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[XDelusion]

Alright, here's the deal. About a year ago I purchased one of those DUAL CF card CF to IDE adaptors. Upon installing it into my 1200 I came to find that I could use either side of the adaptor to place my CF card, but I could not use them both at the same time.

I had written concerning this issue and was told that I can not use such adaptors on the Amiga in the way I was expecting, thus making the purchase pretty much null and void.

Though, in the recent issue of Amiga Future I see an advert for one of these within its pages...

So am I to assume that these do work and that the particular model that I purchased just does not? If this is the case, which model should I buy off Ebay?

[nicholas]

Slightly OT but can I ask why everyone seems to prefer Compact Flash cards over SDHC cards?

You can buy SD/SDHC cards very cheaply even in corner shops, yet hardly anyone seems to sell CF cards and they cost more too.

I myself have an SDHC to 44pin IDE adapter in my A1200 on the internal IDE and an SDHC to 40pin IDE adapter fited to an IDE to SCSI converter in my A4000/CS060 and both are very fast and reliable.

[XDelusion]

I have dealt with a lot of file corruption with SD and related cards where as the CF cards have yet to screw up my data. That's my reasoning.

[TheBilgeRat]

From Ye Olde Wiki:

Compared to other portable storage

• CF cards are considered more rugged and durable to many "in the field" photographic shocks, impacts and accidents. CompactFlash cards are capable of withstanding more physical damage in comparison to other, flimsier designs.[citation needed]

• Due to their compatibility with IDE/ATA they are used in many embedded systems as solid-state drives. In early 2008 the CFA demonstrated CompactFlash cards with a built in SATA interface.[33] Several companies make adapters to allow CF cards to be connected to PCI, IDE, 44-pin laptop mini-IDE, and SATA connections,[34] allowing a CF card to act as a solid-state drive with virtually any operating system or BIOS, and even in a RAID configuration.

• CompactFlash does not have any built in DRM or cryptographic features like on some USB flash drives and other card formats. The lack of such features contributes to the openness of the standard since other memory card standards with such features are subject to restrictive licensing agreements.[citation needed]

• CF cards are available at higher storage capacities than some smaller flash memory cards.

• CompactFlash lacks the mechanical write protection switch that some other devices have, as seen in a comparison of memory cards with exception of industrial CF-card models (AC60 Turbo/ AC73 and AC75 series) made by CoreSolid Storage [1]

• In the case of improper insertion, a card can potentially cause damage to the device receiving the card. However, this rarely happens as slots are usually designed to prevent this.

• CompactFlash's large dimensions in comparison to other cards limits its feasibility in very slim devices. The large card slot consumes devices' valuable internal space, especially in point and shoot digital cameras. In its favour, a CompactFlash card cannot be lost as easily as a tiny MicroSD card, and insertion and removal may be easier with a larger card.

[Damion]

IIRC, I tried this briefly with a dual Mesa CF adapter, it worked but the drive light stayed on constantly.

[PanterHZ]

Yes I have a 40 pin dual CF adapter in one of my A1200's, and it works great with two CF cards, it also works with one of the cards removed. This is a cheap adapter I bought from ebay.

I also bought a 44 pin dual CF adapter, but this resultet in a somewhat weird behaviour in HDToolbox where the partition sizes showed the wrong values when changed (not talking about >2GB range here). I tried this with only one CF card attached, and I have later learned that some of these 44 pin dual adapters requires that two CF cards are attached in order to work.

I guess that it's a bit of hit and miss with these types of adapters, but fortunately they are not that expensive. One thing I always look for when bying CF adapters is the possibility of configuring them as master/slave.

[XDelusion]

Can someone post Ebay (or related) links to ones that do work fine with the 600/1200?

I don't see a BUY link on this Mesa page...

[digiflip]

I found on my amiga 1200, was to get boot with both compact flashs working in dual slot configuration, was to leave one compact flash has fat 32 and mount it once workbench was loaded.

[freqmax]

Do these dual CF adapters really implement CS0 and CS1 (chip select) and the modes master/slave/cableselect properly ..?

Otherwise there might be trouble..

[digiflip]

i duno i only see watever is set has master and if both amiga formatted dont boot