> Thinking of buying one of those cheap chinese compact flash to IDE
> adapters that appear on ebay quite often for use on a little 486
> embedded board that i've got.
>
> can a compact flash be used just like a hard disk - I understand that
> there is a limited amount of writes that can be made to a CF card ?
If you set it up right, it will last a long time. I am running
KDE/firefox from a CF in read-only mode right now. During boot-up, it
was mounted read-write for configurations and written less than 10
times. This way, it should last about 10,000 days.
>
> Will any embedded board or PC that accepts an IDE device be
> capable of running a CF card without any tweaks?
We use them for 486/Pentium 166/Pentium MMX/Celeron 1G/Sempron 2500.
We tested them with AVRs (checking pins/registers), but not really
using them.
>
> Is there a significant power saving in using a CF card against say a 2.5"
> hard disk ?
0.1 W average for CF vs. 5 to 10W for 2.5".
>
> Any pitfalls to watch for?
Don't keep them running in read-write mode.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Colin
Reply by Colin MacDougall●July 9, 20052005-07-09
Thinking of buying one of those cheap chinese compact flash to IDE
adapters that appear on ebay quite often for use on a little 486
embedded board that i've got.
can a compact flash be used just like a hard disk - I understand that
there is a limited amount of writes that can be made to a CF card ?
Will any embedded board or PC that accepts an IDE device be
capable of running a CF card without any tweaks?
Is there a significant power saving in using a CF card against say a 2.5"
hard disk ?
Any pitfalls to watch for?
Thanks,
Colin