Great tip for a speedy boot drive!

[Knezzen]

Hi!

I recently bought this on ebay: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Kingspec-Flash-DOM-Disk-On-Module-16GB-40Pin-Vertical-IDE-PATA-Interface-MLC-/300963681433?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item4612d55499

It arrived yesterday, and I just had to try it in the MDD.
It works like a dream and really sped up boot time, application launching etc. I can really recommend this!

16gb is more than enough for boot+apps in OS9. At least for me. My whole OS9 intall with Pro Tools and ALOT of plugins takes up just above 2gb of space.

It connects directly to the motherboard, without any cables. So I put it in the ATA66 slot, so that I have the ATA133 slot free for my audio drives.

[Protools5LEGuy]

Can you test the speed instead of the DVD/Cd channel?  I think my ideal setup with SSD would be with DOM on that ata_ bus, libraries on ata 66 and audio on 100 bus.
I wonder myself if the SSD ata solutions from OWC worth more than to use DOM or to use ATA with an adapter....

[MacTron]

Can you please post some performance data?
You can use:
http://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=306.0;attach=133

[Knezzen]

Can you please post some performance data?

Of course! I will do it this evening.

Can you test the speed instead of the DVD/Cd channel?

Sure! I think I will try all the slots so we know if there is a big speed difference between them.
I can only test on my MDD though, I don't have any more machines to test it in.

BTW, it works just like any other ATA drive. Initialized with drive setup in 9.2.2

[IIO]

hm, buying a new SSD and putting it into the ata 66 slots sounds weird. curious for benchmarks.

hell, the new apple powerbook come with an SSD which writes with 950 and reads with 980 ... i really want this speed for video work ... but i guess with OS9 we dont have a chance to get anything better than sata-300.

[Knezzen]

hm, buying a new SSD and putting it into the ata 66 slots sounds weird. curious for benchmarks.

I want the bandwidth for the audio drives when we for instance record 64 tracks at once in 24bit/48khz. Loosing a tiny bit of speed on the boot drive is not really an issue when the SSD feels a lot faster on the ATA66 bus than the old 7.2k rpm boot drive sitting on the ATA133 bus did

[IIO]

so i am supposed to connect this to the idling "zip" ata port of my 2001 QS´s? from its size it would perfectly fit right into that silly zip case.

[Knezzen]

You can put it wherever you want, even on the main hard drive connector on in the Quicksilver, along with your file drive (if you have one). The SSD has a master/slave switch. You'll need a female to male 40pin adapter for that though.

I just thought that ATA66 will do just fine for boot+apps. Since the Quicksilvers main hard drive interface is ATA66, and that feels speedy enough even with a hard drive instead of a SSD.

[IIO]

hm, the bigger ones are cheaper that yours .. but they are labeled "SATA" ... in opposite to the product description of this seller, where it says "IDE" ... i am confused.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/PQI-128MB-Turbo-SATA-DOM-Disk-Module-IDE-Flash-Industrial-/301021974534?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item46164ed006

[IIO]

well the other connections are all full, i aready have 4 HDs in each of my towers. so there is not much space left to put a fifth inside. using such a small flash card is a great idea.

[Knezzen]

The link you posted where for a 128MB one. The one I posted was for 16GB. IDE/PATA is what the old Macs have onboard. If you want to use a SATA SSD you'll need to buy a SATA PCI card as well. I just wanted a speedy boot drive, and I got it really cheap with the KingSpec IDE/PATA SSD.

SATA is probably cheaper since it's still used for new computers. IDE/PATA was phased out 10 years ago. Just like old SDRAM modules are more expensive new than new DDR4 modules.

[IIO]

oh its mb so 16 seems to be the biggest. a bit more would be nice...

[Knezzen]

There are 32GB versions as well
http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-32GB-DOM-Disk-40PIN-IDE-Vertical-MLC-Nand-Flash-/151367456401?pt=UK_Computing_Other_Computing_Networking&hash=item233e341691

I just didn't need any more than 16gb. I have 2x 200gb drives for files. Back in the day I fit all the files I needed plus the OS on 12gb, so 16gb is more than enough for me when it comes to Mac OS 9.2.2

[IIO]

ok great thanks, 32 is what i was thinking about, but i couldnt find it.

p.s. i have up to 7 TB in my quicksilvers ... but now i finally should make use of the unused controller.

[IIO]

oh but specs
Fast Sustained Read up to 43MB/S and Sustained Write up to 21MB/S.
are not too impressive.

otoh, a "regular" SSD would be overkill for this ATA controller. mabye something between these two options?

[Knezzen]

Benchmark time!

First up is my old boot drive. A Maxtor HD with 8mb cache with the disks spinning at 7200rpm.
Connected alone on the ATA100 connector.

Xfer Size     Sequential Read   Sequential Write    Random Read      Random Write

1 KByte       924.044 KB/sec      3.981 MB/sec     56.354 KB/sec      3.472 MB/sec
2 KBytes        1.821 MB/sec      8.548 MB/sec      7.318 MB/sec      6.603 MB/sec
4 KBytes        5.901 MB/sec     16.095 MB/sec      2.124 MB/sec     12.828 MB/sec
8 KBytes       11.970 MB/sec     25.775 MB/sec     19.497 MB/sec     27.992 MB/sec
16 KBytes      22.312 MB/sec     46.936 MB/sec     11.066 MB/sec     39.931 MB/sec
32 KBytes      41.369 MB/sec     63.029 MB/sec      6.336 MB/sec     51.087 MB/sec
64 KBytes      31.752 MB/sec     75.075 MB/sec     31.729 MB/sec     63.762 MB/sec
128 KBytes     45.392 MB/sec     71.445 MB/sec     31.091 MB/sec     74.294 MB/sec
256 KBytes     49.185 MB/sec     82.091 MB/sec     33.819 MB/sec     78.429 MB/sec
512 KBytes     55.368 MB/sec     83.960 MB/sec     39.464 MB/sec     79.928 MB/sec
1 MByte        55.375 MB/sec     72.271 MB/sec     48.466 MB/sec     82.395 MB/sec


Next up is the current boot drive, a 16gb KingSpec Disk On Module (SSD). Connected alone on the ATA66 connector.

Xfer Size     Sequential Read   Sequential Write    Random Read      Random Write

1 KByte         4.209 MB/sec      2.050 MB/sec      1.647 MB/sec    461.638 KB/sec
2 KBytes        8.507 MB/sec      4.778 MB/sec      6.489 MB/sec    884.603 KB/sec
4 KBytes       12.572 MB/sec      3.486 MB/sec     10.809 MB/sec      1.777 MB/sec
8 KBytes       21.351 MB/sec     14.735 MB/sec     18.614 MB/sec      3.143 MB/sec
16 KBytes      32.798 MB/sec     14.569 MB/sec     28.554 MB/sec      5.421 MB/sec
32 KBytes      42.985 MB/sec     16.507 MB/sec     39.274 MB/sec      7.666 MB/sec
64 KBytes      50.796 MB/sec     20.446 MB/sec     48.073 MB/sec      8.914 MB/sec
128 KBytes     52.409 MB/sec     22.214 MB/sec     51.373 MB/sec     15.947 MB/sec
256 KBytes     55.402 MB/sec     24.053 MB/sec     54.810 MB/sec     19.964 MB/sec
512 KBytes     56.388 MB/sec     23.999 MB/sec     55.947 MB/sec     21.453 MB/sec
1 MByte        57.575 MB/sec     24.458 MB/sec     57.249 MB/sec     19.771 MB/sec


As you can see the SSD is faster on reading, but slower on writing. Hence the speedup in boot time and overall responsivness of the system. Not increadable bemchmarks though.

Next up is connecting the SSD to the ATA100 connector

[supernova777]

http://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php?topic=306.msg1073#msg1073

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Kingspec-16Gb-40Pin-Ide-Mlc-Dom-Disk-On-Module-Ssd-/380803218617?pt=UK_Computing_Other_Computing_Networking&hash=item58a9a3fcb9

I use one of these with great success in my MDD. I have the 32gb version and it works great with all the apps installed. It allso has a 500gb 7.2k rpm drive for recording. You have to remeber how big the hard drives where around 10-12 years ago, 32gb for system+installed apps is more than enough. I think I use up around 7gb in total with Classilla, Reason 2.5, Pro Tools TDM 5.1.3, Logic 6 and alot of plugins installed.

I have the 16gb 2.5" version in my Atari Falcon, and it works just great there too. Awesome piece of hardware

ordered on  December 30, 2013, 08:50:00 AM
and u just got it now? august 16th 2014? thats some long ass delivery man (joking)
but so u have 2 of these now? (had 32gb previously in dec 2013) and now u have acquired a 16gb version?
i dont understand why u are posting this as something new.. when u posted about this almost 1 year ago..
this has been talked about a few times before, but hey, cool, i would be excited to get something new too;)
its ok glad to see all of you mac os 9 guys are all anxious to post now that i say im not going to post here anymore;)
i look forward to seeing articles by all of you guys... and not "Chrisnova777" a million times on the site
off you go! get to work!

[MacTron]

The 8 Mb of caché clearly benefits the Maxtor HDD. While the the write speed in the DOM/SSD is penalized because the erase/relocate/write process on SD technology. This DOM is based on SD chips tecnologie, the "real" SSDs uses a different kind of chips with faster technology...

[supernova777]

hm, buying a new SSD and putting it into the ata 66 slots sounds weird.

it is wierd.. but im sure knez is very challenged for the amount of pci slots... being into pro tools pci hardware.. theres not much slots left over..

[Knezzen]

ordered on  December 30, 2013, 08:50:00 AM
and u just got it now? august 16th 2014? thats some long ass delivery man (joking)
but so u have 2 of these now? (had 32gb previously in dec 2013) and now u have acquired a 16gb version?
i dont understand why u are posting this as something new.. when u posted about this almost 1 year ago..
this has been talked about a few times before, but hey, cool, i would be excited to get something new too;)
its ok glad to see all of you mac os 9 guys are all anxious to post now that i say im not going to post here anymore;)
i look forward to seeing articles by all of you guys... and not "Chrisnova777" a million times on the site
off you go! get to work!

Yes, In the old MDD. It's running in the server now to boot FreeNAS. Back then I had it on the ATA100 bus, but with a far more unstable machine. The new one is in use with a better machine (without any hardware problems), and I got the time to properly benchmark it at last.

So this is the second one in a Mac, and third one that I bought in total.

I didn't see any dedicated threads, and that's why I started a new one. I know that it has been mentioned before.

hm, buying a new SSD and putting it into the ata 66 slots sounds weird.

it is wierd.. but im sure knez is very challenged for the amount of pci slots... being into pro tools pci hardware.. theres not much slots left over..

I don't think it's weird at all on the other hand. How much bandwidth do you think recording 64 tracks at once takes compared to running Mac OS 9.2.2 + Pro Tools with virtual memory disabled? There, you see. It wasn't a weird decision to make at all