[Coco] [Color Computer] Hard Drive sizes

[Boisy G. Pitre]

On May 13, 2004, at 12:10 PM, Allen Huffman wrote:

> Q: On CoCo, how fast is CF compared to a real HD? CF still faster than
> CoCo? Megaread speed?

Comparing apples to apples, I'm seeing comparable IDE hard drive and CF 
speeds, especially on reads.  Using the Super Drivers, which are still 
under development, I'm getting 18 second megareads on a CF under 
NitrOS-9/6309 Level 2.  I've seen better numbers on some SCSI drives, 
but the 18 seconds possibly reflects the way in which Super Drivers is 
handling caching.  All in all, I'm pleased to have an 18 second 
megaread, all things considered.

CF writes are fast too, depending upon the "x" factor.  Some CFs claim 
a 4x or 8x write speed.  I think a hard drive would be faster on writes 
due to caching and the amount of extra time it takes to flip a sector 
of flash.

> Q2: I note "faster" CF - like 2x, etc. Does it matter on a CoCo?

I'm not sure.  I'm using a 4x 64MB Lexar with success, but have nothing 
that is rated "faster" to compare it to.  The worst that can happen is 
that the CoCo will have to wait a bit until the CF finishes writing a 
sector before clearing the BUSY bit, then the CoCo can start flooding 
the channel with data again.

Boisy