Adventure with microSD and SD-to-CF adatper

[Chuck(G)]

I was a bit concerned that I was running low on working IDE PATA hard drives < 128MB in size. I have a P3 system here that would make a good candidate. It's currently using an 80GB Maxtor (I think) drive.
I picked up a 64GB Adata micro SD and one of those red "Extreme" SD-to-CF adapters and set it up as primary on the system with the Maxtor as secondary. Copied over a couple of the partitions (FAT32 and NTFS) and thought I was doing fine. I decided to add Debian Buster to the mix and started the install. About 2/3rd of the way through, the CF combo quit responding and disappeared on a reboot.

So much for that. I suspect that the "Extreme" adapter isn't rated for continuous hard use and simply overheated. I'll do a postmortem later today. Back to my old scheme of using SATA SSDs (120GB ones are pretty cheap) and adapters...

 

[Eudimorphodon]

red "Extreme" SD-to-CF adapter

When you say "SD to CF adapter", do you mean literally an SD-to-CF adapter (in the Compactflash form factor?) or an SD to PATA adapter based on the SD->CF chipsets? Does the machine you're installing this in natively have a CF slot, or is the SD to CF adapter stacked in a CF->PATA adapter?

I've never had any issues with the direct SD->PATA cards, but I guess I also can't say I've run Linux off one. (I do have one in a Cyrix C3-based machine that's set up for DOS, and I've thought of installing Linux on it but... life is just too short, honestly.)

 

[NeXT]

I think he's referring to these that are available in SD and microSD flavors:

I've seen them around but I've never bought one yet. I use an older Panasonic branded one in my MK I EOS 1D which seems to handle burst writes fine but I've never tried hammering an SD card with it.

 

[Chuck(G)]

Yup, the red one @NeXT shows but in the single microSD model. Since SATA III 120GB SSDs are now priced in the under-$15 range, there's not much sense in using the SD-to-CF adapter to substitute for a real hard drive.
It was an experiment that didn't surprise me.
It might work well on an 8088 system with a CF-IDE adapter however. Unlikely to get hammered on.

 

[Eudimorphodon]

It might work well on an 8088 system with a CF-IDE adapter however. Unlikely to get hammered on.

I haven't had a single SD card blow up in a Raspberry Pi yet and those can get hammered pretty hard.

Again, I'm curious, why did you use the CF format adapter specifically instead of a native PATA->SD form factor? They come in both desktop 40 pin and laptop 44 pin flavors, are you installing this in a nettop/x-term form factor box with a native CF slot?

Not that I think there's likely to be any significant difference in electrical implementation between the various types, but there could be thermal constraints at play (the CF native type is, by necessity, going to be flimsier with a thinner circuit board, etc). Or it could just be plain old infant mortality. Kinda doubt there's a lot of burn-in going on with things that sell for $13.

 

[Chuck(G)]

I used it because it's what I had on hand. I don't know if those PATA->SD adapters support SD cards bigger than 32GB--I've certainly seen SD card readers that don't.

 

[NeXT]

Yeah. SDHC/SDXC can be a crapshoot on if the OEM wanted to pay extra for it.

 

[Eudimorphodon]

I don't know if those PATA->SD adapters support SD cards bigger than 32GB--I've certainly seen SD card readers that don't.

I have 64GB cards in mine, they see the whole thing.

… that said, I guess it does look like some of the listings for them send mixed messages so... *shrug*.

SATA probably is a better choice for Linux anyway. Unless you’re running something truely ancient you might at least get TRIM support.

 

[Chuck(G)]

Well, it seems that after the thing has cooled off, it's back to working. I suspect the adapter more than the SD card itself.

total 1228
-rwxr-xr-x  1 chuck chuck      0 Jan 18 14:10  AUTOEXEC.BAT
-rw-r--r--  1 chuck chuck  51720 Jan 18 14:10  BOOTLOG.PRV
-rw-r--r--  1 chuck chuck  51646 Jan 18 14:52  BOOTLOG.TXT
-rwxr-xr-x  1 chuck chuck  93890 Apr 23  1999  COMMAND.COM
-rw-r--r--  1 chuck chuck     30 Jan 18 14:10  CONFIG.SYS
-rw-r--r--  1 chuck chuck  71090 Jan 18 14:06  DETLOG.TXT
drwxr-xr-x  2 chuck chuck   4096 Jan 18 14:43  drivers
drwxr-xr-x  2 chuck chuck   4096 Jan 18 14:42  hxrt
-r--r--r--  1 chuck chuck 222390 Apr 23  1999  IO.SYS
drwxr-xr-x  4 chuck chuck   4096 Jan 18 14:48  masm611
-rw-r--r--  1 chuck chuck      9 Jan 18 13:52  MSDOS.---
-rw-r--r--  1 chuck chuck   1685 Jan 18 14:46  MSDOS.SYS
drwxr-xr-x  9 chuck chuck   4096 Jan 18 14:47  msvc
drwxr-xr-x  2 chuck chuck   4096 Jan 18 14:15 'My Documents'
-rw-r--r--  1 chuck chuck   2913 Jan 18 14:10  NETLOG.TXT
drwxr-xr-x 13 chuck chuck   4096 Jan 18 13:53 'Program Files'
-rw-r--r--  1 chuck chuck 125864 Jan 18 14:10  SETUPLOG.TXT
-rw-r--r--  1 chuck chuck    232 Jan 18 14:14  SETUPXLG.TXT
-r--r--r--  1 chuck chuck  14370 Jan 18 14:03  SUHDLOG.DAT
drwxr-xr-x  2 chuck chuck   4096 Jan 18 14:49  sys
-r--r--r--  1 chuck chuck 503840 Jan 18 14:03  SYSTEM.1ST
drwxr-xr-x  4 chuck chuck   8192 Jan 18 14:41  usr
-rw-r--r--  1 chuck chuck  32768 Jan 18 14:12  VIDEOROM.BIN
drwxr-xr-x 37 chuck chuck  12288 Jan 18 13:53  WINDOWS
drwxr-xr-x  4 chuck chuck   4096 Jan 18 14:51  xms

However, copying to a SATA SSD is a lot faster...

 

[Malc]

I've not tried those SD-CF adapters yet but from what i have read about them from other folk those red "Type 1" adapters are not very good, The white "Type 2" adapters are better apparently, They seem to use different chips / firmware, IIRC the better one's have the "Sintechi" firmware ??.

I use the 40 Pin and 44 pin Pata - SD "Sintechi" adapters with no problems but i only use them with DOS / Win 3x etc.

 

[Chuck(G)]

As I said, I'm convinced that a PATA->SATA adapter and a SATA SSD is probably a better solution. I've had no problems with both Windows and Linux on P3 systems. As a matter of interest, my P4 system even has a socket on the motherboard for a CF card--but I still use a SATA drive with it.

 

[Malc]

I must have another look at the PATA - SATA adapters and SATA SSD, The last time i looked they were expensive here in the UK anyway, As you say it's a better solution for Windows / Linux, I'm using up my stash of spinning rust.

 

[Chuck(G)]

Replaced the spinning rust with a 120GB SATA SSD and SATA->PATA adapter. System comes right up in DOS, Win98SE, XT and Debian Buster. Newegg has 120GB SSDs for $11 and change with free shipping. I opted for a couple of the $15 ones with good reviews. Probably doesn't make much of a difference in my case.

SSDs are dropping in price pretty quickly--about $25 for a SATA-interface 512GB ones.

I keep remember that I paid about $1000 back in the day for a 300MB SCSI drive...