older gear vs. newer, bigger CF cards...

Post by **space6oy** » Wed Apr 02, 2008 5:37 am

could've put this in help, but it is a sampler topic...

anyone know anything about CFC implementations?
in the manual to my repeater it says, "the compact flash card (CFC) use the standard FAT (DOS-like) file system using the FAT16 standard. current type 1 CFC implementations peak out at 256 MB. repeater is designed to take advantage of type 1 CFC implementations with up to 512MB of storage."

there are CF cards up to 8GB now, maybe even bigger. my repeater rejects my 4GB. any of you techies out there know if there's any way to format a newer, bigger CF card to get it to work w/ gear made before such capacities? formatting mine to DOS to see if that does the trick...beyond that i wouldn't know what to try.

Post by **space6oy** » Wed Apr 02, 2008 5:48 am

...aaand that didn't do the trick. bummer.
any suggestions? (preferably other than "deal with a smaller card"

)

Post by **tallowwaters** » Wed Apr 02, 2008 11:38 am

have had a similarly irritating experience with xd and sm cards with no luck. a 256-512 cf should be dirt cheap by now anyways...

sorry

Post by **tallowwaters** » Wed Apr 02, 2008 11:39 am

have had a similarly irritating experience with xd and sm cards with no luck. a 256-512 cf should be dirt cheap by now anyways...

sorry

Post by **meatballfulton** » Wed Apr 02, 2008 1:01 pm

That's the curse of using standard computer storage formats. More than a few manufacturers have been sandbagged by the rapid evolution in memory technology.

I own some Roland gear that can't use CF cards over 1 GB (they came out of the box with 128MB cards). Four years ago I paid about $100 for 1 GB, just last week I bought some for $10 each but had to search for those online because local stores had nothing below 2GB on the shelf.

I decided to stock up before the only source was eBay.

Some manufacturers are finally wising up and using USB interfaces instead. Of course, once USB goes away...

Post by **space6oy** » Wed Apr 02, 2008 5:59 pm

i'm decent w/ using computers but not so much w/ their insides beyond switching parts...

how is it that computers are AOK w/ however big a HD you put in them (or link them to) but this audio gear we're talking about is not? does it have to do w/ the audio gear's OS programming? ie "number showing up bigger than 512 error error error." do cameras that take CF cards have the same limitation scenario?

anybody wanna swap eight 512's for the 4gb i just bought?

Post by **meatballfulton** » Thu Apr 03, 2008 12:39 pm

space6oy wrote: does it have to do w/ the audio gear's OS programming? ie "number showing up bigger than 512 error error error." do cameras that take CF cards have the same limitation scenario?

Yes and yes.

Post by **space6oy** » Thu Apr 03, 2008 6:19 pm

meatballfulton wrote:
space6oy wrote: does it have to do w/ the audio gear's OS programming? ie "number showing up bigger than 512 error error error." do cameras that take CF cards have the same limitation scenario?
Yes and yes.

any idea why? pretty dumb limitation.

Overgear · Post by **Overgear** » Thu Apr 03, 2008 7:57 pm

This is why. It's a pain, but that's progress for ya. My S3000 only sees 510mb.

BTW, another recommendation for SCSIforSamplers.com. Great stuff, great service.

Post by **meatballfulton** » Thu Apr 03, 2008 9:42 pm

space6oy wrote: any idea why? pretty dumb limitation.

The design cycle for your average piece of synth gear is 2-3 years. The parts get specified early on. Manufacturers have to cross their fingers and guess what formats and memory sizes will be around during the time they will be selling the gear.

Companies who adopted Smart Media because it was more compact than Compact Flash made what looked like the right call at the time, how were they to know that SM would stop development at 128MB and disappear from the market entirely while CF would keep going strong? At the time SD and xD cards didn't even exist so weren't even a choice.

SfS_JD · Post by **SfS_JD** » Fri Apr 04, 2008 1:55 am

We hear that question a lot - "why does my sampler only see 510MB of a 9GB hard drive" or something to that effect. It seems to me like for most sampler manufacturers, SCSI implementation was the last thing they did and they took the easiest path possible. Meaning the simplest implementation of basic SCSI commands they could get away with and still have a functioning product. It seems they would take a zip drive and maybe a hard drive or two, write their SCSI code to work with those units and anything else was gravy.

And addressable disk space - it follows that "quickest implementation" theory as well but also remember that when most of these samplers hit the market, a 2GB hard drive was considered big. And they were quite expensive as well, so maybe they figured most folks wouldn't spring for a big hard drive. But it all comes back to the simplest coding, IMO.

Of course, this begs the question, what is Korg's excuse for only allowing the Triton models to address 4GB of SCSI media space? The Triton came out about the same time (2001?) as the Yamaha Motif, which can access 36GB no problem. That one is pretty hard to justify.

Post by **meatballfulton** » Fri Apr 04, 2008 12:51 pm

SfS_JD wrote:what is Korg's excuse for only allowing the Triton models to address 4GB of SCSI media space?

4GB is addressable with 32 bits. 36GB requires 36 bits.

Since computers deal in 8-bit chunks, needing 4 extra bits for addressing is expensive.

SfS_JD · Post by **SfS_JD** » Fri Apr 04, 2008 12:59 pm

meatballfulton wrote:
4GB is addressable with 32 bits. 36GB requires 36 bits.

Since computers deal in 8-bit chunks, needing 4 extra bits for addressing is expensive.

I understand all that but it's not much of an excuse. The Yamaha Motif did it, plus provided a SCSI interface as standard equipment plus had a cheaper retail price than the Triton.

Post by **meatballfulton** » Fri Apr 04, 2008 7:39 pm

SfS_JD wrote:The Yamaha Motif did it, plus provided a SCSI interface as standard equipment plus had a cheaper retail price than the Triton.

I'm just guessing but I wouldn't be surprised if the Triton SCSI option was just carried over from the Trinity. Or maybe Yamaha is just smarter than Korg 8)

Basically there are no "excuses" just reasons for design decisions. After 27 years working as an electrical engineer I can tell you there's lots of desirable features that get left out of products for all sorts of reasons. #1 reason is balancing additional cost vs. how many users will actually make use of the feature