On 2012-06-22 11:00 AM, Paul Hartman <paul.hartman+gentoo@gmail.com> wrote:

On Fri, Jun 22, 2012 at 7:50 AM, Tanstaafl<tanstaafl@libertytrek.org> wrote:

Also, my questions was more just to which cards are considered best/most
stable - SD or CF...



Ultimately they both probably have the same flash chips inside of them
so if your main concern is reliability, I don't think it matters.

If your concern is performance, CF seems to be used in more
"professional" applications and more high-speed CF cards are readily
available.

In either case I would suggest avoiding the cheap no-name brands.
Sandisk Extreme Pro is likely the fastest card you can buy (of either
CF or SD form factor), it is available up to 100MB/sec write speeds,
but of course your card reader/host needs to support speeds like that.
Sandisk also routinely has more than 10x the random I/O performance of
most of the other brands which is important when using it on a
computer and not in a linear recording device (photos/video).


Thanks Paul, that's all pretty much what I'd concluded as well from my
research...


I went with the 4GB SanDisk Ultra though (30MB/s), since these will only
be used to boot the VMWare hypervisor (which runs fully in RAM once it
is booted)...


Now I'm looking forward to seeing them in action this weekend...

On Fri, Jun 22, 2012 at 12:08 PM, Tanstaafl <tanstaafl@libertytrek.org> wrote:
> On 2012-06-22 11:00 AM, Paul Hartman <paul.hartman+gentoo@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> On Fri, Jun 22, 2012 at 7:50 AM, Tanstaafl<tanstaafl@libertytrek.org>
>> *wrote:
>>
>>> Also, my questions was more just to which cards are considered best/most
>>> stable - SD or CF...
>
>
>> Ultimately they both probably have the same flash chips inside of them
>> so if your main concern is reliability, I don't think it matters.
>>
>> If your concern is performance, CF seems to be used in more
>> "professional" applications and more high-speed CF cards are readily
>> available.
>>
>> In either case I would suggest avoiding the cheap no-name brands.
>> Sandisk Extreme Pro is likely the fastest card you can buy (of either
>> CF or SD form factor), it is available up to 100MB/sec write speeds,
>> but of course your card reader/host needs to support speeds like that.
>> Sandisk also routinely has more than 10x the random I/O performance of
>> most of the other brands which is important when using it on a
>> computer and not in a linear recording device (photos/video).
>
>
> Thanks Paul, that's all pretty much what I'd concluded as well from my
> research...
>
> I went with the 4GB SanDisk Ultra though (30MB/s), since these will only be
> used to boot the VMWare hypervisor (which runs fully in RAM once it is
> booted)...
>
> Now I'm looking forward to seeing them in action this weekend...

OK, I missed that piece. I presumed there would be writes to the hard disk.

Any reason you can't have these guys netboot?


--
:wq

On 2012-06-22 12:26 PM, Michael Mol <mikemol@gmail.com> wrote:

OK, I missed that piece. I presumed there would be writes to the hard disk.

Any reason you can't have these guys netboot?


Only that I've never done that before with servers, and my only
experience with netbooting at all was with LTSP about 10 years ago.


I think having 4 CF cards (mirrored pair of mirrored pairs) will be
enough redundancy though...


Oh... one other question...

These CF adapters only have 2 screw holes (made to go into laptops, not
mounted in a cage), so I can't mount them *properly* in the cage...
anyone know where I can get 2.5" 'shell' cases that I could install
these cards in so I can mount them properly? Right now I have to shove a
piece of anti-static material in between them and the cage (and each
other) to prevent them from accidentally touching (yuck!)...

On 2012-06-23 7:11 AM, Tanstaafl <tanstaafl@libertytrek.org> wrote:

On 2012-06-22 12:26 PM, Michael Mol <mikemol@gmail.com> wrote:

OK, I missed that piece. I presumed there would be writes to the hard
disk.

Any reason you can't have these guys netboot?


Only that I've never done that before with servers, and my only
experience with netbooting at all was with LTSP about 10 years ago.

I think having 4 CF cards (mirrored pair of mirrored pairs) will be
enough redundancy though...


Well, these seem to work swimmingly well... now I just need to find some
kind of non-flammable/heat resistant insulating material that I can use
to keep these cards from touching themselves or the metal cage (see
below)...



Oh... one other question...

These CF adapters only have 2 screw holes (made to go into laptops, not
mounted in a cage), so I can't mount them *properly* in the cage...
anyone know where I can get 2.5" 'shell' cases that I could install
these cards in so I can mount them properly? Right now I have to shove a
piece of anti-static material in between them and the cage (and each
other) to prevent them from accidentally touching (yuck!)...