Re: Request for CF Performance Comparisons

["Bill Garber" <willy46pa@comcast.net>]

"pitz" <pitz.wong@gmail.com> wrote in message 
06a78b38-1714-4d42-ae97-30d3a6c53f2b@34g2000hsf.googlegroups.com">news:06a78b38-1714-4d42-ae97-30d3a6c53f2b@34g2000hsf.googlegroups.com...
> I'm sold at using a CF card as my primary "hard disk".  No moving
> parts, and some (though certainly not all) CF cards have almost the
> same MTBF rating as hard disks.  I'm currently using a CFFA setup for
> my IIgs.
> 
> What I want to find is how it compares, in terms of performance, with
> other CF-based setups, assuming that the CF interface is not the
> bottleneck (i.e., using a very fast CF).
> 
> I'm curious if using a Focus controller and an IDE-CF adapter is
> better than a CFFA or MicroDrive setup.  Or even a complex setup such
> as a RAMFAST (or HS-SCSI) + SCSI-IDE adapter + IDE-CF adapter.  There
> are some SCSI-CF adapters out there, but not very common.
> 
> Can anyone who has more than one of the above setups provide some
> performance characteristics of each?
> 
> /Peter 

Hi Peter, 

Other than speed, which is not an issue for me whatsoever, the Microdrive 
in a IIgs is the best, hands down, only because you can set up the first, main, 
partition as a GS/OS volume, to boot by default, but, you can also set up a 
ProDOS volume on another partition and boot that by holding OPTION on 
startup, and press the number of that partition, and VOILA!, you're in ProDOS. 

For IIe, CFFA works for me, and quite well I might add. In fact, I have been 
pulling stuff out to see what I can sell, and I seem to have 6 CFFA cards of 
various versions. Including one that is sold and wrapped for shipment. 
Oh, and I just bought the Slot Expander and CFFA1 for my Replica. 
Shows you how I feel about the CFFA, I guess, eh?  

As far as Focus goes, I just last night finally got the hard drive off of it, and 
plugged on the CF adapter. I still have to put a CF card in, partition, format, 
and load it up to find out. I'll come back and post how I feel once I do. 

It is all really a matter of preference once you try them out yourself. 

Bill Garber from GS-Electronics
http://www.garberstreet.com