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Metalworking (rec.crafts.metalworking) Discuss various aspects of working with metal, such as machining, welding, metal joining, screwing, casting, hardening/tempering, blacksmithing/forging, spinning and hammer work, sheet metal work. |
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#1
Posted to rec.crafts.metalworking
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Recent thread on solid state disk drives
The prices are starting to drop: 30 GB SATA 2 SS drive: $199 http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=4933684&Sku=O261-6228 4 GB 2.5" PATA/IDE SS drive: $49 http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=2552722&CatId=5301 -- Anyone wanting to run for any political office in the US should have to have a DD214, and a honorable discharge. |
#2
Posted to rec.crafts.metalworking
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Recent thread on solid state disk drives
On Sun, 06 Jun 2010 03:57:43 -0400, "Michael A. Terrell"
wrote: The prices are starting to drop: 30 GB SATA 2 SS drive: $199 http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=4933684&Sku=O261-6228 4 GB 2.5" PATA/IDE SS drive: $49 http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=2552722&CatId=5301 What is the advantage of these drives over, say, a 32 GB jump drive at $70 (this week at Office Depot)? Speed? If so, how great is that advantage in practice? -- Best -- Terry |
#3
Posted to rec.crafts.metalworking
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Recent thread on solid state disk drives
Terry wrote: On Sun, 06 Jun 2010 03:57:43 -0400, "Michael A. Terrell" wrote: The prices are starting to drop: 30 GB SATA 2 SS drive: $199 http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=4933684&Sku=O261-6228 4 GB 2.5" PATA/IDE SS drive: $49 http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=2552722&CatId=5301 What is the advantage of these drives over, say, a 32 GB jump drive at $70 (this week at Office Depot)? Speed? If so, how great is that advantage in practice? They replace the hard drive in a computer. Someone was asking about small hard drives for machine tools. Spinning storage with an IDE/PATA interface is disappearing from the market. What good is a jump drive on something with no USB port? -- Anyone wanting to run for any political office in the US should have to have a DD214, and a honorable discharge. |
#4
Posted to rec.crafts.metalworking
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Recent thread on solid state disk drives
Michael A. Terrell wrote:
What is the advantage of these drives over, say, a 32 GB jump drive at $70 (this week at Office Depot)? Speed? If so, how great is that advantage in practice? They replace the hard drive in a computer. Someone was asking about small hard drives for machine tools. Spinning storage with an IDE/PATA interface is disappearing from the market. What good is a jump drive on something with no USB port? We have that problem at work. Our newer Mitsubishi LASER CNC control runs on Win95. The only network option is a PCMCIA reader and LAN card in the reader. We installed the hardware and got the control to recognize a laptop running Win2KPro, and vice versa, but so far, we haven't gotten drive access to allow us to transfer files back and forth. David |
#5
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Recent thread on solid state disk drives
Terry wrote:
On Sun, 06 Jun 2010 03:57:43 -0400, "Michael A. Terrell" wrote: The prices are starting to drop: 30 GB SATA 2 SS drive: $199 http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=4933684&Sku=O261-6228 4 GB 2.5" PATA/IDE SS drive: $49 http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=2552722&CatId=5301 What is the advantage of these drives over, say, a 32 GB jump drive at $70 (this week at Office Depot)? Speed? If so, how great is that advantage in practice? The first one linked uses a combination of flash NAND memory along with a 64MB dynamic memory cache. Your jump drive doesn't have a cache to improve write read/write times. Wes -- "Additionally as a security officer, I carry a gun to protect government officials but my life isn't worth protecting at home in their eyes." Dick Anthony Heller |
#6
Posted to rec.crafts.metalworking
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Recent thread on solid state disk drives
"David R.Birch" wrote: Michael A. Terrell wrote: What is the advantage of these drives over, say, a 32 GB jump drive at $70 (this week at Office Depot)? Speed? If so, how great is that advantage in practice? They replace the hard drive in a computer. Someone was asking about small hard drives for machine tools. Spinning storage with an IDE/PATA interface is disappearing from the market. What good is a jump drive on something with no USB port? We have that problem at work. Our newer Mitsubishi LASER CNC control runs on Win95. The only network option is a PCMCIA reader and LAN card in the reader. We installed the hardware and got the control to recognize a laptop running Win2KPro, and vice versa, but so far, we haven't gotten drive access to allow us to transfer files back and forth. These are a huge improvement over the old 28 pin 'M-Drive' we used to run embedded NT in one product about 10 years ago. They are a lot larger, too. They were $380 for a 32 MB soft drive. If your CNC will run with one of the formats that Windows can use, you can format the solid state drive & install the software, then just plug it into the CNC machine. You could even make a duplicate drive to use for troubleshooting or emergency repairs. It's cheap production insurance at those prices. -- Anyone wanting to run for any political office in the US should have to have a DD214, and a honorable discharge. |
#7
Posted to rec.crafts.metalworking
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Recent thread on solid state disk drives
These SSDs do wonders for old, memory constrained computers. I
installed one in a laptop with 256 MB of memory and the effect was tremendous. They are the future for everything besides slow file storage (like movies and backups). i |
#8
Posted to rec.crafts.metalworking
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Recent thread on solid state disk drives
Michael A. Terrell wrote:
"David R.Birch" wrote: Michael A. Terrell wrote: What is the advantage of these drives over, say, a 32 GB jump drive at $70 (this week at Office Depot)? Speed? If so, how great is that advantage in practice? They replace the hard drive in a computer. Someone was asking about small hard drives for machine tools. Spinning storage with an IDE/PATA interface is disappearing from the market. What good is a jump drive on something with no USB port? We have that problem at work. Our newer Mitsubishi LASER CNC control runs on Win95. The only network option is a PCMCIA reader and LAN card in the reader. We installed the hardware and got the control to recognize a laptop running Win2KPro, and vice versa, but so far, we haven't gotten drive access to allow us to transfer files back and forth. These are a huge improvement over the old 28 pin 'M-Drive' we used to run embedded NT in one product about 10 years ago. They are a lot larger, too. They were $380 for a 32 MB soft drive. If your CNC will run with one of the formats that Windows can use, you can format the solid state drive & install the software, then just plug it into the CNC machine. You could even make a duplicate drive to use for troubleshooting or emergency repairs. It's cheap production insurance at those prices. Right now we'd be happy if we could load files from anything other than the failing floppy drive. The control has a db25 serial port, but for some reason, Mitsubishi decided that just being able to transfer files with a COM program shouldn't work. David |
#9
Posted to rec.crafts.metalworking
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Recent thread on solid state disk drives
"David R.Birch" wrote: Right now we'd be happy if we could load files from anything other than the failing floppy drive. The control has a db25 serial port, but for some reason, Mitsubishi decided that just being able to transfer files with a COM program shouldn't work. There are solid state replacements for 3.5" floppy drives, but they aren't cheap. They allow you to use a USB memory stick to load programs or data in CNC machines and other, old computers & computer based systems. http://hxc2001.free.fr/floppy_drive_emulator/index.html is one type. What type, brand & model floppy drive are you using? There may be a replacement, or if it is an older, full height 3.5" a good clean & lube of the bearings in the disk elevator may fix your problems. I used to repair 3.5" floppy drives when they cost $75. Dry bearings and missing springs were common. Drives with bad heads gave me a good supply of donor parts. If it is an oddball drive, photos would help. I currently have a couple hundred used floppy drives on hand. They are leftovers from a closed computer business, and others were removed from scrapped computer systems. -- Anyone wanting to run for any political office in the US should have to have a DD214, and a honorable discharge. |
#10
Posted to rec.crafts.metalworking
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Recent thread on solid state disk drives
On Sun, 06 Jun 2010 12:46:17 -0400, "Michael A. Terrell"
wrote: Terry wrote: On Sun, 06 Jun 2010 03:57:43 -0400, "Michael A. Terrell" wrote: The prices are starting to drop: 30 GB SATA 2 SS drive: $199 http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=4933684&Sku=O261-6228 4 GB 2.5" PATA/IDE SS drive: $49 http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=2552722&CatId=5301 What is the advantage of these drives over, say, a 32 GB jump drive at $70 (this week at Office Depot)? Speed? If so, how great is that advantage in practice? They replace the hard drive in a computer. Someone was asking about small hard drives for machine tools. Spinning storage with an IDE/PATA interface is disappearing from the market. What good is a jump drive on something with no USB port? How is the seek and retrieve time on the solid state drives, as compared to the good spinning disks? Gunner -- "First Law of Leftist Debate The more you present a leftist with factual evidence that is counter to his preconceived world view and the more difficult it becomes for him to refute it without losing face the chance of him calling you a racist, bigot, homophobe approaches infinity. This is despite the thread you are in having not mentioned race or sexual preference in any way that is relevant to the subject." Grey Ghost |
#11
Posted to rec.crafts.metalworking
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Recent thread on solid state disk drives
On Jun 6, 11:39*am, Terry wrote:
On Sun, 06 Jun 2010 03:57:43 -0400, "Michael A. Terrell" wrote: The prices are starting to drop: 30 GB SATA 2 SS drive: $199 http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?.... 4 GB 2.5" PATA/IDE SS drive: $49 http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?.... What is the advantage of these drives over, say, a 32 GB jump drive at $70 (this week at Office Depot)? *Speed? *If so, how great is that advantage in practice? -- Best -- Terry They are smokin' fast (though some are faster than others), They actually can use up the bandwith in a SATAII connection, on sustained reads & writes, which rotating devices can only do on bursts. In practice, well that depends on what you are practicing. If you are sending G-Codes to a machine tool. There's probably no practical speed advantage. If you are crunching through tons of database tables, there's a huge advantage. As always, you pays your money and you takes your choice. |
#12
Posted to rec.crafts.metalworking
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Recent thread on solid state disk drives
Gunner Asch wrote: On Sun, 06 Jun 2010 12:46:17 -0400, "Michael A. Terrell" wrote: Terry wrote: On Sun, 06 Jun 2010 03:57:43 -0400, "Michael A. Terrell" wrote: The prices are starting to drop: 30 GB SATA 2 SS drive: $199 http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=4933684&Sku=O261-6228 4 GB 2.5" PATA/IDE SS drive: $49 http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=2552722&CatId=5301 What is the advantage of these drives over, say, a 32 GB jump drive at $70 (this week at Office Depot)? Speed? If so, how great is that advantage in practice? They replace the hard drive in a computer. Someone was asking about small hard drives for machine tools. Spinning storage with an IDE/PATA interface is disappearing from the market. What good is a jump drive on something with no USB port? How is the seek and retrieve time on the solid state drives, as compared to the good spinning disks? There is no moving mechanical mass in a solid state drive so it's a lot faster that conventional drives. there is no oxide to shed from the spinning media, and they don't mind vibration or suffer from mechanical shock like older drives. You've seen the TV ads for laptops that survive being dropped while on? Guess how they do it. -- Anyone wanting to run for any political office in the US should have to have a DD214, and a honorable discharge. |
#13
Posted to rec.crafts.metalworking
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Recent thread on solid state disk drives
"Michael A. Terrell" wrote:
There is no moving mechanical mass in a solid state drive so it's a lot faster that conventional drives. there is no oxide to shed from the spinning media, and they don't mind vibration or suffer from mechanical shock like older drives. But the flash cells have a finite life as in write cycles. Sophisticated wear leveling algorithms try to keep the wear spread across the cells. The technology is improving but it isn't at a price point to drop spinning metal platters yet. My pile of drives that have failed or were recovered and no longer trusted is getting pretty darn big. Then there is the issue that a CDROM or DVDROM doesn't have an archival lifespan. I fear a whole lot of digital content is going to die faster that content produced only 50 years ago. 1980-2030, the lost decades. Wes -- "Additionally as a security officer, I carry a gun to protect government officials but my life isn't worth protecting at home in their eyes." Dick Anthony Heller |
#14
Posted to rec.crafts.metalworking
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Recent thread on solid state disk drives
Wes wrote: "Michael A. Terrell" wrote: There is no moving mechanical mass in a solid state drive so it's a lot faster that conventional drives. there is no oxide to shed from the spinning media, and they don't mind vibration or suffer from mechanical shock like older drives. But the flash cells have a finite life as in write cycles. It was well over 100,000 write cycles the last time i worked with solid state drives. Since the drive in a machine tool is mostly a read device, it should outlast the tool. NASA had no problem with the expected life span in 2000. Would you rather use a solid state drive in a machine, or look for a used mechanical IDE/PATA drive that might still work while the machine is down, and nothing is being shipped? Some interfaces won't work with the newer drives, because the block size is too large on 300 GB and up hard drives. from what I've heard, there are no new IDE/PATA drives being built, and what is for sale is the last in the pipeline. Sophisticated wear leveling algorithms try to keep the wear spread across the cells. The technology is improving but it isn't at a price point to drop spinning metal platters yet. My pile of drives that have failed or were recovered and no longer trusted is getting pretty darn big. It will continue to grow, because the higher the density, the easier it is to corrupt. Then there is the issue that a CDROM or DVDROM doesn't have an archival lifespan. I fear a whole lot of digital content is going to die faster that content produced only 50 years ago. 1980-2030, the lost decades. Critical data should be refreshed every five years to new media, just to be safe. -- Anyone wanting to run for any political office in the US should have to have a DD214, and a honorable discharge. |
#15
Posted to rec.crafts.metalworking
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Recent thread on solid state disk drives
"Michael A. Terrell" wrote in
m: Terry wrote: On Sun, 06 Jun 2010 03:57:43 -0400, "Michael A. Terrell" wrote: The prices are starting to drop: 30 GB SATA 2 SS drive: $199 http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...em-details.asp ?EdpNo=4933684&Sku=O261-6228 4 GB 2.5" PATA/IDE SS drive: $49 http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...em-details.asp ?EdpNo=2552722&CatId=5301 What is the advantage of these drives over, say, a 32 GB jump drive at $70 (this week at Office Depot)? Speed? If so, how great is that advantage in practice? They replace the hard drive in a computer. Someone was asking about small hard drives for machine tools. Spinning storage with an IDE/PATA interface is disappearing from the market. What good is a jump drive on something with no USB port? I would never use flash based memory devices for primary storage. They are fine for moving files around on USB thumb drives, but they are inherently unreliable. Flash drives wear out, and have internal algorithms to spread the wear around. I know a number of folks who've had thumb drives die on them. I realize that they have been improving, but until I see some serious unbiased tests on long term reliability, I'm sticking with spinning things. I think conventional hard drives are also less likely to get flipped bits from cosmic rays, although with adequate encoding, that _shouldn't_ be a problem. Doug White |
#16
Posted to rec.crafts.metalworking
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Recent thread on solid state disk drives
On 2010-06-06, Michael A. Terrell wrote:
Wes wrote: "Michael A. Terrell" wrote: There is no moving mechanical mass in a solid state drive so it's a lot faster that conventional drives. there is no oxide to shed from the spinning media, and they don't mind vibration or suffer from mechanical shock like older drives. But the flash cells have a finite life as in write cycles. It was well over 100,000 write cycles the last time i worked with solid state drives. Since the drive in a machine tool is mostly a read device, it should outlast the tool. NASA had no problem with the expected life span in 2000. It depends on the OS. Unix variants (unless the filesystem is mounted read-only) update the last-accessed time in the inode for each file every time you read it. And there are a number of file inodes sharing the same 512 byte block, so the number of write cycles in an active directory would accumulate rather faster than you might expect. This could at least be a problem with EMC (which is linux based) -- unless care is taken to mount the SS drive read-only, and keep some other form of medium for read-write. Perhaps set it up using the SS disk something like a liveCD, and copying it into a RAM-DISK for normal execution, and only remounting it read-write when you absolutely need to write something to it. With the Microsoft FAT filesystem, I don't think that there is any equivalent last-accessed time, but I don't know what other gotchas might be present. Would you rather use a solid state drive in a machine, or look for a used mechanical IDE/PATA drive that might still work while the machine is down, and nothing is being shipped? Some interfaces won't work with the newer drives, because the block size is too large on 300 GB and up hard drives. from what I've heard, there are no new IDE/PATA drives being built, and what is for sale is the last in the pipeline. Making me happy to use SCSI and FC disks. :-) At least Sun doesn't seem to have any hardware-set limits on those. :-) Sophisticated wear leveling algorithms try to keep the wear spread across the cells. That can help -- somewhat. The technology is improving but it isn't at a price point to drop spinning metal platters yet. My pile of drives that have failed or were recovered and no longer trusted is getting pretty darn big. It will continue to grow, because the higher the density, the easier it is to corrupt. :-) Then there is the issue that a CDROM or DVDROM doesn't have an archival lifespan. I fear a whole lot of digital content is going to die faster that content produced only 50 years ago. 1980-2030, the lost decades. Critical data should be refreshed every five years to new media, just to be safe. Yes -- now all you need is the time to keep a growing stack of CD-ROM and DVD-ROM safety copies up to date. :-) Enjoy, DoN. -- Email: | Voice (all times): (703) 938-4564 (too) near Washington D.C. | http://www.d-and-d.com/dnichols/DoN.html --- Black Holes are where God is dividing by zero --- |
#17
Posted to rec.crafts.metalworking
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Recent thread on solid state disk drives
Doug White wrote: "Michael A. Terrell" wrote in m: Terry wrote: On Sun, 06 Jun 2010 03:57:43 -0400, "Michael A. Terrell" wrote: The prices are starting to drop: 30 GB SATA 2 SS drive: $199 http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...em-details.asp ?EdpNo=4933684&Sku=O261-6228 4 GB 2.5" PATA/IDE SS drive: $49 http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...em-details.asp ?EdpNo=2552722&CatId=5301 What is the advantage of these drives over, say, a 32 GB jump drive at $70 (this week at Office Depot)? Speed? If so, how great is that advantage in practice? They replace the hard drive in a computer. Someone was asking about small hard drives for machine tools. Spinning storage with an IDE/PATA interface is disappearing from the market. What good is a jump drive on something with no USB port? I would never use flash based memory devices for primary storage. They are fine for moving files around on USB thumb drives, but they are inherently unreliable. Flash drives wear out, and have internal algorithms to spread the wear around. I know a number of folks who've had thumb drives die on them. Thumb drives suffer mechanical stress, ESD and connector wear. Since you can't see the PC board, they aren't that careful with the reflow soldering. The ones I've opened were trash when they were shipped. They used lead free solder and either too low of a reflow temperature, of the flux was no good. Some of them are so bad that you can pop the chip off the board with a fingernail. Of course, the OEM consider them as expendable media. They keep doubling the capacity, and want you to throw away what you're using to buy a new one. I realize that they have been improving, but until I see some serious unbiased tests on long term reliability, I'm sticking with spinning things. I think conventional hard drives are also less likely to get flipped bits from cosmic rays, although with adequate encoding, that _shouldn't_ be a problem. NASA has no problem with them in orbit. If you don't want to use them, then you better stock up now. IDE/PATA drives are a rapidly dying breed of data storage devices. There is more analog, low level electronics in a spinning drive. The spinning drive's PC board is larger, which makes for a larger topic for stray particles. Use whatever you want. I want three of the SS drives to put in an old Dell Poweredge 4350 server. -- Anyone wanting to run for any political office in the US should have to have a DD214, and a honorable discharge. |
#18
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Recent thread on solid state disk drives
"DoN. Nichols" wrote: On 2010-06-06, Michael A. Terrell wrote: Wes wrote: "Michael A. Terrell" wrote: There is no moving mechanical mass in a solid state drive so it's a lot faster that conventional drives. there is no oxide to shed from the spinning media, and they don't mind vibration or suffer from mechanical shock like older drives. But the flash cells have a finite life as in write cycles. It was well over 100,000 write cycles the last time i worked with solid state drives. Since the drive in a machine tool is mostly a read device, it should outlast the tool. NASA had no problem with the expected life span in 2000. It depends on the OS. Unix variants (unless the filesystem is mounted read-only) update the last-accessed time in the inode for each file every time you read it. And there are a number of file inodes sharing the same 512 byte block, so the number of write cycles in an active directory would accumulate rather faster than you might expect. This could at least be a problem with EMC (which is linux based) -- unless care is taken to mount the SS drive read-only, and keep some other form of medium for read-write. Perhaps set it up using the SS disk something like a liveCD, and copying it into a RAM-DISK for normal execution, and only remounting it read-write when you absolutely need to write something to it. With the Microsoft FAT filesystem, I don't think that there is any equivalent last-accessed time, but I don't know what other gotchas might be present. Would you rather use a solid state drive in a machine, or look for a used mechanical IDE/PATA drive that might still work while the machine is down, and nothing is being shipped? Some interfaces won't work with the newer drives, because the block size is too large on 300 GB and up hard drives. from what I've heard, there are no new IDE/PATA drives being built, and what is for sale is the last in the pipeline. Making me happy to use SCSI and FC disks. :-) At least Sun doesn't seem to have any hardware-set limits on those. :-) Sophisticated wear leveling algorithms try to keep the wear spread across the cells. That can help -- somewhat. The technology is improving but it isn't at a price point to drop spinning metal platters yet. My pile of drives that have failed or were recovered and no longer trusted is getting pretty darn big. It will continue to grow, because the higher the density, the easier it is to corrupt. :-) Then there is the issue that a CDROM or DVDROM doesn't have an archival lifespan. I fear a whole lot of digital content is going to die faster that content produced only 50 years ago. 1980-2030, the lost decades. Critical data should be refreshed every five years to new media, just to be safe. Yes -- now all you need is the time to keep a growing stack of CD-ROM and DVD-ROM safety copies up to date. :-) They make autoloaders for tape drives, and I've seen them for 5.25" & 3.5" floppies. There should be a marked for hopper fed CD/DVD data copiers. Personally, I only need to create a CD or two a month. You could copy the whole year's worth in a couple hours by hand. For me it would be no problem. I would just turn on my spare computer and let it work while I did something else at my workbench. -- Anyone wanting to run for any political office in the US should have to have a DD214, and a honorable discharge. |
#19
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Recent thread on solid state disk drives
On 2010-06-07, DoN. Nichols wrote:
On 2010-06-06, Michael A. Terrell wrote: Wes wrote: "Michael A. Terrell" wrote: There is no moving mechanical mass in a solid state drive so it's a lot faster that conventional drives. there is no oxide to shed from the spinning media, and they don't mind vibration or suffer from mechanical shock like older drives. But the flash cells have a finite life as in write cycles. It was well over 100,000 write cycles the last time i worked with solid state drives. Since the drive in a machine tool is mostly a read device, it should outlast the tool. NASA had no problem with the expected life span in 2000. It depends on the OS. Unix variants (unless the filesystem is mounted read-only) update the last-accessed time in the inode for each file every time you read it. And there are a number of file inodes sharing the same 512 byte block, so the number of write cycles in an active directory would accumulate rather faster than you might expect. In Linux, there is a mount option "noatime" that disables that behavior. This could at least be a problem with EMC (which is linux based) -- unless care is taken to mount the SS drive read-only, and keep some other form of medium for read-write. Perhaps set it up using the SS disk something like a liveCD, and copying it into a RAM-DISK for normal execution, and only remounting it read-write when you absolutely need to write something to it. With the Microsoft FAT filesystem, I don't think that there is any equivalent last-accessed time, but I don't know what other gotchas might be present. This is not a big problem, one is because it does not result in that much writes, and also because of availabiilty of noatime. i |
#20
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Recent thread on solid state disk drives
Michael A. Terrell wrote:
"David R.Birch" wrote: Right now we'd be happy if we could load files from anything other than the failing floppy drive. The control has a db25 serial port, but for some reason, Mitsubishi decided that just being able to transfer files with a COM program shouldn't work. There are solid state replacements for 3.5" floppy drives, but they aren't cheap. They allow you to use a USB memory stick to load programs or data in CNC machines and other, old computers & computer based systems. http://hxc2001.free.fr/floppy_drive_emulator/index.html is one type. This is a possibility, we're already using flash drives to load programs to our newer Mazak, but I'd rather get everything networked. What type, brand & model floppy drive are you using? There may be a replacement, or if it is an older, full height 3.5" a good clean & lube of the bearings in the disk elevator may fix your problems. I used to repair 3.5" floppy drives when they cost $75. Dry bearings and missing springs were common. Drives with bad heads gave me a good supply of donor parts. If it is an oddball drive, photos would help. I currently have a couple hundred used floppy drives on hand. They are leftovers from a closed computer business, and others were removed from scrapped computer systems. It looks like a standard half height 3.5" floppy drive, but it isn't. I've tried substituting new drives, but the control doesn't read them, so Mitsubishi seems to have monkeyed with them so they can charge $700+ for them. David |
#21
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Recent thread on solid state disk drives
MITS had custom drives that were larder (more bits) in the same format.
That might be what you are fighting. It was designed for IBM and likely used in other divisions and other MITS companies. Yes not all MITS are MITS. Color of the diamonds is a key. Red and Yellow... I had friends on both sides. Martin [ former MITS DRAM ENG MANAGER N.A.] Martin H. Eastburn @ home at Lions' Lair with our computer lionslair at consolidated dot net "Our Republic and the Press will Rise or Fall Together": Joseph Pulitzer TSRA: Endowed; NRA LOH & Patron Member, Golden Eagle, Patriot's Medal. NRA Second Amendment Task Force Charter Charter Founder IHMSA and NRA Metallic Silhouette maker & member. http://lufkinced.com/ On 6/6/2010 9:08 PM, David R.Birch wrote: Michael A. Terrell wrote: "David R.Birch" wrote: Right now we'd be happy if we could load files from anything other than the failing floppy drive. The control has a db25 serial port, but for some reason, Mitsubishi decided that just being able to transfer files with a COM program shouldn't work. There are solid state replacements for 3.5" floppy drives, but they aren't cheap. They allow you to use a USB memory stick to load programs or data in CNC machines and other, old computers & computer based systems. http://hxc2001.free.fr/floppy_drive_emulator/index.html is one type. This is a possibility, we're already using flash drives to load programs to our newer Mazak, but I'd rather get everything networked. What type, brand & model floppy drive are you using? There may be a replacement, or if it is an older, full height 3.5" a good clean & lube of the bearings in the disk elevator may fix your problems. I used to repair 3.5" floppy drives when they cost $75. Dry bearings and missing springs were common. Drives with bad heads gave me a good supply of donor parts. If it is an oddball drive, photos would help. I currently have a couple hundred used floppy drives on hand. They are leftovers from a closed computer business, and others were removed from scrapped computer systems. It looks like a standard half height 3.5" floppy drive, but it isn't. I've tried substituting new drives, but the control doesn't read them, so Mitsubishi seems to have monkeyed with them so they can charge $700+ for them. David |
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Recent thread on solid state disk drives
The 4' tall 1 MEG disk drive is not replaceable. It was popular before
hard disk technology grew. An electronic replacement was developed - it used a small Winchester and a lot of electronics interfacing the two. Martin Martin H. Eastburn @ home at Lions' Lair with our computer lionslair at consolidated dot net "Our Republic and the Press will Rise or Fall Together": Joseph Pulitzer TSRA: Endowed; NRA LOH & Patron Member, Golden Eagle, Patriot's Medal. NRA Second Amendment Task Force Charter Charter Founder IHMSA and NRA Metallic Silhouette maker & member. http://lufkinced.com/ On 6/6/2010 6:29 PM, Wes wrote: "Michael A. wrote: There is no moving mechanical mass in a solid state drive so it's a lot faster that conventional drives. there is no oxide to shed from the spinning media, and they don't mind vibration or suffer from mechanical shock like older drives. But the flash cells have a finite life as in write cycles. Sophisticated wear leveling algorithms try to keep the wear spread across the cells. The technology is improving but it isn't at a price point to drop spinning metal platters yet. My pile of drives that have failed or were recovered and no longer trusted is getting pretty darn big. Then there is the issue that a CDROM or DVDROM doesn't have an archival lifespan. I fear a whole lot of digital content is going to die faster that content produced only 50 years ago. 1980-2030, the lost decades. Wes -- "Additionally as a security officer, I carry a gun to protect government officials but my life isn't worth protecting at home in their eyes." Dick Anthony Heller |
#23
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Recent thread on solid state disk drives
"Martin H. Eastburn" wrote: The 4' tall 1 MEG disk drive is not replaceable. It was popular before hard disk technology grew. An electronic replacement was developed - it used a small Winchester and a lot of electronics interfacing the two. I still have a few Shugart SA1004 8" 10 MB hard drives. (Built before the lawsuit when they were forced to change their name. They changed it to Seagate technologies.) If the hardware is that old the data needs to be ported to a newer technology. You should have seen the 1960 Westinghouse 5 MB hard drive with a 48" disk. It had a 5 HP three phase motor, and a warning not to attempt to access the platter for five full minutes. One was used with the original computer for Armco Steel's original computerized hot strip in Middletown, Ohio. They finally had to replace most of the computer hardware when all the spare parts for that oddball drive were gone. they had purchased ever used drive they could find for over 10 years to keep from upgrading the mill. The last drive was scrapped in 1987. Not many hard drives had a 12 circuit three phase breaker box. -- Anyone wanting to run for any political office in the US should have to have a DD214, and a honorable discharge. |
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Recent thread on solid state disk drives
John R. Carroll wrote:
David R.Birch wrote: Michael A. Terrell wrote: "David R.Birch" wrote: Michael A. Terrell wrote: What is the advantage of these drives over, say, a 32 GB jump drive at $70 (this week at Office Depot)? Speed? If so, how great is that advantage in practice? They replace the hard drive in a computer. Someone was asking about small hard drives for machine tools. Spinning storage with an IDE/PATA interface is disappearing from the market. What good is a jump drive on something with no USB port? We have that problem at work. Our newer Mitsubishi LASER CNC control runs on Win95. The only network option is a PCMCIA reader and LAN card in the reader. We installed the hardware and got the control to recognize a laptop running Win2KPro, and vice versa, but so far, we haven't gotten drive access to allow us to transfer files back and forth. These are a huge improvement over the old 28 pin 'M-Drive' we used to run embedded NT in one product about 10 years ago. They are a lot larger, too. They were $380 for a 32 MB soft drive. If your CNC will run with one of the formats that Windows can use, you can format the solid state drive & install the software, then just plug it into the CNC machine. You could even make a duplicate drive to use for troubleshooting or emergency repairs. It's cheap production insurance at those prices. Right now we'd be happy if we could load files from anything other than the failing floppy drive. The control has a db25 serial port, but for some reason, Mitsubishi decided that just being able to transfer files with a COM program shouldn't work. You have to properly select the I/O devices in the parameters David. Which control is it? 5x10' LZP with LC20B control Here's a pic of the control: http://www.meridianmachinery.com/photos/1730_1.jpg David |
#25
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Recent thread on solid state disk drives
John R. Carroll wrote:
David R.Birch wrote: John R. Carroll wrote: David R.Birch wrote: Michael A. Terrell wrote: "David R.Birch" wrote: Michael A. Terrell wrote: What is the advantage of these drives over, say, a 32 GB jump drive at $70 (this week at Office Depot)? Speed? If so, how great is that advantage in practice? They replace the hard drive in a computer. Someone was asking about small hard drives for machine tools. Spinning storage with an IDE/PATA interface is disappearing from the market. What good is a jump drive on something with no USB port? We have that problem at work. Our newer Mitsubishi LASER CNC control runs on Win95. The only network option is a PCMCIA reader and LAN card in the reader. We installed the hardware and got the control to recognize a laptop running Win2KPro, and vice versa, but so far, we haven't gotten drive access to allow us to transfer files back and forth. These are a huge improvement over the old 28 pin 'M-Drive' we used to run embedded NT in one product about 10 years ago. They are a lot larger, too. They were $380 for a 32 MB soft drive. If your CNC will run with one of the formats that Windows can use, you can format the solid state drive & install the software, then just plug it into the CNC machine. You could even make a duplicate drive to use for troubleshooting or emergency repairs. It's cheap production insurance at those prices. Right now we'd be happy if we could load files from anything other than the failing floppy drive. The control has a db25 serial port, but for some reason, Mitsubishi decided that just being able to transfer files with a COM program shouldn't work. You have to properly select the I/O devices in the parameters David. Which control is it? 5x10' LZP with LC20B control Here's a pic of the control: http://www.meridianmachinery.com/photos/1730_1.jpg That looks like a 530 control but you might also have the dreaded "Magic 64" which is an M64 with a PC front end. They had a hard drive and a floppy and ran '95 in the early models and then NT later on. You can upgrade the older ones. This one runs Win95. Internally, it doesn't have a standard motherboard and I see nothing resembling ISA or PCI slots. Does the control boot Windows when you power it up? Yes. Since I installed the PCMCIA LAN adapter, I get a screen that asks for a password. The operators have been told NOT to enter anything, just hit INPUT or whatever the equivalent of ENTER is. Your problem, if you have a Magic, will be device drivers. How would I identify a Magic 64? Get the Ethernet adapter working. You can take any ISA Ethernet adapter and put it in the mother board on these things and then configure your connection through the Windows control panel. No slots, ISA or PCI. You can send programs to the machine memory using your RS232 port but you will need to flip the control to the Mits side and do the transfer there. Do it the same way you would on a 520A-MR. Then save the program to the hard drive. What is the 520A-MR, some sort of BTR device? A CNC control? Anytime I have a Mitsubishi question I call Chicago. Those guys are GREAT, and they will be happy to help you out. They really know their stuff. Do you mean MC Machinery? That's our usual Mits contact. David |
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Recent thread on solid state disk drives
John R. Carroll wrote:
It should be in the pendant where the monitor is. They are a very small form factor board. You might have a hard time getting the LAN adapter in but it one can be made to fit if it doesn't. The motherboard is removable. I've been inside the pendant plenty, there is nothing resembling any motherboard I've seen since since I was playing with S-100 bus CNC controls. I've built PCs since XT clones were the hot setup and I've seen lots of mommaboards. I don't need to install a LAN card, the PCMCIA LAN adapter is talking with the Win2k laptop, we haven't figured out how to transfer files, though. Anytime I have a Mitsubishi question I call Chicago. Those guys are GREAT, and they will be happy to help you out. They really know their stuff. Do you mean MC Machinery? That's our usual Mits contact. No, call Mitsubishi directly in Chicago. As I recall, the guy you want to speak with is Steve. Mitsubishi tech support at (847) 478-2500 That used to be the number anyway. I'll give it a try tomorrow. Thanks. David |
#27
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Recent thread on solid state disk drives
David R.Birch wrote:
John R. Carroll wrote: It should be in the pendant where the monitor is. They are a very small form factor board. You might have a hard time getting the LAN adapter in but it one can be made to fit if it doesn't. The motherboard is removable. I've been inside the pendant plenty, there is nothing resembling any motherboard I've seen since since I was playing with S-100 bus CNC controls. I've built PCs since XT clones were the hot setup and I've seen lots of mommaboards. I don't need to install a LAN card, the PCMCIA LAN adapter is talking with the Win2k laptop, we haven't figured out how to transfer files, though. Anytime I have a Mitsubishi question I call Chicago. Those guys are GREAT, and they will be happy to help you out. They really know their stuff. Do you mean MC Machinery? That's our usual Mits contact. No, call Mitsubishi directly in Chicago. As I recall, the guy you want to speak with is Steve. Mitsubishi tech support at (847) 478-2500 That used to be the number anyway. I'll give it a try tomorrow. Thanks. David Install the legacy NetBEUI protocol on the WIN2K box and your odds of sharing files with a WIN95 system go up dramatically. Try sharing a folder on the WIN2K box and the WIN95 system *should* see it. Otherwise enable filesharing on the WIN95 box and access that from the WIN2K box. Last resort is install a FTP server on the WIN2K box (I use Ward's FTP daemon http://www.warftp.org/ ) and use the Win95 command line FTP utility. You could install a GUI FTP utility, but the problem would be finding one that works on WIN95. -- Ian Malcolm. London, ENGLAND. (NEWSGROUP REPLY PREFERRED) ianm[at]the[dash]malcolms[dot]freeserve[dot]co[dot]uk [at]=@, [dash]=- & [dot]=. *Warning* HTML & 32K emails -- NUL: |
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