the reporting - Free Crystal Reports 2008 30-Day trial. Simplify your report design, integration and deployment - and focus on what you do best, core application coding. Discover what's new with Crystal Reports now. http://p.sf.net/sfu/bobj-july ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
