akira^8GB
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New York City
RG wrote:

Please, everyone, for the love of data: use CF.

That makes no sense. WHAT is wrong with SD?

Awol wrote:

What speed is your 4GB card? Just trying to figure out if I can get away with the slowest and cheapest one. XD

The cheap, slow one will do just great. I have a generic card in my A600, which costed nothing, and works fine. As Linde said, the IDE interface is kinda slow already.


For temporary storage, I agree, but if you truly love data and want to keep it readable for more than a few decades it'd better be burnt on a CD or DVD and stored safely.

Optical media deteriorates faster than solid state cards, I think the best solution to backups is stockpiling hard drives. If well kept, they can last a loooong time (I only retired my A600's hard drive yesterday, after 17 years of faithful service, and all its data is still intact)

Last edited by akira^8GB (Sep 16, 2010 6:43 pm)

boomlinde
Offline
Sweden

No, no! A CD should have a lifespan of maybe a hundred years if you store it properly, unlike CF cards, that are normally only guaranteed to keep data for ten years. Hard drives are good, but a hit and miss, really. The best way is still to carve things into stone. smile

Last edited by boomlinde (Sep 16, 2010 8:57 pm)

RG
Offline
Milwaukee, WI
akira^8GB wrote:
RG wrote:

Please, everyone, for the love of data: use CF.

That makes no sense. WHAT is wrong with SD?

Nothing at all. I simply meant compared to hard disk drives. People go on about the life span of HDs but I've gone through at least 7 drives via IDE using various models over the last 15 years. There was even a time when my back-ups were corrupt because the Amiga I was using had been writing "bad data". I'm not a believer. Perhaps *maybe* if it just sat on a shelf for 40 years..

Switched to CF via IDE as HD and CF via PCMCIA and haven't looked back. Also don't need to worry about someone bumping a table at a show/a certain someone throwing sharp objects around.

Awol
Offline

Thanks for the answers guys. One more question:

I have been told that when using CF or SD cards via IDE on a stock Amiga, it is not recommended to have a drive more than 4GB, or a partition more than 2GB.

Is there a limit to drive size or partition size when using SD cards over PCMCIA? And will the slowest cheapest card also work well over PCMCIA?

nitro2k01
Offline
Sweeeeeeden

Perhaps the Amiga can only handle FAT16. If so, the maximum partition size is 2 GB. If it can handle FAT32, larger partition sizes are possible. FAT32 didn't exist back when the Amiga was created, but there might be a patch to make it supportFAT32. Someone else might be more knowledgeable about this.

Regular SD cards are only available in sizes up to 4GB. Cards that are bigger than that are "SDHC", which the adapter may not be compatible with. If someone told you to avoid SDHC cards, they're probably speaking out of experience. There might also be other, Amiga-related, limitations that I'm not aware of.

Awol
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No one has told me to avoid SDHC. I heard the IDE limit was due to the stock Amiga FFS filesystem, but that a card used over PCMCIA can be formatted as FAT - except they didn't specify whether it was FAT16 or FAT32, which is what I was wondering.

EDIT: Someone had told me on another forum that  "you just need to install the FAT95 filesystem and PCMCIA card driver" on the Amiga, and I just read on this page that "FAT16 and FAT32 filesystems are supported by the FAT95 filesystem." So I think I've answered my own question, but can someone else say it, just to be sure? The person on the other forum was talking about CF cards though, not SD or SDHC, and I don't know if that matters. 4GB is probably more than enough for a transfer card anyway. 1GB is probably more than enough for a transfer card!

Last edited by Awol (Sep 18, 2010 5:29 am)

akira^8GB
Offline
New York City

FAT32 is OK
SDHC I havent tried but if the reader  supports it, it should also run on the Amiga.
The limit of 4GB exists with FFS, you can partition teh card in 3 or something and be OK or install a better filesystem on the card (like SFS) and not worry about that anymore. I have 2GB and that is quite more than enough for whatever I need.

boomlinde
Offline
Sweden

Yeah, the information you'll find on PCMCIA CF card readers apply to SD card readers, too. Check this out, this is what I installed to get it working: http://eab.abime.net/showpost.php?p=296 … stcount=43

Awol
Offline

Well thank you all for your help. By the way, I've decided to go with a 4GB CF for the hard drive, and a 2GB SD for the PCMCIA.

In the meantime... I was worried about the constant clicking noise coming from my Amiga's floppy drive, but some searching reveals that it is apparently normal behavior. Now attempting to format a floppy previously used in an Atari. smile

EDIT: Ugh. And now the floppy won't work on my PC, of course. This is why I need a PCMCIA SD reader! XD
I was looking forward to playing around with Hively Tracker tonight, but I guess I'll just have to wait for the SD/CF gear.
Man... Atari floppies work with PCs! >:(

Last edited by Awol (Sep 23, 2010 7:44 am)

boomlinde
Offline
Sweden

If you format a DD floppy on a PC to 720k, you can read it on Amiga using CrossDOS (which should be included on the OS disks if you have those). Usage details are here.

Another unrelated tip: Prepare the CF card in WInUAE. If you put the card in a normal card reader you can mount it as a hard drive from WinUAE, format it, install the OS (even in turbo mode if you wish) and quickly put the software you want on it.

akira^8GB
Offline
New York City

Yeah, man,. because Atari uses the DOS format and Amiga doesn't. That's why the disk doesn't work.

boomlinde wrote:

If you format a DD floppy on a PC to 720k, you can read it on Amiga using CrossDOS (which should be included on the OS disks if you have those). Usage details are here.

Not if he has WB3.1. Only 3.0 has CrossDOS

You should check this option.

Also: HivelyTracker does NOT run on anything but an 060@100mHZ or PowerPC, so forget about it, use AHX, or wait for the massively expensive upgrade. tongue

Last edited by akira^8GB (Sep 23, 2010 11:25 am)

Awol
Offline
akira^8GB wrote:
boomlinde wrote:

If you format a DD floppy on a PC to 720k, you can read it on Amiga using CrossDOS (which should be included on the OS disks if you have those). Usage details are here.

Not if he has WB3.1. Only 3.0 has CrossDOS

I have 3.0, but I don't have the OS disks. I seem to have a floppy working on both PC and Amiga now though. Just had to click PC0 instead of DF0. smile


akira^8GB wrote:

Also: HivelyTracker does NOT run on anything but an 060@100mHZ or PowerPC, so forget about it, use AHX, or wait for the massively expensive upgrade. tongue

Awww. AHX it is then. sad

akira^8GB
Offline
New York City
Awol wrote:

I have 3.0, but I don't have the OS disks. I seem to have a floppy working on both PC and Amiga now though. Just had to click PC0 instead of DF0. smile

That's because you have CrossDOS running and mounted. Good job! It's painful to transfer stuff by floppy but in the meantime it will do.

boomlinde
Offline
Sweden

I'm pretty sure I've seen CrossDOS at least on some 3.1 disk images. Never had the actual disk set for 3.1 though.

akira^8GB
Offline
New York City

If it was, it was included by the user who made the disk image. CrossDOS, for licensing issues, was NOT included in KS3.1 . Only 3.0 and 2.1 have it.