• Please review our updated Terms and Rules here

SSD on a 486?

K

kithylin

Experienced Member
Joined
Aug 15, 2011
Messages
91
An idea I've had for a while now but been unable to test, due to i don't have a 486 currently... Has anyone here tried using one of the smaller cheap 8gb SSD hard drives with a SATA-to-IDE adapter and then using them on a 486 class computer? Or perhaps some of the smaller DOM (Disk-On-Module) things I see on ebay that have an IDE interface and just plug into the connector on the motherboard/controller.

Mainly I'm wondering.. Does it even work at all? I'd assume you'd have to rely on the motherboard's bios auto-detecting it as most ssd/DOM drives don't have C/H/S information printed on them.... I saw one of the 8gb SSD's on newegg last week for $40, and some of the DOM modules are on eBay for $25 - $30, so it might not be such an expensive test, really.

And if anyone did get it working... is there any speed advantage vs mechanical hard drives in these machines?
 
Last edited:
I've used a CF card with a CF-IDE adapter in older machines before. It works OK, but a lot of CF cards don't support DMA, which affects performance on newer machines. The Disk-On-Modules work great, but they're not very big. Both devices work fine, and are plenty fast on an old system.

In either event though, there isn't any significant improvement or reason that I can see to use one of those instead of a common, readily available hard drive. The only situation where the solid state drive becomes really nice is on an XT-IDE card, where you can rig it to power a DiskOnModule so you don't even need a separate power cable for the drive - and it takes load off the power supply when used in something like an original PC.

So, yeah - no reason why you can't use one. But hard drives are so much cheaper, and more "authentic".

-Ian
 
Ahh, thanks for the info. It's just an idea that popped into my head and i was just kinda curious about functionality is all. I have a sandisk extreme III CF card in my DSLR camera that supports UDMA mode, alot of the newer 4gb+ CF cards support DMA, probably some of the older smaller ones would not though, i could see that.
 
The CF-IDE adapters are pretty nice, but as said above probably not so useful in a desktop PC.

Now, plugging a CF - 2.5 Drive adapter into a 486 notebook is *very* useful....I had my Omnibook 600 running for 5-6 hours on a charge with that little mod :) Those old laptop IDE hard drives were power hogs.
 
hi,

I've recently replaced the hdd in both my 486 and p75 with a pair of 8gig DoM.

The ones I bought support DMA, but my 486 is using a VLB IDE card, so im stuck with PIO modes. The p75 has a proper pci ide controller on its mobo, so dma works fine.

Pentium 75 with DoM in DMA:
Code: 
[root@p75 ~]# hdparm -tT /dev/hda

/dev/hda:
 Timing cached reads:    66 MB in  2.02 seconds =  32.75 MB/sec
 Timing buffered disk reads:   44 MB in  3.13 seconds =  14.04 MB/sec
[root@p75 ~]#

486 with DoM in PIO:
Code: 
[root@i486 ~]# hdparm -tT /dev/hda

/dev/hda:
 Timing cached reads:    16 MB in  2.23 seconds =   7.17 MB/sec
 Timing buffered disk reads:    6 MB in  3.62 seconds =   1.66 MB/sec
[root@i486 ~]#

These two machines run 24/7, both have achieved uptimes of over a year. Because of that, I needed a more reliable solution than 15 year old hdd's. The DoM's appear to be doing the job perfectly.

I can post a link to the ebay auction i got these from if its not gonna be considered advertising.

Erik
 
Cool, that's pretty neat information, I was expecting the DOM's to be more compatible with older hardware than ssd's.

I don't think you need to post a link, if we goto ebay and hard drives -> internal and type in 'dom' several cheap ones show up.
 
A good SSD is probably overkill especially since it'd be working in a single-tasking (DOS) or barely multitasking (Win 3.1) environment. A DOM probably is better value for your money. But there's a benefit to any type of solid state storage: Very low seek times. Stuff loads almost instantly, so there's still some benefit even though the older IDE bus can't begin to handle the full throughput potential of the drive.
 
I've been slowly replacing all my hard drives with cf to ide adapters. As posted before, dma mode really does matter. As long as you get quality cards meant for the purpose your intending, like used in thin clients as ssd etc, then you'll have very few problems other then size related. In most my older pc's i tend to stick to around 256mb/512mb cf cards due to limitations in older dos revisions...
 
So the CF-to-IDE adapters for CF cards work good with older machines like 486's if we just use smaller CF cards? that's interesting, and definitely something I'll have to look into. Thanks for the info :)
 
Last edited:
I use M-Systems and PQI DiskOnModules for all of my old machines nowadays. I bought several hundred 64 and 128 MB modules, which I prefer because they more closely resemble the capacities you would have found in vintage gear. They're really handy with the XT-IDE, which was actually the reason I started switching from industrial CF cards to DOMs -- I had a lot of trouble getting my XT-IDE to play nice with a CF card in the Leading Edge Model D, which wasn't thrilled about the XT-IDE to start with.

PM me if you need 64/128 MB DOMs, as I have plenty!
 
Guyyyys!!!!

Any hope and OLD 486 system (IDE, not EIDE neither PIO mode 3 or 4 or UDMA.... just plain old IDE Compaq 486 Proline 4/66) is able to "see" any SSS (solid state stuff)?

I replaced the original cable with a UATA double connector cable (in order to be able to connect 2 ide devices), added the SD to IDE adapter with a 128 MB sd card.... and it simply doesn't exist AT ALL for the system: BIOS, Fdisk, MSD, nothing can "see" it.


The IDE to SD Card adapter doesn't have any master/slave jumper.
Neither does the old 300 MB IDE HDD !!!!!

Any suggestion?


Thank you!!!
 
I hae no problem using SSDs with PIIIs

I hae no problem using SSDs with PIIIs

AriesMu said:
Guyyyys!!!!

Any hope and OLD 486 system (IDE, not EIDE neither PIO mode 3 or 4 or UDMA.... just plain old IDE Compaq 486 Proline 4/66) is able to "see" any SSS (solid state stuff)?

I replaced the original cable with a UATA double connector cable (in order to be able to connect 2 ide devices), added the SD to IDE adapter with a 128 MB sd card.... and it simply doesn't exist AT ALL for the system: BIOS, Fdisk, MSD, nothing can "see" it.


The IDE to SD Card adapter doesn't have any master/slave jumper.
Neither does the old 300 MB IDE HDD !!!!!

Any suggestion?


Thank you!!!
Click to expand...

I have a a pile of smaller excess SSDs - 128GB ones, and I've had absolutely no problem connecting them to a few Pentium III machines using an SSD-IDE adapter ( https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00JVUXMRI/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o05_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 )to my IDE interface and using them to creating blazing-fast multi-boot systems consisting of DOS7, Win3.11, Win95, Win98 and more, loaded with applications. While its total overkill for say, DOS/Win3x, the instant access of SSD makes later versions of Windows and big windows apps that used to struggle some instant as well. I had to do nothing special - the PIII BIOS automatically recognizes the SSD as the book drive without having to provide any drive geometry. I like building multi-boot machines - for some I use BootMagic/PatitionMagic 8.0, and for mutli-boot systems where I need unlimited primary partitions (more than the standard limit of 4), I use BootIt BareMetal. My next build is going to be based on SuperMicro P4SCA Rev 1.3 motherboard with a 3.4GHz Pentium 4 and with the ISA slots will run everything from DOS to Win7 off an SSD. The bus of these machines limit getting full advantage of SSDs, but it doesn't matter, everything is instant do to zero seek time and using the maximum bandwidth that the bus offers. I highly recommend it!

https://ultimatevintagecomputer.wordpress.com/


Regards,
Mike
 
Last edited:
"The CF-IDE adapters are pretty nice, but as said above probably not so useful in a desktop PC."

Why not? Many of my systems have multiple bootable partitions loaded with hundreds of MB and even a few GB of apps. I image those partitions with DriveImage, and I use multi-GB CF cards via a CF card reader on Windows 98 copy them from FAT32 HDD partitions to back them up and move them around. CF cards are very useful for drivers, apps, and data moving between machines - much like I've done with Zip100 drives in most of my desktops, but the CFs are so much larger and convenient to also use with more modern machines.

Regards,
Mike
 
kithylin said:
An idea I've had for a while now but been unable to test, due to i don't have a 486 currently... Has anyone here tried using one of the smaller cheap 8gb SSD hard drives with a SATA-to-IDE adapter and then using them on a 486 class computer? Or perhaps some of the smaller DOM (Disk-On-Module) things I see on ebay that have an IDE interface and just plug into the connector on the motherboard/controller.

Mainly I'm wondering.. Does it even work at all? I'd assume you'd have to rely on the motherboard's bios auto-detecting it as most ssd/DOM drives don't have C/H/S information printed on them.... I saw one of the 8gb SSD's on newegg last week for $40, and some of the DOM modules are on eBay for $25 - $30, so it might not be such an expensive test, really.

And if anyone did get it working... is there any speed advantage vs mechanical hard drives in these machines?
Click to expand...


I have a few older computers:

- A Dell 325P, 386 DX-25 that has a Cyrix 486 DLC-40 chip on it (runs at about 486 DX-25 speed when I enable the software cache) that runs DOS 5.0 (for 1989-1997 games)
- An Acer Altos 1000 Dual Pentium 233 mini-server (mid-tower) that runs Windows 98 (for 1998-2003 games).


In both of these computers, I have SSDs. The Dell 386 has a DOM installed... I can't remember the size, I think it's a 512mb. Because the BIOS and operating system cannot support anything larger than that, I was forced to look for a DOM that was 512mb or smaller. I found one on eBay for $20 something... and have been using it ever since. Quite frankly, the only reason why I did this was for reliability, performance, cost, and cooling.

Reliability - Any hard drive that you purchase now that's 512mb or less, is going to be used, and have a lot of hours on it. A 512mb DOM is going to have no hours on it.
Performance - The speed of the DOM is limited by the throughput of the IDE controller and the limitations of the processor's ability to handle that speed. I can't remember what it is... but it's less than SATA-1 speeds. I would say it's nominally better than a decent hard drive in something like a 386, because it can't really handle any faster speeds.
Cost - If you've looked on eBay at the cost of some of these older hard drives, the costs are insane. I paid almost $100 bucks for a barely used Seagate ST3144a. This DOM was $20 bucks, shipped.
Cooling - It generates almost no heat at all... unlike a hard drive. This doesn't make a huge difference really... but it was worth mentioning.


For configuration... it's not hard. Typically, the DOM will already have a set of specifications... cyls, heads, sectors... and you just enter that in.


Anyway, I use a 2-gig DOM SSD on my P2, and it flies... again, only about the speed of SATA1 (or PATA I should say). I dunno... 150mb/s?


Definitely worth it though. It's a no-brainer for me.


In my 8088... when I get it done. I'm still going to have a Seagate ST-225 RLL hard drive in there... and I'm going to have it "power on" when I turn the computer on. But all the data storage will be on a 128mb DOM. The sound from the Seagate ST-225 is unmistakable... so I have to keep that.
 
SSDs work via SATA to IDE bridges on my 8-bit IDE adapter, in case anyone should be interested!
 
R-TypeEman said:
The ones I bought support DMA, but my 486 is using a VLB IDE card, so im stuck with PIO modes. The p75 has a proper pci ide controller on its mobo, so dma works fine.
Click to expand...

The real advantage here isn't bulk transfer rates, but rather number of IOPS. Flash is orders of magnitude more IOPS than spinning-platter disks, which is the real benefit. Even a 4.77 MHz 8088 system feels snappy when you put flash in it, and the non-DMA adapters are only capable of bulk transfer rates around 90KB/s.

Todd82TA said:
The sound from the Seagate ST-225 is unmistakable... so I have to keep that.
Click to expand...

Not if it isn't seeking -- that's 90% of the nostalgic noise. :) It's possible to have them both installed and working simultaneously... Maybe write a TSR that performs a random seek on the ST-225 every time activity is detected on the flash drive ;-)
 
I put a 512 MB IDE Disk On Module into my IBM PS/1 Model 2121 (386SX-16) and it worked perfectly and led to a significant performance boost, but the PS/1 relies upon an LED on the front of the hard drive shining through a hole in the front of the case to be the disk activity light, which the DOM doesn't have (and there is no separate pinout in the PS/1 for an activity LED), and also I simply missed the sound of the original Maxtor hard drive, so I ended up taking the DOM out and putting the hard drive back in.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top