Is upgrading a hard drive to a Compact Flash card really an upgrade?

[demogo]

A faster hard drive would just be a waste. The system uses a National Semiconductor PC87415 IDE controller, which has a maximum data transfer rate of 16.7 MB/s (PIO 4 transfer mode).

Heh -- I was pretty close then with my SWAG of 15 MB/sec.

 

[mattosborn]

Heh -- I was pretty close then with my SWAG of 15 MB/sec.

Yes, not bad at all. And I'd say that a 100x CF would probably be adequate, although I'd go with >= 133x to be sure. Just don't waste money buying the latest and greatest super-speedy card.
And if people are worried about flash data retention, just pull the card out every few years and refresh the data. No big deal. Personally, I'd wait until I encountered an error, but maybe that's the experimentalist in me.

 

[Blades]

My point exactly.

Edit -



Thank you matt. This is what I was looking for. Now with this information, the speed of the device used hardly matters. However I do want to point out one last thing just for the record. Choosing between a HDD and a CF card as a replacement still remains a personal preference, and I'll explain why.

Depending on the situation, and how often the game will be used, a hard drive may be better in certain situations. I, personally, am a collector. However I don't use the arcades I have that frequently. Make no mistake, I love them, but I'll play them when I have friends and family over, I'll play a few games every now and then, etc. Sometimes I'll play them for a few days, sometimes I won't touch them for a month or two. If I kept this behavior up for 10 years, the hard drive would outlast the CF card. Take this for example: If these machines shipped in 1999 like they did, but with CF cards already in them, then right now I would be replacing the CF card in there not because I want to, but because I have to, as the CF card loses it's data retention after 10 years. The hard drive wouldn't have this problem. Think of CF cards like a CPS2 suicide battery that lasts 10 years, and if you forgot to backup your drive, that information is gone.

Now in this situation, a CF card may be better: Say you have people over on a regular basis, you play these games by yourself frequently, or you have them all on at once for one reason or another. This is where the CF card would be better. If you play these games frequently a hard disk will begin to fail much sooner - the majority of the wear and tear put on the drive is when it's turned on and off frequently. Also, depending on the cabinet, it may be better to use a CF card as a new hard drive will heat up, and if the proper cooling isn't installed this would also lead to failure.

So now we know that speed isn't an issue. I've had my question answered, and I hope this thread has helped others as well! Thanks to everyone who chimed in

It seems that you have pretty much made up your mind on which route you are going to take. Kind of obvious from the beginning of the thread.

But as you said there may be different scenarios that in you may want one form of storage over the other.

As for me, I'd pull the hard drive, store it in a safe place and CF the arcade machine. Again, it's all preference. But hard drives fail, especially with a lot of turning off and on. They are loud and don't take vibration as well as a CF does. ;-) Don't worry about it too much.

But if you are a collector and a purist, then you've pretty much decided already what you want to do.

;

 

[VectorJunkie]

teckkev - I was referring to how he fit a 6GB image on a 4GB drive. Something doesn't seem right.

I suppose the matter is personal preference. CF cards have a lot of advantages, but they have their disadvantages as well. Personally my Quantum Fireball is as quiet as could be so noise isn't an issue in my case, and the drive is still cool to the touch even after being turned on for a good hour or two (I can't say as much for the Western Digital drive I tried throwing in there). I'm tempted to believe that the life span of the game may actually last longer with a new hard drive in there than if I used a CF card - as if I didn't use the game or stuck it in storage for 10 years, the information would still be there, where as most CF cards have a data retention span of 10 years.

The only thing I'd want, if anything, is for the games to switch faster. Not necessarily boot faster, but load faster between games. It makes me wonder how much faster my Sportstation would be if I stuck a 7200rpm drive in there instead. I wasn't able to get my WD 7200rpm to load using chdman.

I don't think your interpreting the CF card specs correctly. Most of the good cards are going to be 10 Year retention minimum and that is for "normal use". Normal use for a CF card is getting thrown around in an MP3 player, Camera, thrown on your desk when swapping them, etc. Sitting in your Blitz game in storage or light use in your home isn't going be a problem. Get a card with ECC if your really worried about it so you can overcome any small errors that might occur. I think anyone choosing a HDD over flash for "Reliability" has rose colored glasses on when looking at the HDD.

 

[Riptor]

I have CF in both my killer instincts and I cant tell a difference in gameplay. The benefit is no moving parts to wear out, thus longer life. They also use less power which is easier on your power supply.

 

[Maxstang]

I can tell you from my own experience (replacing HDs with CF cards and or SD cards on SF Rush and SF Rush the Rock) that I much prefer the HDs for home use. Mostly this is due to boot time. The CF converted games boot about 4 times faster than the HD. Saved the HDs in case I need to make a new CF. Hope this helps your decision making process.

 

[TerryMasters]

Wow, I thought this thread was over a few posts ago... Everything that was said after my last post has pretty much already been said - so I really don't understand the need to say them again - but to each his own I guess.

I don't know where to begin. This is the best example I could give you regarding how I feel on the situation. The other day I found a bunch of hard drives in the garage from when I was a kid. 6 or 7 drives just laying around from various computers my family and I had growing up - we're talking 15+ years old. Out of all of those hard drives, only 1 of them didn't work, and it was due to a faulty diode on the drives PCB.

Now Vector you're saying that the data retention span on CF cards is a minimum. There are two things that bother me about that - the first thing - that every manufacturer I've seen lists, "Data Retention of 10 years". Surely if they meant these drives had a *minimum* data retention span of 10 years, they would have simply said that? "Data Retention of 10 years" does not tell me, "Minimum Data Retention of 10 years", it tells me data retention of 10 years, meaning after those 10 years, that's it. So where did the minimum come from? I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm just saying why make the assumption? Take this for example: say you buy this CF card to put your personal data on - are you really going to trust your important personal data on an assumption that the DR span is a minimum? And the second thing... even if the DR span is a minimum, how much longer would it last? A year? 2 years? Does anybody know? But, if that hard drive doesn't get used all the time (similar to how the factory hard drive was in my machine when I first got it), that drive could potentially, best case scenario, last me another 10 years. In other words, if a hard drive isn't being used, it isn't wearing out. If a CF card isn't being used, it's always wearing out, albeit over the 10(+) year time span.

I just really think the whole, "omg, hard drives are so terrible" thing is really quite exaggerated.

Don't get me wrong. If I was being one sided, and only wanted everyone to do what I believed, I wouldn't have made that post listing the cons for what I believe! I'm just trying to point out the different scenarios in an effort to help other people make a decision. Maybe in my situation, me wanting to use a hard drive means I'm not as good as a collector as the rest of you guys, if I'm sort of planning for my machine to be off as much as they have been. You know what, I'll probably just do the best of both worlds - I'll get a new hard drive, and a CF card setup, and just keep one as a backup. Yeah, I like the sound of that.

 

[armis2000]

I could be wrong, but I beleive the "10 year retention" has to do with the flash cell holding the state with the power off. Not that the flash card will only last 10 years...

 

[mattosborn]

I could be wrong, but I beleive the "10 year retention" has to do with the flash cell holding the state with the power off. Not that the flash card will only last 10 years...

Yes, it means that the flash cell is guaranteed to hold its state for at least 10 years without being refreshed (rewritten to). The lifetime of a flash card is related to its endurance, or ability to be rewritten to. Modern flash cells are good for 100,000 to 1,000,000+ erase/write cycles. So in a read-only application the lifetime of the flash cell is not an issue. It just needs to be refreshed (erased/rewritten) every decade or so to avoid the retention problem. I'm willing to bet the 10 year data retention spec that is quoted by every manufacturer is very conservative (it's just a CYA).

 

[VectorJunkie]

Wow, I thought this thread was over a few posts ago... Everything that was said after my last post has pretty much already been said - so I really don't understand the need to say them again - but to each his own I guess.

I don't know where to begin. This is the best example I could give you regarding how I feel on the situation. The other day I found a bunch of hard drives in the garage from when I was a kid. 6 or 7 drives just laying around from various computers my family and I had growing up - we're talking 15+ years old. Out of all of those hard drives, only 1 of them didn't work, and it was due to a faulty diode on the drives PCB.

Now Vector you're saying that the data retention span on CF cards is a minimum. There are two things that bother me about that - the first thing - that every manufacturer I've seen lists, "Data Retention of 10 years". Surely if they meant these drives had a *minimum* data retention span of 10 years, they would have simply said that? "Data Retention of 10 years" does not tell me, "Minimum Data Retention of 10 years", it tells me data retention of 10 years, meaning after those 10 years, that's it. So where did the minimum come from? I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm just saying why make the assumption? Take this for example: say you buy this CF card to put your personal data on - are you really going to trust your important personal data on an assumption that the DR span is a minimum? And the second thing... even if the DR span is a minimum, how much longer would it last? A year? 2 years? Does anybody know? But, if that hard drive doesn't get used all the time (similar to how the factory hard drive was in my machine when I first got it), that drive could potentially, best case scenario, last me another 10 years. In other words, if a hard drive isn't being used, it isn't wearing out. If a CF card isn't being used, it's always wearing out, albeit over the 10(+) year time span.

I just really think the whole, "omg, hard drives are so terrible" thing is really quite exaggerated.

Don't get me wrong. If I was being one sided, and only wanted everyone to do what I believed, I wouldn't have made that post listing the cons for what I believe! I'm just trying to point out the different scenarios in an effort to help other people make a decision. Maybe in my situation, me wanting to use a hard drive means I'm not as good as a collector as the rest of you guys, if I'm sort of planning for my machine to be off as much as they have been. You know what, I'll probably just do the best of both worlds - I'll get a new hard drive, and a CF card setup, and just keep one as a backup. Yeah, I like the sound of that.

I think the others did a good explanation of the retention issues. In general companies provide product specifications that they can exceed to have a buffer between real-world use and published specs.

Now is the time to panic since CDs/DVDs are going to last less than 100 years and they may be storing your personal data!

 

[TerryMasters]

I think the others did a good explanation of the retention issues. In general companies provide product specifications that they can exceed to have a buffer between real-world use and published specs.

Now is the time to panic since CDs/DVDs are going to last less than 100 years and they may be storing your personal data!

I also think I gave a good explanation of the circumstances of the situation even when the data retention span is longer than ten years. But I appreciate you chiming in!

 

[PsHayes]

I've converted:

Killer Instinct
NFL Blitz 97
NFL Blitz 99
NFL Blitz 2k gold
Wayne Gretzsky 3-D Hockey

I noticed much faster load times and the games just seem quicker overall after the upgrades. I have to do my Guantlet Legends yet after my cab gets fixed up. I highly recommend moving to CF whenever possible.

 

[Pac-Fan]

Random access (finding the first block of any file on the device) should be faster on the CF card than the hard drive. But sustained transfer rate (passing the data of all blocks in sequence) will be much slower on the CF.

I have yet to find a CF (or SD, xD or whatever form factor) card actually perform to it's rated amounts. Read access comes close to stated, but actual write access is usally half it's claimed max write speed; which is almost always about 1/4 to 1/3rd it's max read speed. Meaning if it's a 45 MB/s claimed read speed, the write speed might be claimed to be around 20, and actually perform around 6 to 10 instead consistently.

2 cards from 2 different MFG with the same specs can perform significantly different. Best thing to do is run a disk perf program on your PC and time both read and writes and blocks vs. individual files and see which card will perform the fastest.

CF benefits over HD:
+ Lower power
+ Low heat
+ Quiet
+ Faster random access

CF lacking over HD:
- Sequential read speeds / burst rate significantly lower
- Write speeds abysmal
- Limited number of writes per memory cell, much lower than sector writes on a hard drive
- Corruption usually takes the entire device down, where a corrupt sector on a hard drive still lets you recover the rest of the drive.

 

[demogo]

Just to make sure we're comparing apples to apples, we're talking about CF drives relative to hard drives from 10-12 years ago.

These hard drives are DOGS compared to the hard drives we have today. Their sustained read speeds are about 1/6th of a modern drive.

So yeah, modern hard drive is much faster than modern CF; modern CF compared to ancient hard drive, not so much.