[PLUG] Floppy drives vs. USB keys.

[someone]

On Mon, 2006-12-11 at 20:43 -0800, Eric Wilhelm wrote:
> # from Elliott Mitchell
> # on Monday 11 December 2006 07:36 pm:
> 
> >> Are there any flash drives that plug into the IDE controller as
> >> ATAPI devices which look like a cdrom?  Va503+'s can boot from ATAPI
> >> cdrom drives.
> >
> >They generally look like hard drives to software. They're around
> > though I haven't gone looking recently.
> 
> CF+ide adaptor is becoming a very affordable ($10 for the card, $10-$20 
> for the adaptor at newegg) option.  AFAICT, it boots just like a hard 
> disk.  For the number of times that I have to actually boot from a 
> floppy vs the amount of headaches involved in getting a good floppy, 
> I'm thinking popping open the case and plugging in one of these would 
> be a better option for the old boxen.  Not to mention that you can fit 
> a lot of utilities in 256MB.  Maybe even just get the 1GB card and use 
> it as your boot/root partition (though /tmp, /var, etc all need to live 
> elsewhere.)
> 
> --Eric

How fast are they compared to hard drives?  

Is there any reason that the data in var and tmp on a typical Linux
system needs to persist when the system is shut down?  Wouldn't it be
lightning fast to have a card that takes standard memory, plugs into a
PCI slot, and then load /var /tmp and the swap partition into that?
There's something about backpack solutions battery backed ram in the 2.6
kernel config if I remember correctly.

Here's what I've seen on Newegg so far:


-----------------------------------------------------------------------
SYBA SD-CF-IDE-A IDE to Compact Flash Adapter - Retail
     
Pros: Worked out of the box with IPCOP (Linux Firewall) on a Dell. No
configuration necessary. Using a 512MB compact flash card which was
correctly detected by the BIOS. It didn't work with the stock Dell cable
which has one of the IDE plugs filled. A new cable fixed it.

Cons: Has no protection so you'll have to find a good safe place for it.
We're going with an anti static bag and double stick tape.

Other Thoughts: Runs cool to the touch after some pretty heavy load.

Pros: fast shipping.

Cons: no dma support as it uses cf cards. not seemingly compatible with
the full ide spec, as no cylinder/head/sector information was available
to the kernel. caused repetitive crashes when writing in netbsd,
freebsd, slackware, dsl, etc etc etc. this is not the product i expected
it to be.

Other Thoughts: disappointed.

Pros: Easy install; useful function; compact; works as advertised

Cons: very poor performance. With a super fast 150x CF card I am only
able to get 3500KB/sec transfer rate. Card should be encapsulated to
prevent shorting components on case. Minimal docs.

Other Thoughts: This is a great idea but I'd like to see much better
performance. Also, it should have come with slot mounts since it does
have holes in the board for slot mounting the card.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822998002
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

SYBA SD-CF-IDE-BR IDE to Compact Flash Adapter (Bracket Version) -
Retail


Pros: compact, flexible installation

Cons: doesn´t accept more than 1GB CF, also it doesn´t fit in a 44IDE
cable or ATA133 cable

Pros: Small. Looks like it would be a great product if the 44 pin
connector wasn't left off.

Cons: Contrary to what someone else said here this item will NOT take a
44 pin cable out of the box. There is a place on the board for a 44 pin
connector, but it is "optional". I guess I will have to return it.

Pros: This adapter requires a 44 pin IDE cable, works great!

Cons: none

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16812186002
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

SYBA SD-CF-IDE-DI IDE to Compact Flash Adapter ( Direct Insertion Mode )
- Retail

Pros: this device works very well for a nice m0n0wall router, a nice
alternative to using a hotter hard drive, with the heat where I live.

Cons: using an ASUS board (AMD64), sometimes the bios would spend a
little too much time auto-detecting the device, but in the VAIO (PIII)
in which it now resides, it works splendidly.

Pros: has jumper settings, unlike some other models ive dealt with.
small form factor. device works just like it should.

Cons: only complaint is the ide connector - plugs down right into a
board. cannot use an ide cable for placement where you might want/need
it.

Pros: Works great for a m0n0wall router I put together using a cheap CF
card and an older pII PC.

Cons: IDE connector was not keyed like the picture.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822998003






Hmm, these reviews are contradictory.  Why is the IDE connector oriented
differently on the last one than it is on the other two?  Not accepting
over a 1 gig flash card is not a problem, I'm trying to replace a just
under 2 megs floppy disk.  On the last one, it's not keyed?!?!?  The
first one I listed, what is the crashing issue all about?  It shouldn't
show CHS if it's supposed to pretend to be an Atapi CDRW drive, should
it?  So which one is the best?  Is it possible to get scsi-2 or scsi-3
to CF readers that are better than these three?  I like the price of the
first one, $10.99.  I don't want slot mounts, I want to hide this inside
the case.  I'm planning on using one of these to get etherboot going,
that's all, so will they all work for that?  Can these CF cards be
partitioned so that you can install say a local copy of Freedos and
etherboot?  I wonder if I can network boot linux by installing freedos
to a flash card and using loadlin.

Our motherboards have at least a 2 meg flash chip on them anymore
these days, don't they?  Why hasn't someone cleverly found a way
to build a simple circuit to allow plugging one of these
flash chips into the floppy or IDE controller?  Can I get an ISA 
card with a programmable flash rom on it to install etherboot to?  
A lot of expansion cards, even today, have a bios on them.

How do I install etherboot to a flash card?

BTW:  I've only heard of 40 and 80 pin IDE cables, where did 44 pin come
      from???

One thought, an Atapi cdrom drive is only $20.  There is a moving parts
issue, but CD-R media is only 30 cents a disk.  Two problems, I can't
run the machine on it's side anymore and getting bumped becomes an issue
if I add a cd drive.  One of the advantages of being
diskless, or close enough, is that your system is either highly
resistant or completely immune to getting bumped.  I worry about
moisture and temperature variations in the uninsulated shed
where I have this machine.  Right now, the disk drive probably 
isn't affected much.  The machine is dry and I figure that the cold
air is probably good for it.  I can still get 25 floppy disks for $10.
If I put etherboot on all 25 of them, I can handle a lot of failures.
Considering that the floppy drive only has to be used to get the machine
booted, I'm really not seeing the reliability issue become a major
problem.  I think floppy drives use less power than cdrom drives.

     --  Michael C. Robinson