The SSD question - again..

[Mikey_C]

Hey all.

So, I managed to get OS4.1 Installed on a MicroA1 using an SSD.

The question....

Can I increase the Max transfer rate? If so, to what and given the hardware, would it make any difference?

Thanks for your time!

Mikey C

[tonyw]

It probably won't make any difference with modern NG hardware.

Just to be sure though, what device driver are you using? The VIA driver or a plug-in PCI card?

[Mikey_C]

Hi Tony,

Thanks for getting back to me, am using the built in hard disk controller on the MicroA1 motherboard. (I have yet to find any card that actually works on the PCI slot)

Also, using sfs/00 - So is there a higher setting I can increase the SSD speed? It doesn't seem too much different from the analogue hard drive (HDD)

Cheers

Mikey C

[Raziel]

Hi Tony,

Thanks for getting back to me, am using the built in hard disk controller on the MicroA1 motherboard. (I have yet to find any card that actually works on the PCI slot)

Also, using sfs/00 - So is there a higher setting I can increase the SSD speed? It doesn't seem too much different from the analogue hard drive (HDD)

Cheers

Mikey C

I did a pretty extensive test with different settings in MaxTrans with an SSD on my X1000.

It doesn't matter what you set, leave it at the default, no speed gain whatsoever (apart from the SSD itself, then again, your CPU might be too slow to work out the speed of your SSD

[tonyw]

I agree with Raziel. Just leave the settings at default and it will work as well as it can.

On an XE/µA1, you will be limited by hardware issues (memory access, bus speeds and the like). Only a modern machine will let you max out the R/W speeds of an SSD.

Don't forget to leave some space on the "disk" unused, so that the device firmware can take advantage of it for wear-levelling.
Don't EVER perform a full format on (even part of) an SSD, as you will mark all the unused parts of the disk as "used" and make the firmware's job that much harder.

[thomasrapp]

MaxTransfer is not a rate, it is a size! It has nothing to do with speed. It only specifies the chunk size given from the file system to the device driver. Chunks bigger than 128k aren't possible with ATA anyway, so if you set it to 0x20000 or higher makes no difference.

Properly written device drivers do the split into supported chunks automatically, so MaxTransfer should always be set to 0xffffffff. Only if your driver is buggy you might have to adjust the value. It's a compatibility setting after all.

You could try to play around with the UDMA settings in UBoot. This is the only way to change transfer speed.

[Mikey_C]

Hey all, thank you for your replies, it's much appreciated.

Well it looks like it's not something you can set in AOS. So, we are down to U Boot 1.1.1 for the MicroA1.

Now then, can you mess about with the PIO/UDMA settings in u-boot? If so, can anyone give me a pointer to it please? I honestly cannot find it. (If there is one)

[nbache]

Now then, can you mess about with the PIO/UDMA settings in u-boot? If so, can anyone give me a pointer to it please? I honestly cannot find it. (If there is one)

Check out SYS:Documentation/IDE/a1ide_dev.doc - it should explain everything.

Best regards,

Niels

[Mikey_C]

Hey all, I just want to update you on how I got on.

1st a confession, I had completely forgotten that there is a UBoot prefs program, consequently, when I posted my query, I thought it was some uboot command line command I had to run at Boot time. - Sorry for the grief, It just suddenly popped into my brain that there was a uboot prefs program. I guess at my age, my neurons took a looooong detour.

Anyhow, for the record, a MicroA1 will support a crucial 256GB SSD upto UDMA1 and no more beyond.

Thanks for all your help.

Mikey C