Compact Flash, USB Thumb drive, or hard drive?

[Andrew]

Hrm. How many completely non tech people can reasonably be expected to use a product like this? I know there are plenty of pin owners who don't know a transistor from a big sister but those are the same guys who would be paying someone like us to set this up for them.

I think Chuck's point is that the 'final design' shouldn't have as one its steps: "Obtain old ide drive from corner of closet." And if you have to buy a new component, the Compact Flash device is a pretty good choice.

Anyway, I'm a fan of being able to use all solid state components in the design, although, as you point out... I do have access to lots of 'free' drives.

[Chuck]

Well I'm a speed freak and I found some compact flash the runs at 40MB/s which is 33% faster than the fastest usb I bought. I'm going to pick one up and buy an ide adapter and see how well it works.

I should gather all the usb drives I bought and put them on ebay >.> They are laying all over the house, in my car, my office, my son's room, you name it.

[sellenoff]

Hrm. How many completely non tech people can reasonably be expected to use a product like this? I know there are plenty of pin owners who don't know a transistor from a big sister but those are the same guys who would be paying someone like us to set this up for them.

All of them. We plan on offering a fully plug & play ready to go product that will be as simple as we can make it to install for even non tech people. We are also planning a simple installation video for people who need the extra hand holding.

Now, if you want to split hairs and say completely non tech, like they are afraid to take the backglass off? Ok, well, for them, if the video doesn't prove to them just how stupidly simple and easy it will be, then as you said, someone else no doubt, maintains their games, and that person will install it.

[mattosborn]

Here is a nice CF-IDE adaptor for $2.64 each in quantity (10+):

http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.2720

[Chuck]

I have had zero luck with stability using cf on a legacy ide adapter. I'm still testing but it appears that newer systems that intent on using SATA have problems supporting cf on an ide adapter. I tried two different brand new machines and had really strange problems with both. I also hooked up a legacy uata 120 wd drive and had very similar problems. Testing has really just started but isn't looking promising at the moment.

I have come to no conclusions yet but comparing prices, speed, reliability, and stability it looks like the old hard drive might win. Price, from high to low is:

30/20MB/sec 4gb USB Drive - 65 bucks
40Mb/sec 4gb cf flash (40Mb/sec) - 55 bucks with adapter
100Mb/sec 80GB UATA100 hard drive - 35 bucks

All speeds posted are burst/best case.

It seems to me like going the hard drive route while supporting other media for updates etc might be the best way to go. Again, nothing is set in stone this is just what I'm thinking.

Please provide constructive feedback.

[mattosborn]

Hmmm... don't think I've ever tried one in a machine that had SATA.
If you have to use a motherboard that has SATA, I suppose you could try a CF->SATA converter:

http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.8466

But that costs $10 more than the simple CF->IDE.

[Chuck]

Hmmm... don't think I've ever tried one in a machine that had SATA.
If you have to use a motherboard that has SATA, I suppose you could try a CF->SATA converter:

http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.8466

But that costs $10 more than the simple CF->IDE.

Thanks for the link.

Lets talk about which would you rather go with and why.

Hard drives work 100% of the time.
USB drives work a majority of the time.
CF doesn't work yet and is proving a little troublesome at the moment.

It seems to me that the fastest is the cheapest and the most reliable. What do you guys think?

[Kenbo]

Hard drives seem to be the universal solution. I wouldn't say they work 100% of the time but in my experience they have been more interchangeable than USB sticks and more reliable than CF.

I had a CF card go bad just sitting on the shelf and have had to format them from time to time for inexplicable reasons.

USB cards, with P3 etc, have had compatibility challenges too (our company bought 1000 new flash sticks that wouldn't work reliably with Windows) and some of them won't mount properly under *NIX operating systems.

It's hard to go wrong with a hard drive as much as I dislike FRM. Years ago they would last about a month but they have come a very long way.

Bring back magnetic core memory!

[mattosborn]

A cheapo CF card is probably not going to do adequate wear-leveling. You need to go with a good brand-name card. It really all depends on how much writing you end up doing (I assumed it will be very minimal) and what capacity card you go with. If you plan on doing a significant amount of writing, you could use an industrial grade card... but you might have a tough time finding a good deal on those.

I've never had a problem with a CF card, but my experience is limited to brands like Kingston, PNY, and Sandisk. Hard drives have certainly become a lot more reliable, but I still see a significant number of failures at work (primarily in file server arrays, which are on all the time, or in notebooks, which see lots of power cycles and experience more shock). So I worry how they'd hold up in the constantly vibrating environment of a pinball machine.

And I don't see any advantage in using USB-anything. I thought (or hoped) you'd abandoned that idea....

[Chuck]

And I don't see any advantage in using USB-anything. I thought (or hoped) you'd abandoned that idea....

*grin*

I wouldn't abondon anything unless it didn't work at all. The trick is with the usb drives is that 95% of them are slow. You'll buy one thats ready-boost ready and "fast" and it transfer at 3Mb/sec (which=suck.) They are definately the slowest of the bunch, but they are fairly reliable.

I was geeked about usb in the beginning. Don and Steve loved the idea of CF. I think we might all end up loving the good ole hard drive again.

Like the Corn Flakes commercial, "Try it again, for the first time."

=)

[Kenbo]

Maybe you could use USB and give the user a choice of a USB hard drive or USB flash stick. But it should be 2.0.

[Chuck]

I'm going to proceed based on hard disk at the moment. I'm sure we'll allow the use of any usb based storage for updates, music, etc. This would include CF since a lot of machines have built in usb based CF readers.