Has anyone here had any luck using a CF to SATA adapter? I''ve just tried an Addonics ADSACFW CF to SATA adaptor with an 8GB card that I wanted to use for a boot pool and even though the BIOS reports the disk, Solaris B95 (or the installer) doesn''t see it. I might give the IDE version a go (I really wanted hoT-plug), otherwise I''ll be able to store a couple of thousand photos in my camera... Cheers, Ian.
On Wed, Aug 20, 2008 at 05:17:45PM +1200, Ian Collins wrote:> Has anyone here had any luck using a CF to SATA adapter? > > I''ve just tried an Addonics ADSACFW CF to SATA adaptor with an 8GB card that I wanted to use for a boot pool and even though the BIOS reports the disk, Solaris B95 (or the installer) doesn''t see it.I tried this a while back with an IDE to CF adapter. Real nice looking one too. It would constantly cause OpenBSD to panic. I would recommend against using this, unless you get real lucky. If you want flash to boot from, buy one of the ones that is specifically made for it (not CF, but industrial grade flash meant to be a HDD). Those things work a LOT better. I can look up the details of the ones my friend uses if you''d like.> I might give the IDE version a go (I really wanted hoT-plug), otherwise I''ll be able to store a couple of thousand photos in my camera...That''s the better plan. ;) -brian -- "Coding in C is like sending a 3 year old to do groceries. You gotta tell them exactly what you want or you''ll end up with a cupboard full of pop tarts and pancake mix." -- IRC User (http://www.bash.org/?841435)
Brian Hechinger wrote:> On Wed, Aug 20, 2008 at 05:17:45PM +1200, Ian Collins wrote: > >> Has anyone here had any luck using a CF to SATA adapter? >> >> I''ve just tried an Addonics ADSACFW CF to SATA adaptor with an 8GB card that I wanted to use for a boot pool and even though the BIOS reports the disk, Solaris B95 (or the installer) doesn''t see it. >> > > I tried this a while back with an IDE to CF adapter. Real nice looking one too. > > It would constantly cause OpenBSD to panic. > > I would recommend against using this, unless you get real lucky. If you want > flash to boot from, buy one of the ones that is specifically made for it (not > CF, but industrial grade flash meant to be a HDD). Those things work a LOT > better. I can look up the details of the ones my friend uses if you''d like. > >I was looking to run some tests with a CF boot drive before we get an X4540, which has a CF slot. The installer did see the attached USB sticks... Any further information welcome. Ian
Hello Ian, Wednesday, August 20, 2008, 8:57:33 AM, you wrote: IC> Brian Hechinger wrote:>> On Wed, Aug 20, 2008 at 05:17:45PM +1200, Ian Collins wrote: >> >>> Has anyone here had any luck using a CF to SATA adapter? >>> >>> I''ve just tried an Addonics ADSACFW CF to SATA adaptor with an 8GB card that I wanted to use for a boot pool and even though the BIOS reports the disk, Solaris B95 (or the installer) doesn''t see it. >>> >> >> I tried this a while back with an IDE to CF adapter. Real nice looking one too. >> >> It would constantly cause OpenBSD to panic. >> >> I would recommend against using this, unless you get real lucky. If you want >> flash to boot from, buy one of the ones that is specifically made for it (not >> CF, but industrial grade flash meant to be a HDD). Those things work a LOT >> better. I can look up the details of the ones my friend uses if you''d like. >> >>IC> I was looking to run some tests with a CF boot drive before we get an IC> X4540, which has a CF slot. The installer did see the attached USB sticks... IC> Any further information welcome. When it comes to x4540 and booting from CF card - it just works. It is slow for writes but it doesn''t matter that much. Just make sure you put core dumps, cores, etc somewhere else than CF card. -- Best regards, Robert Milkowski mailto:milek at task.gda.pl http://milek.blogspot.com
On Wed, Aug 20, 2008 at 05:17, Ian Collins <ian at ianshome.com> wrote:> Has anyone here had any luck using a CF to SATA adapter?I have two of these: http://cgi.ebay.com/CF-Compact-Flash-to-SATA-Adapter-mini-usb-by-i88990_W0QQitemZ290253443832QQihZ019QQcategoryZ74941QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem with two of these cards: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820183189 both of which are recognized fine by Solaris. I''m using a Marvell controller from Supermicro. I haven''t tried installing to them, but they show up (and hotplug) once the OS is up. Will
On Wed, Aug 20, 2008 at 05:17:45PM +1200, Ian Collins wrote:> Has anyone here had any luck using a CF to SATA adapter? > > I''ve just tried an Addonics ADSACFW CF to SATA adaptor with an 8GB card that I wanted to use for a boot pool and even though the BIOS reports the disk, Solaris B95 (or the installer) doesn''t see it. > > I might give the IDE version a go (I really wanted hoT-plug), otherwise I''ll be able to store a couple of thousand photos in my camera...I was able to get b94 to install on an Addonics AD2SAHDCF [1] with two Transcend Industrial 4GB CF. Search the archives of this list/forum for more details. florin 1: http://www.addonics.com/products/flash_memory_reader/ad2sahdcf.asp -- Bruce Schneier expects the Spanish Inquisition. http://geekz.co.uk/schneierfacts/fact/163 -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 189 bytes Desc: not available URL: <http://mail.opensolaris.org/pipermail/zfs-discuss/attachments/20080820/b49b2244/attachment.bin>
Ian Collins wrote:> Brian Hechinger wrote: >> On Wed, Aug 20, 2008 at 05:17:45PM +1200, Ian Collins wrote: >> >>> Has anyone here had any luck using a CF to SATA adapter? >>> >>> I''ve just tried an Addonics ADSACFW CF to SATA adaptor with an 8GB card that I wanted to use for a boot pool and even though the BIOS reports the disk, Solaris B95 (or the installer) doesn''t see it. >>> >> I tried this a while back with an IDE to CF adapter. Real nice looking one too. >> >> It would constantly cause OpenBSD to panic. >> >> I would recommend against using this, unless you get real lucky. If you want >> flash to boot from, buy one of the ones that is specifically made for it (not >> CF, but industrial grade flash meant to be a HDD). Those things work a LOT >> better. I can look up the details of the ones my friend uses if you''d like. >> >> > I was looking to run some tests with a CF boot drive before we get an > X4540, which has a CF slot. The installer did see the attached USB sticks...My team does some of the testing inside Sun for the CF boot devices. We''ve used a number of IDE attaced CF adapters, such as; http://www.addonics.com/products/flash_memory_reader/ad44midecf.asp and also some random models from www.frys.com. We also test the CF boot feature on various Sun rack servers and blades that use a CF socket. I have not tested the SATA adapters but would not expect issues. I''d like to know if you find issues. The IDE attached devices use the legacy ATA/IDE device driver software, which had some bugs fixed for DMA and misc CF specific issues. It would be interesting to see if a SATA adapter for CF, set in bios to use AHCI instead of Legacy/IDE mode, would have any issues with the AHCI device driver software. I''ve had no reason to test this yet, since the Sun HW models build the CF socket right onto the motherboard/bus. I can''t find a reason to worry about hot-plug, since removing the boot "drive" while Solaris is running would be, um, somewhat interesting :-) True, the enterprise grade devices are higher quality and will last longer. But do not underestimate the current (2008) device wear leveling firmware that controls the CF memory usage, and hence life span. Our in house destructive life span testing shows that the commercial grade CF device will last longer than the motherboard will. The consumer grade devices that you find in the store or on mail order, may or may not be current generation, so your device lifespan will vary. It should still be rather good for a boot device, because Solaris does very little writing to the boot "disk". You can review configuration ideas to maximize the life of your CF device in this Solaris white paper for non-volatile memory; http://www.sun.com/bigadmin/features/articles/nvm_boot.jsp I hope this helps. Cheers, Neal Pollack> > Any further information welcome. > > Ian > _______________________________________________ > zfs-discuss mailing list > zfs-discuss at opensolaris.org > http://mail.opensolaris.org/mailman/listinfo/zfs-discuss
Neal Pollack wrote:> Ian Collins wrote: >> Brian Hechinger wrote: >>> On Wed, Aug 20, 2008 at 05:17:45PM +1200, Ian Collins wrote: >>> >>>> Has anyone here had any luck using a CF to SATA adapter? >>>> >>>> I''ve just tried an Addonics ADSACFW CF to SATA adaptor with an 8GB >>>> card that I wanted to use for a boot pool and even though the BIOS >>>> reports the disk, Solaris B95 (or the installer) doesn''t see it. >>>> >> I was looking to run some tests with a CF boot drive before we get an >> X4540, which has a CF slot. The installer did see the attached USB >> sticks... > > My team does some of the testing inside Sun for the CF boot devices. > We''ve used a number of IDE attaced CF adapters, such as; > http://www.addonics.com/products/flash_memory_reader/ad44midecf.asp > and also some random models from www.frys.com. > We also test the CF boot feature on various Sun rack servers and blades > that use a CF socket. > > I have not tested the SATA adapters but would not expect issues. > I''d like to know if you find issues. >Well the biggest was the device not being recognised! The BIOS sees it and reports it as a SanDisk SDCFX3-008G whit I assume is the label from the card. The board is an nForce 4 Asus A8N-E. Ian
On Wed, Aug 20, 2008 at 12:57 PM, Neal Pollack <Neal.Pollack at sun.com> wrote:> Ian Collins wrote: >> Brian Hechinger wrote: >>> On Wed, Aug 20, 2008 at 05:17:45PM +1200, Ian Collins wrote: >>> >>>> Has anyone here had any luck using a CF to SATA adapter? >>>> >>>> I''ve just tried an Addonics ADSACFW CF to SATA adaptor with an 8GB card that I wanted to use for a boot pool and even though the BIOS reports the disk, Solaris B95 (or the installer) doesn''t see it. >>>> >>> I tried this a while back with an IDE to CF adapter. Real nice looking one too. >>> >>> It would constantly cause OpenBSD to panic. >>> >>> I would recommend against using this, unless you get real lucky. If you want >>> flash to boot from, buy one of the ones that is specifically made for it (not >>> CF, but industrial grade flash meant to be a HDD). Those things work a LOT >>> better. I can look up the details of the ones my friend uses if you''d like. >>> >>> >> I was looking to run some tests with a CF boot drive before we get an >> X4540, which has a CF slot. The installer did see the attached USB sticks... > > My team does some of the testing inside Sun for the CF boot devices. > We''ve used a number of IDE attaced CF adapters, such as; > http://www.addonics.com/products/flash_memory_reader/ad44midecf.asp > and also some random models from www.frys.com. > We also test the CF boot feature on various Sun rack servers and blades > that use a CF socket. > > I have not tested the SATA adapters but would not expect issues. > I''d like to know if you find issues. > > > The IDE attached devices use the legacy ATA/IDE device driver software, > which had some bugs fixed for DMA and misc CF specific issues. > It would be interesting to see if a SATA adapter for CF, set in bios to > use AHCI instead of Legacy/IDE mode, would have any issues with > the AHCI device driver software. I''ve had no reason to test this yet, since > the Sun HW models build the CF socket right onto the motherboard/bus. > I can''t find a reason to worry about hot-plug, since removing the boot > "drive" while Solaris is running would be, um, somewhat interesting :-) > > True, the enterprise grade devices are higher quality and will last longer. > But do not underestimate the current (2008) device wear leveling firmware > that controls the CF memory usage, and hence life span. Our in house > destructive life span testing shows that the commercial grade CF device > will last longer than the motherboard will. The consumer grade devicesInteresting thread - thanks to all the contributors. I''ve seen, on several different forums, that many CF users lean towards Sandisk for reliability and longevity. Does anyone else see consensus in terms of CF brands?> that you find in the store or on mail order, may or may not be current > generation, so your device lifespan will vary. It should still be rather > good for a boot device, because Solaris does very little writing to the > boot "disk". You can review configuration ideas to maximize the life > of your CF device in this Solaris white paper for non-volatile memory; > http://www.sun.com/bigadmin/features/articles/nvm_boot.jsp > > I hope this helps. > > Cheers, > > Neal Pollack > >> >> Any further information welcome. >> >> IanRegards, -- Al Hopper Logical Approach Inc,Plano,TX al at logical-approach.com Voice: 972.379.2133 Timezone: US CDT OpenSolaris Governing Board (OGB) Member - Apr 2005 to Mar 2007 http://www.opensolaris.org/os/community/ogb/ogb_2005-2007/
I second that question, and also ask what brand folks like for performance and compatibility? Ebay is killing me with vast choice and no detail... ;) Nathan. Al Hopper wrote:> On Wed, Aug 20, 2008 at 12:57 PM, Neal Pollack <Neal.Pollack at sun.com> wrote: >> Ian Collins wrote: >>> Brian Hechinger wrote: >>>> On Wed, Aug 20, 2008 at 05:17:45PM +1200, Ian Collins wrote: >>>> >>>>> Has anyone here had any luck using a CF to SATA adapter? >>>>> >>>>> I''ve just tried an Addonics ADSACFW CF to SATA adaptor with an 8GB card that I wanted to use for a boot pool and even though the BIOS reports the disk, Solaris B95 (or the installer) doesn''t see it. >>>>> >>>> I tried this a while back with an IDE to CF adapter. Real nice looking one too. >>>> >>>> It would constantly cause OpenBSD to panic. >>>> >>>> I would recommend against using this, unless you get real lucky. If you want >>>> flash to boot from, buy one of the ones that is specifically made for it (not >>>> CF, but industrial grade flash meant to be a HDD). Those things work a LOT >>>> better. I can look up the details of the ones my friend uses if you''d like. >>>> >>>> >>> I was looking to run some tests with a CF boot drive before we get an >>> X4540, which has a CF slot. The installer did see the attached USB sticks... >> My team does some of the testing inside Sun for the CF boot devices. >> We''ve used a number of IDE attaced CF adapters, such as; >> http://www.addonics.com/products/flash_memory_reader/ad44midecf.asp >> and also some random models from www.frys.com. >> We also test the CF boot feature on various Sun rack servers and blades >> that use a CF socket. >> >> I have not tested the SATA adapters but would not expect issues. >> I''d like to know if you find issues. >> >> >> The IDE attached devices use the legacy ATA/IDE device driver software, >> which had some bugs fixed for DMA and misc CF specific issues. >> It would be interesting to see if a SATA adapter for CF, set in bios to >> use AHCI instead of Legacy/IDE mode, would have any issues with >> the AHCI device driver software. I''ve had no reason to test this yet, since >> the Sun HW models build the CF socket right onto the motherboard/bus. >> I can''t find a reason to worry about hot-plug, since removing the boot >> "drive" while Solaris is running would be, um, somewhat interesting :-) >> >> True, the enterprise grade devices are higher quality and will last longer. >> But do not underestimate the current (2008) device wear leveling firmware >> that controls the CF memory usage, and hence life span. Our in house >> destructive life span testing shows that the commercial grade CF device >> will last longer than the motherboard will. The consumer grade devices > > Interesting thread - thanks to all the contributors. I''ve seen, on > several different forums, that many CF users lean towards Sandisk for > reliability and longevity. Does anyone else see consensus in terms of > CF brands? > >> that you find in the store or on mail order, may or may not be current >> generation, so your device lifespan will vary. It should still be rather >> good for a boot device, because Solaris does very little writing to the >> boot "disk". You can review configuration ideas to maximize the life >> of your CF device in this Solaris white paper for non-volatile memory; >> http://www.sun.com/bigadmin/features/articles/nvm_boot.jsp >> >> I hope this helps. >> >> Cheers, >> >> Neal Pollack >> >>> Any further information welcome. >>> >>> Ian > > Regards, >-- ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// // Nathan Kroenert nathan.kroenert at sun.com // // Systems Engineer Phone: +61 3 9869-6255 // // Sun Microsystems Fax: +61 3 9869-6288 // // Level 7, 476 St. Kilda Road Mobile: 0419 305 456 // // Melbourne 3004 Victoria Australia // //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
Al Hopper writes:> > Interesting thread - thanks to all the contributors. I''ve seen, on > several different forums, that many CF users lean towards Sandisk for > reliability and longevity. Does anyone else see consensus in terms of > CF brands? >The people to ask are probably professional photographers and their dealers, they have been using these cards for many years. Photographers don''t have the luxury of ZFS.... My local specialist camera shop sells a lot of Sandisk cards. Ian
Ian Collins wrote:> Al Hopper writes: > >> Interesting thread - thanks to all the contributors. I''ve seen, on >> several different forums, that many CF users lean towards Sandisk for >> reliability and longevity. Does anyone else see consensus in terms of >> CF brands? >> > The people to ask are probably professional photographers and their dealers, > they have been using these cards for many years. Photographers don''t have > the luxury of ZFS.... > > My local specialist camera shop sells a lot of Sandisk cards.I''m far from a pro-photographer but yes I agree SanDisk. I currently have a mix of Extreme III (1G) and Ultra II (2G) but those are out dated now. I believe the Extreme IV Ducati (yes that is official use of the brand) 8G is the current top card. In the UK it is retailing (warehouseexpress.co.uk) for 115GBP (thats about US$225). It claims 25Mb/sec read and write. -- Darren J Moffat
> The BIOS sees it and reports it as a SanDisk > SDCFX3-008G whit I assume > is the label from the card. The board is an nForce 4 > Asus A8N-E. > > IanIf you are running B95, that "may" be the problem. I have no problem booting B93 (& previous builds) from a USB stick, but B95, which has a newer version of ZFS, does not allow me to boot from it (& the USB stick was of course recognized during installation of B95, just won''t boot). This message posted from opensolaris.org
W. Wayne Liauh wrote:> If you are running B95, that "may" be the problem. I > have no problem booting B93 (& previous builds) from > a USB stick, but B95, which has a newer version of > ZFS, does not allow me to boot from it (& the USB > stick was of course recognized during installation of > B95, just won''t boot).I suspect the problem with ZFS boot from USB sticks is, that the kernel does not create "devid" properties for the USB stick, and apparently those devids are now required for zfs booting. The kernel (sd driver) does not create "devid" properties for USB flash memory sticks, because most (all ?) of them nowadays report that they use removable media - which is a lie, I''m not able to change the media / flash roms in such a device. If you have a windows utility distributed with your flash memory stick that allows configuration of the removable media attribute: try to set it to "fixed media". For such an usb storage device with fixed media, the sd(7d) driver should create "devid" properties, and zfs booting works just fine for such an usb flash memory stick. Btw. you can view the "removable media" attribute with the command "cdrecord -scanbus". I''m getting this, for two different usb flash memory sticks (note: it reports "Removable Disk", not just "Disk"): scsibus7: 7,0,0 700) ''Samsung '' ''Mighty Drive '' ''PMAP'' Removable Disk scsibus10: 10,0,0 1000) ''OCZ '' ''ATV '' ''1100'' Removable Disk This message posted from opensolaris.org
> I suspect the problem with ZFS boot from USB sticks > is, > that the kernel does not create "devid" properties > for the > USB stick, and apparently those devids are now > required for > zfs booting. > > The kernel (sd driver) does not create "devid" > properties for USB flash > memory sticks, because most (all ?) of them nowadays > report > that they use removable media - which is a lie, I''m > not able to change the > media / flash roms in such a device. > > If you have a windows utility distributed with your > flash memory > stick that allows configuration of the removable > media attribute: > try to set it to "fixed media". For such an usb > storage device with > fixed media, the sd(7d) driver should create "devid" > properties, and > zfs booting works just fine for such an usb flash > memory stick.What Widows utility you are talking about? I have used the Sandisk utility program to remove the U3 Launchpad (which creates a permanent hsfs partition in the flash disk), but it does not help the problem. Thanks. This message posted from opensolaris.org
> What Widows utility you are talking about? I have > used the Sandisk utility program to remove the U3 > Launchpad (which creates a permanent hsfs partition > in the flash disk), but it does not help the problem.That''s the problem, most usb sticks don''t require any special software and just work with the OS'' usb mass storage support. IIRC, I once had a 128MB Prolific USB stick (sold as Kingmax) which could be partitioned into two devices, one of them could be password protected and it was possible to configure on of the mass storage devices as "HDD" (= fixed media) or "FDD" (=floppy / removable media). There was an extra windows utility to use/configure these extra features. This message posted from opensolaris.org