Sandisk ATA Flashdisk speed

Hello,

I have a Sandisk SDP3B 1GB flashdisk card, of wich you can see a manual
here:
http://www.2080725.com/DATA/pcmcia%5...3b%20manual%22

I only get speeds of ~1MB/s out of that card, so I am wondering if the
PC card ATA standard requires some sort of special card readers.
I use the card in a TI-1225 Cardbus controller, standard on a Compaq
Armada e500 laptop.

This isn't the real life speed of such cards right? The manual says
16MB/s in burst mode.
What am I missing here?

Thanks in advance.

philippefimmers (AT) gmail (DOT) com <philippefimmers (AT) gmail (DOT) com> wrote:

I have a Sandisk SDP3B 1GB flashdisk card, of wich you can see a manual
here:
http://www.2080725.com/DATA/pcmcia%5...3b%20manual%22

I only get speeds of ~1MB/s out of that card, so I am wondering if the
PC card ATA standard requires some sort of special card readers.
I use the card in a TI-1225 Cardbus controller, standard on a Compaq
Armada e500 laptop.

This isn't the real life speed of such cards right? The manual says
16MB/s in burst mode.

The 16 bit PCMCIA bus typically maxes out around 1 to 1.5 MB/sec so
what you're seeing is completely normal.

I'm not sure how the 16 MB/s performance can be achieved; the document
isn't specific enough. Maybe in True IDE mode when connected to an
ATA/IDE controller, and not in PCMCIA-ATA mode.

A kludge might be possible by using a high performance CardBus-to-CF
adapter, and a CF-to-PCMCIA adapter. But it would probably be cheaper
to just discard this device, and buy something that would fit into a
high performance USB 2.0 card reader.

-- Dave

Thanks a lot for your answer.

I find it a strange thing now that my PCMCIA sata adapter reaches peaks
of over 10MB/s troughput, since the adapter is connected to the same
16bit PCMCIA bus.
A high performance PC-card reader would indeed be a solution it seems,
but I only want one integrated into the laptop. Unfortunately, I didn't
find one fitting in a multibay slot.

This was in fact just an experiment to put some speed in my old laptop.
I wanted to put my windows swap file on there.

Thanks,
Philippe


On Oct 12, 4:12 pm, dhi... (AT) sonic (DOT) net wrote:

philippefimm... (AT) gmail (DOT) com <philippefimm... (AT) gmail (DOT) com> wrote:
I have a Sandisk SDP3B 1GB flashdisk card, of wich you can see a manual
here:
http://www.2080725.com/DATA/pcmcia%5...2sdp3b%20manua...
I only get speeds of ~1MB/s out of that card, so I am wondering if the
PC card ATA standard requires some sort of special card readers.
I use the card in a TI-1225 Cardbus controller, standard on a Compaq
Armada e500 laptop.
This isn't the real life speed of such cards right? The manual says
16MB/s in burst mode.The 16 bit PCMCIA bus typically maxes out around 1 to 1.5 MB/sec so
what you're seeing is completely normal.

I'm not sure how the 16 MB/s performance can be achieved; the document
isn't specific enough. Maybe in True IDE mode when connected to an
ATA/IDE controller, and not in PCMCIA-ATA mode.

A kludge might be possible by using a high performance CardBus-to-CF
adapter, and a CF-to-PCMCIA adapter. But it would probably be cheaper
to just discard this device, and buy something that would fit into a
high performance USB 2.0 card reader.

-- Dave

philippefimmers (AT) gmail (DOT) com <philippefimmers (AT) gmail (DOT) com> wrote:

I find it a strange thing now that my PCMCIA sata adapter reaches peaks
of over 10MB/s troughput, since the adapter is connected to the same
16bit PCMCIA bus.

The slot you have is a CardBus slot: it can accept 32-bit or 16-bit
cards. The SATA adapter is a CardBus 32-bit card, not a 16-bit card.

A high performance PC-card reader would indeed be a solution it seems,
but I only want one integrated into the laptop. Unfortunately, I didn't
find one fitting in a multibay slot.

I'm not sure what you mean here. If you mean, you were looking for
something that would not stick out of the laptop, one solution would
be a high performance CardBus to CF or SD reader:

http://www.dpreview.com/news/0310/03...ardbustest.asp
http://www.dpreview.com/news/0402/04...ardbussdms.asp

With a high speed CF or SD card, it looks like that should be in the
4-5 MB/sec range. Still not 16 MB/sec but better... and with much
lower CPU utilization than the 16-bit PCMCIA route.

-- Dave

Thanks for clarifying this issue.

So my PCMCIA controller probably isn't capable of putting the flashdisk
card in True IDE mode?
Now I know why this is an industrial grade and not a consumer product.

thanks again

On Oct 12, 6:18 pm, dhi... (AT) sonic (DOT) net wrote:

philippefimm... (AT) gmail (DOT) com <philippefimm... (AT) gmail (DOT) com> wrote:
I find it a strange thing now that my PCMCIA sata adapter reaches peaks
of over 10MB/s troughput, since the adapter is connected to the same
16bit PCMCIA bus.The slot you have is a CardBus slot: it can accept 32-bit or 16-bit
cards. The SATA adapter is a CardBus 32-bit card, not a 16-bit card.

A high performance PC-card reader would indeed be a solution it seems,
but I only want one integrated into the laptop. Unfortunately, I didn't
find one fitting in a multibay slot.I'm not sure what you mean here. If you mean, you were looking for
something that would not stick out of the laptop, one solution would
be a high performance CardBus to CF or SD reader:

http://www.dpreview.com/news/0310/03...ardbussdms.asp

With a high speed CF or SD card, it looks like that should be in the
4-5 MB/sec range. Still not 16 MB/sec but better... and with much
lower CPU utilization than the 16-bit PCMCIA route.

-- Dave

philippefimmers (AT) gmail (DOT) com <philippefimmers (AT) gmail (DOT) com> wrote:

So my PCMCIA controller probably isn't capable of putting the flashdisk
card in True IDE mode?

You need to connect the card to an ATA/IDE controller to use True IDE
mode. That mode is not available when the card is inserted into a
PCMCIA socket.

-- Dave