x31 CF slot question: max transfer speed?

[x31fan]

What's the CF slot's theoretical max transfer? Is it connected to IDE, pci bus, or usb?

[j-dawg]

The CF slot is on the PCMCIA bus. I don't know what its max transfer rate is.

[Maccess]

I'm also wondering about that. The device appears to be connected to the PCI bus as a PCMCIA/ATAPI/IDE device.

However, on my X22, I'm getting transfer speeds of 1.4MBps (megabytes per second), about the speed of USB 1.1 (12 Mbps- Megabits per second/8 = 1.5 MBps).

Is there something misconfigured or is there a better driver than what is installed in the pre-load?

[Terrahawk]

I strongly suspect that it doesn't get any better than that, from what I have read on the forums. My own X31 doesn't get past 1.3 MB/sec.

[voneschenbach]

Ditto - I put a shiny new high-speed 8GB CF into the slot and was much slower in transferring files than when I used my CF USB2 reader. That said, it's a nice feature for transferring stuff between my Axim and X31.

[x31fan]

That's sad to hear, i was hoping i could use it with fast CF card, for [censored]. I've tried DSL with CF-IDE before, i get about 1.2MB/s. Probably slow CF and no DMA mode on CF-IDE adapter.

voneschenbach, how's Ubuntu on your X31?

[voneschenbach]

Excellent - everything seems to be working quite nicely. I don't notice any performance issues vs. my T30. I was reading this topic with interest as I am hoping to upgrade the X31 to a SSD at some point when the prices get lower, larger size, etc.

[Maccess]

Well, you can get a fast CF card and use a CF to IDE adapter and use that in place of the built-in drive.

The problem is the swap file. All those hits on the CF card are bound to wreck it in a month. Someone posted about getting those dual CF to IDE converters and placing a CF card in one slot and a microdrive in the other for the swap file. Please let me know how that works.

I'd also like to know if a UDMA flash card (usually these are labelled UDMA and 266x or 300x) in the CF slot will give faster transfer rates. Plain old CF card (133x and lower) only run at 1.3MBps.

I've read that a UDMA flash card with a UDMA adaptor in the Cardbus slot (note that most CF-PC Card adaptors are non-UDMA--using only 16 of 32 bits) runs up to the full 40MBps in a T2x. Also, if someone has tried it, do let us know.

[JWay]

It seems that everyone is looking to install os on their built in cf slot on their x31 or similar. I propose a drastic solution, although it is just an idea.

1. Why not substitute the current cf interface with a 'ribbon' re-routed from the harddisk (ide-cf adapter). I would need some kind of splitter like on the dual cf addonics ive just ordered. I'll have to check if there's enough space!

I too wish to run my os from cf and d drive on my 7200 hd

2. All the discussion is on cf interface, what about using the pcmcia slot. The bandwidth should be much higher there (since there are fw 800 and sata cards). Is there a hack to make the PCMCIA visible for installation.


sorry to trouble people with my weirdness to these issues

[faberryman]

[quote="Maccess"]The problem is the swap file. All those hits on the CF card are bound to wreck it in a month. Someone posted about getting those dual CF to IDE converters and placing a CF card in one slot and a microdrive in the other for the swap file. Please let me know how that works.[/quote]

Why not simply disable the swap file?

[bobbarker]

You can disable swap and pretty much have a normal working system, but hibernation won't work anymore.
If you didn't mind you could just use a cheap 512MB card for swap and just replace it every so often.

[Maccess]

Why not simply disable the swap file?

Tried that on a T43 with 2GB of RAM and had lots of flakey problems. Apparently it's not just the SWAP for the sake of extra RAM. Some software and bits of the OS use the swap file even if the machine has gigabytes of RAM.

Oh I wish someone would make a CARDBUS DDR2 RAM card that people can just stick into their older computers and use as a fast swap disk.

Volatile storage is even better from a security perspective.

[mini_g]

Out of curiosity, does anyone know the X32 CF speeds?

As for the CF HDD adaptation, my own plan is to install the OS on the CF card and have the swap and personal files on the HDD. That way the HDD doesn't need to spin up as often, but yet still offers the storage mass.

[Maccess]

That was discussed earlier in the thread. It is a pathetic 1.4MBps. There is a program called eBoostr that will manage that stuff for you--often accessed but rarely written files go to the flash drive.

I tried it, I speed tested it on an X22. When I read the results, this is how I looked:

Anything on the Flash Card is slow. eBoostr was complaining that my flash drive wasn't fast enough. So There.

However, a UDMA adpator with a UDMA compactflash card reportedly gets a whopping 40MBps in the PC Card slot of a T2x. Note the magic letters UDMA.

If you can find a UDMA compactflash card for your X3x's CF slot, do let us know how it goes.

[mini_g]

That was discussed earlier in the thread. It is a pathetic 1.4MBps.

I didn't catch that...

There is a program called eBoostr that will manage that stuff for you--often accessed but rarely written files go to the flash drive.

I'm current plan (having pushed my lappy has changed the course of action) is to rearrange my setup so that ~/.* & the logs will be on the CF card (I'm nervous having my logs on a RAM Disk), and all of the standard ~/* will be on the HDD. Even if the speeds are sub-par, it'll still be faster than the internet connection.
I'm thinking about possibly creating a 128-256MB swap file on it for the misc items that are offloaded onto swap if I can find a way to make it higher priority than the swap partition. (My reasoning is in part that only ~38MB/2GB is being used after 10.5 hours of uptime.)

However, a UDMA adaptor with a UDMA compactflash card reportedly gets a whopping 40MBps in the PC Card slot of a T2x. Note the magic letters UDMA.

If you can find a UDMA compactflash card for your X3x's CF slot, do let us know how it goes.

I ordered a 2 GiB UDMA 4/PIO 6 CF card with hardware ECC that can hit 40MB/s read and ~15MB/s write. It'll be about a week before it arrives, as I'm cutting costs. (Can't beat $2.27 shipping.)

This is going to be fun.

[Maccess]

Please let us know how it goes.

You might also want to try eBoostr, there's a free trial version (runs for four hours each boot), it will also benchmark the card. You can adjust the size of its cache so you can use the card for other things.

[mini_g]

Shall do.

[mini_g]

Ok, I got the CF card today. I benchmarked it via eBoostr, and it hits ~1.2-1.5MB/s as FAT(32) in the Thinkpad CF reader. (Man, this program makes Windows haul!)

Am currently trying to figure a way around this issue.

[mini_g]

I did some research and found out about the hdparm utility.

Here's its output (hdparm -I /dev/sdb):

Code: Select all

/dev/sdb:

CompactFlash ATA device
        Model Number:       TRANSCEND
        Serial Number:      20080605    00000A55
        Firmware Revision:  20080128
Standards:
        Supported: 4
        Likely used: 6
Configuration:
        Logical         max     current
        cylinders       3949    3949
        heads           16      16
        sectors/track   63      63
        --
        CHS current addressable sectors:    3980592
        LBA    user addressable sectors:    3980592
        device size with M = 1024*1024:        1943 MBytes
        device size with M = 1000*1000:        2038 MBytes (2 GB)
Capabilities:
        LBA, IORDY(may be)(cannot be disabled)
        Standby timer values: spec'd by Vendor
        R/W multiple sector transfer: Max = 1   Current = 0
        Advanced power management level: disabled
        DMA: not supported
        PIO: pio0 pio1 pio2 pio3 pio4
             Cycle time: no flow control=120ns  IORDY flow control=120ns
Commands/features:
        Enabled Supported:
           *    SMART feature set
                Security Mode feature set
                Power Management feature set
                WRITE_BUFFER command
                READ_BUFFER command
                NOP cmd
                CFA feature set
                Advanced Power Management feature set
Security:
        Master password revision code = 65534
                supported
        not     enabled
        not     locked
        not     frozen
        not     expired: security count
        not     supported: enhanced erase
        2min for SECURITY ERASE UNIT.
           *    CFA advanced modes: pio5 *pio6 mdma5 *mdma6
   *    CFA Power Level 1  (max 500mA)
Integrity word not set (found 0x0000, expected 0x0fa5)

I attempted to change the PIO level and the DMA support unsucessfully.

[Maccess]

Hmm. Great contribution to the forum's knowledge base. I guess the next step would be to try a UDMA PC Card to CF Reader, note this is not a UDMA compatible PC Card to CF reader, but a TRUE PC Card, Cardbus 32-bit to CF reader, since that's been documented to transfer at 40MB/s on a T2x.

I think the preferred brand is the Lexar UDMA compactflash card.
http://www.lexar.com/digfilm/cf_udma.html
However, I don't know if the slot itself will support UDMA mode. It's been known to work at UDMA speeds with a UDMA Cardbus PC Card adaptor, such as the one made by Delkin (rare and expensive).

http://www.dpreview.com/news/0310/03102 ... ustest.asp
http://www.delkin.com/products/adapters/cardbusudma/

There are some discussions here:

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.ph ... mpactflash
http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.ph ... c&start=90[/url]

[mini_g]

(Thanks for the links Maccess, when digging around in this some more I found a 32bit PCMCIA CF reader on eBay for ~$20 with shipping for those who are interested.)

I've delved into this subject some more and have come up with what could be said to be an insane idea. That is to "shave off" the onboard connectors and substitute it with a stripped (casing removed) Firewire (aka 1394) or USB UDMA CF only reader. (Please keep in mind that my level of knowledge in this area is basic in some areas.)

For my own level (extremely low) in soldering, I am thinking that the Firewire route would be the easiest & least detrimental to my usage of the laptop as a whole, as from my external observation all that would be need to be done is to block external access to the Firewire port and solder the card reader directly to the pin connection point that is facing up towards the palm rest. If a conversion from 1394b to 1394a needs to be done, this spot might have enough room. If not, the conversion could be done in around the memory bay. The wire would be routed so that it would go under the motherboard in the lower left-hand corner of the motherboard right next to the upper screw mount for the Firewire/IrDA board. If the wire does not fit, a possible alternative route would to go behind the cage, follow the Bluetooth/modem cabling for second, proceed to wrap behind the MiniPCI slot, and than follow the left edge to the USB port, then proceed to dive under the motherboard after wrapping behind the hinge.

My thought is that the CF cage could possibly be reused for guiding purposes if nothing else afterwards. If the eject button is unavailable due to various constraints, the card can be removed via the lip that I've noted to be likely on the CF card.

[Maccess]

How did it go with the UDMA CompactFlash Card + CardBus UDMA CF reader? Did it bench faster than the 1.4MBps in the built-in CF slot?

[mini_g]

I'm afraid that I went AWOL on half of the Internet during the winter...

I never got to around with ordering the CF reader. I'm also currently in the position of not being able to likely afford one for a couple of months.

I am still interested in the project, but am unsure at this moment if I'm going to go through with the replacement of the internal CF reader.

[mini_g]

I just payed the bills, and well, I have enough to low-bid for a CF reader.

I'll post progress as I can.

Also, I got to looking at the 1394 port, and noted it to be the 400 version.

I'm thinking on how to stuff a USB reader and hub in there so as to retain a port (and replace the firewire/IrDA with one/two?) and cut costs as well.

[mini_g]

Bother. In my lethargic driving a couple of nights ago, I cut a corner too sharp and seriously damaged the exterior of my car.

I also lost the auction, so I'm going to hold off until next month if all goes well.

[bazola]

For what it's worth, I tried a Patriot 233x UDMA5 card from Fry's in the CF card slot of an X31. Transfer speed was 1.4 MBps. When I run an hdparm this is what I get:

sudo hdparm /dev/sdb

/dev/sdb:
multcount = 0 (off)
IO_support = 0 (default)
readonly = 0 (off)
readahead = 256 (on)
geometry = 981/255/63, sectors = 15761088, start = 0

This doesn't seem right, so I'm wondering if I'm running the wrong command. I don't know if it's in UDMA mode but it seems likely not.

On an unrelated note, I'm also experiencing excellent performance with Ubuntu 9.10 on an X31 with 2gb of ram and the stock hard drive.

[sjthinkpader]

Bother. In my lethargic driving a couple of nights ago, I cut a corner too sharp and seriously damaged the exterior of my car. ..

You mean you hit the side of Mount Hood?:D

Seriously, I tried running a video from a PCMCIA-CF adapter and it doesn't work. Cardbus-CF adapter was too expensive. So I ran it in the CF slot of a X32 is it was better, but not pause free.

This was a winter trainer video for my bike route.

[sojourner]

For what it's worth, I tried a Patriot 233x UDMA5 card from Fry's in the CF card slot of an X31. Transfer speed was 1.4 MBps. When I run an hdparm this is what I get:

sudo hdparm /dev/sdb

/dev/sdb:
multcount = 0 (off)
IO_support = 0 (default)
readonly = 0 (off)
readahead = 256 (on)
geometry = 981/255/63, sectors = 15761088, start = 0

This doesn't seem right, so I'm wondering if I'm running the wrong command. I don't know if it's in UDMA mode but it seems likely not.

I own an X31 and find the CF slot slow too. It's by design. IBM did not incorporate a high speed interface (UDMA or USB2) for it. Your TP is right on performance there!

Being you want UDMA performance, if you have an open USB port try this:
http://cgi.ebay.com/NEW-USB-2-0-CF-Comp ... 3a568918c7

shocking performance! (fastest CF interface I've ever used, doesn't look nice but works really well)

[bazola]

Well really I was just looking to test the card inside the 15 day return period. I'm planning to use it with an Addonics adapter as a hard drive for an X41t. I'm happy to know that the performance is normal because of course I became worried that the card was not going to be up to the challenge of running an OS. It's only rated at 233x but it's supposedly udma5 so it may be up to the challenge. For 25 bucks I figured it was worth the risk.

[mini_g]

For what it's worth, I tried a Patriot 233x UDMA5 card from Fry's in the CF card slot of an X31. Transfer speed was 1.4 MBps.

I did some research and found out about the hdparm utility.

Here's its output (hdparm -I /dev/sdb):

Code: Select all

...

What this provided, was that a UDMA compatible CF card was operating at PIO6. Thus the max speed is at the max speed that the PIO6 protocol offers.
Sorry for not making this clearer...

On an unrelated note, I'm also experiencing excellent performance with Ubuntu 9.10 on an X31 with 2gb of ram and the stock hard drive.

I've moved over to Arch, as both Windows XP and Ubuntu 9.04 were hard locking, kernel panicking, or BSOD'ing whenever I didn't have a wireless network adapter available even when the eth0 is disabled in the BIOS... The eth0's firmware might be somewhat unstable due to the e1000 driver issues that happened within the last 1-2 years or the BIOS is needing to be reflashed.

Needless to say, it's all working for me now!

You mean you hit the side of Mount Hood?:D

I guess that one could say that.

Seriously, I tried running a video from a PCMCIA-CF adapter and it doesn't work. Cardbus-CF adapter was too expensive. So I ran it in the CF slot of a X32 is it was better, but not pause free.

I'm thinking that either USB or Firewire would be our best bet.

Being you want UDMA performance, if you have an open USB port try this.
shocking performance! (fastest CF interface I've ever used, doesn't look nice but works really well)

Ooh! I'll have to bookmark this! Thank you!
Might I ask if you have a max throughput rating or know the supported modes on this adapter?

It's only rated at 233x but it's supposedly udma5 so it may be up to the challenge.

It should be. I believe mine to be UDMA5 compatible as well, and I wouldn't be surprised that would.

----

As for my own progress on this quest, I've not been able to progress any further, as I'm having to search out a second job so as pay off my debts and seriously replenish my my savings that were leached down to negative-nill throughout 2009. Interesting year it was...

I just had a thought though while mulling it over, and am thinking about investigating the available dead-space in the UltraBase X3. I'm not liking the idea about physically cutting apart the onboard CF adapter and am thinking that there may be enough space in there for a USB reader.