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Modern Hard Drive options for IIgs

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polbit

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Dec 20, 2017
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Looking at some feedback on what to get... As of right now, here are the options I'm seeing:

CFFA3000 - Expensive at $245, no DMA, but very flexible, can do multiple hard drives and floppy drives. Image switching with a button
XDrive - Much cheaper at $85, no DMA, seems about the same as CFFA3000 except for the button switching?
Floppy Emu - $100, slowest as an external device. Can only emulate either up to four hard drives, OR one floppy drive. PITA to switch emulation modes (have to power cycle computer)
ReActive Microdrive Turbo - $110, DMA, but only emulates hard drives, and have to change firmware between II and GS
Various SCSI cards + BlueSCSIv2 - the good cards are old and expensive but have DMA

I'm looking at a full GS/OS setup, and with stock CPU being taxed already, want to make the desktop/experience as fast as possible. Does DMA make a big difference in GS/OS? XDrive would seem like the best choice, but would Microdrive be much faster due to DMA?

Basically looking for some feedback/advice from actual users... Thanks!
 
I think an accelerator would be a better price-to-performance ratio, but you'd be stuck without floppy & storage emulation. Something like an AppleSqueezer v2 which has a 16MHz CPU accelerator, 12MBs of useable RAM, 224MB RAM Disk, and HDMI output option. Down side is it's €300 ($350), but if you were already considering a CFFA3000, it's not considerably much more. It also has an unimplemented SD card slot, but the FAQ indicates plans to use it for automatically storing and loading the RAM disk.

How much are you looking to spend? IIgs is a potential rabbit hole of expensive upgrades. It's a shame there isn't a IIgs version of A2Heaven's FASTChip //e.
 
olePigeon said:
I think an accelerator would be a better price-to-performance ratio, but you'd be stuck without floppy & storage emulation. Something like an AppleSqueezer v2 which has a 16MHz CPU accelerator, 12MBs of useable RAM, 224MB RAM Disk, and HDMI output option. Down side is it's €300 ($350), but if you were already considering a CFFA3000, it's not considerably much more. It also has an unimplemented SD card slot, but the FAQ indicates plans to use it for automatically storing and loading the RAM disk.

How much are you looking to spend? IIgs is a potential rabbit hole of expensive upgrades. It's a shame there isn't a IIgs version of A2Heaven's FASTChip //e.
Click to expand...

Accelerator is definitely on the horizon for me, but in a second system. I'm setting up a stock speed system to have fun with assembler/C, with modern storage but otherwise RGB monitor, original Alps keyboard, etc. For the second system the decision is easier as AppleSqueezer won't do DMA, so I will most definitely go with XDrive. Just trying to figure out how much will DMA help on stock system. Right now I just have Floppy Emu for Mac usage, so I've got it working on a ROM 3 IIgs with 5Mb total RAM.

Money is not a limit as much as I just don't want to waste it if for example CFFA3000 is no longer the goto solution it once was before XDrive (or even the old BOOTI)...
 
Ah, I see. I popped onto eBay out curiosity and there are currently two Apple High Speed SCSI cards for sale for $189 + tax, shipped. Coupled with a SCSI drive, you'll have your DMA + other supported SCSI devices like scanners. Also has the advantage of being highly compatible.

On the other hand, if you're just looking for a storage solution that supports DMA, it seems like to me that the ReActive Microdrive Turbo is the best option, even if you have to flash the ROM to using it in other systems. At $110, you could buy that one plus a floppy emulator, and still come out less than the CFFA3000 or SCSI Card + Drive combo. With a separate floppy emulator, you can easily move that around between computers without having to take anything apart and install stuff. FloppyEmu has the advantage of also being useable on Lisa and Macintosh computers should you decide to expand your interests into other Apple computers.
 
I've been extremely happy with the microdrive turbo. What pushed me to choose it was the fact it was actually a period correct design that is still being actively produced
 
I use the original Apple SCSI card in one of my IIgs machines and those are around $120 I think and there are clones.
 
Well, I decided to try them all myself :) Found everything cheap enough that I should be able to resell what I don't need... Right now I have Microdrive Turbo, CFFA3000, XDrive and High Speed SCSI plus BlueSCSIv2 coming. Already have the Floppy Emu. Should be fun testing them! I'll post results for anyone interested.
 
I have now played with Floppy Emu, XDrive, CFFA3000 and MicroDrive/Turbo. There is simply no comparison speed-wise between the MicroDrive and the next fastest one - CFFA3000 - it is 2-3x faster. CFFA3000 seems about 20-25% faster than XDrive, and Floppy Emu, well, it's just slow.

Of course there is no free lunch - MD is much more like using an old-school HD - you don't simply copy files onto it. CFFA3000 shines in comparison, not just because it can emulate everything, but it has a CDA interface too. XDrive menu is activated at boot.

I'm sure there is more to it, these are just initial reactions to using them while installing GS/OS 6.0.4, apps, games, etc. They all have their place, my main machine will be getting MicroDrive with Floppy Emu for disk emulation, and my future accelerated second machine will keep the all-in-one CFFA3000. XDrive is cheap enough that I'm just going to keep it as a backup solution...
 
polbit said:
Well, I decided to try them all myself :) Found everything cheap enough that I should be able to resell what I don't need... Right now I have Microdrive Turbo, CFFA3000, XDrive and High Speed SCSI plus BlueSCSIv2 coming. Already have the Floppy Emu. Should be fun testing them! I'll post results for anyone interested.
Click to expand...

I am interested , running IIGS rom 03 at 15mhz with ramfast rev D 1 meg cache and zulu scsu, getting
 

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Alright - really interested in this thread. I have a IIgs ROM 03 and I installed my Booti that I had from my Laser 128. So far, it seems to conflict with GSOS unless I have all the Inits/DA's disabled.

I'm also interested in an accelerator - but does the Applesqueezer actually have any mountable volumes? I see there is a 224MB RAM disk - but is it partitionable and reliable? I have a RAMExpress II in my IIc+ and anytime I use something from my SmartPort like my wDrive or Fujinet, it wipes out the RAM drive.

The other alternative is the A2Pico. Anyone with experience with this? At $30 shipped, it seems to be incredible!
 
tiktok4321 said:
Alright - really interested in this thread. I have a IIgs ROM 03 and I installed my Booti that I had from my Laser 128. So far, it seems to conflict with GSOS unless I have all the Inits/DA's disabled.

I'm also interested in an accelerator - but does the Applesqueezer actually have any mountable volumes? I see there is a 224MB RAM disk - but is it partitionable and reliable? I have a RAMExpress II in my IIc+ and anytime I use something from my SmartPort like my wDrive or Fujinet, it wipes out the RAM drive.

The other alternative is the A2Pico. Anyone with experience with this? At $30 shipped, it seems to be incredible!
Click to expand...
I put one in a friends GS, seems to work just fine as a hard drive.
 
polbit said:
I have now played with Floppy Emu, XDrive, CFFA3000 and MicroDrive/Turbo. There is simply no comparison speed-wise between the MicroDrive and the next fastest one - CFFA3000 - it is 2-3x faster. CFFA3000 seems about 20-25% faster than XDrive, and Floppy Emu, well, it's just slow.

Of course there is no free lunch - MD is much more like using an old-school HD - you don't simply copy files onto it. CFFA3000 shines in comparison, not just because it can emulate everything, but it has a CDA interface too. XDrive menu is activated at boot.

I'm sure there is more to it, these are just initial reactions to using them while installing GS/OS 6.0.4, apps, games, etc. They all have their place, my main machine will be getting MicroDrive with Floppy Emu for disk emulation, and my future accelerated second machine will keep the all-in-one CFFA3000. XDrive is cheap enough that I'm just going to keep it as a backup solution...
Click to expand...

The reason the MicroDrive/Turbo and CFFA3000 are faster is likely due to utilizing CompactFlash (CF) cards which support an ATA/IDE interface mode AND implementing the interface itself via custom programmable logic.

The CH376S only supports Low-Speed (1.5 Mbps = 0.1875 MB/s) and Full-Speed (12 Mbps = 1.5 MB/s) USB data transfer and probably doesn't get anywhere near full speed when the files are small. And most hobbyist devices utilizing an SD card are going to be using the slowest possible 1-bit data transfer mode (SPI compatible) because that doesn't require purchasing a license and paying royalties. While clocking the SPI interface at a higher rate does increase the transfer speed, it will never be as fast using a 2-bit or 4-bit data transfer mode.

It would probably work better if the interface card cached reads into some SRAM, but that would add complexity to the design and increase cost.
 
Istarian said:
The reason the MicroDrive/Turbo and CFFA3000 are faster is likely due to utilizing CompactFlash (CF) cards which support an ATA/IDE interface mode AND implementing the interface itself via custom programmable logic.
Click to expand...
Why is this "AND" in caps, the "custom programmable" is in fact a very standard user programmable logic.
Low-Speed (1.5 Mbps = 0.1875 MB/s) and Full-Speed (12 Mbps = 1.5 MB/s) USB data transfer and probably doesn't get anywhere near full speed when the files are small.
Click to expand...
How small are the "small" files in your imagination and how long are the USB protocol packets, I guess you hear about latter for the first time?
And most hobbyist devices utilizing an SD card are going to be using the slowest possible 1-bit data transfer mode (SPI compatible) because that doesn't require purchasing a license and paying royalties.
Click to expand...
Do all SD cards support multiple bit data transfers?
 
polbit said:
Looking at some feedback on what to get... As of right now, here are the options I'm seeing:

CFFA3000 - Expensive at $245, no DMA, but very flexible, can do multiple hard drives and floppy drives. Image switching with a button
XDrive - Much cheaper at $85, no DMA, seems about the same as CFFA3000 except for the button switching?
Floppy Emu - $100, slowest as an external device. Can only emulate either up to four hard drives, OR one floppy drive. PITA to switch emulation modes (have to power cycle computer)
ReActive Microdrive Turbo - $110, DMA, but only emulates hard drives, and have to change firmware between II and GS
Various SCSI cards + BlueSCSIv2 - the good cards are old and expensive but have DMA

I'm looking at a full GS/OS setup, and with stock CPU being taxed already, want to make the desktop/experience as fast as possible. Does DMA make a big difference in GS/OS? XDrive would seem like the best choice, but would Microdrive be much faster due to DMA?

Basically looking for some feedback/advice from actual users... Thanks!
Click to expand...
Lots of info and tips here for you ... I'll add simply that you will not regret spending the extra $$ for the cfa3000 .. love mine .. easy to use and it's easily the King in this area and once you have the cf card full, it could take you years to cycle thru it on your Apple!
 
CFFA3000 does not support contemporary woz images. I wouldn't buy it.
 
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