Add the readily available and cheap mSATA Solid State Drives to your Amiga! 

One of the best features of OS 3.1.4+ is that it natively supports partition sizes greater than 2GB/4GB . No more patches for larger drives :)

@@amigaretro4765 I thought the limit for Workbench 3.0/3.1 was 8GBHD with 2GB Partitions using FFS (fast filesystem), I remember buying a 13GB HD for my A1200 back in the day only for it to detect 8GB only. Had to change the filesystem to break the 8GB limit, think it was either PFS (professional filesystem) or SFS (smart filesystem). But as you say once KS 3.1.4 and WB 3.1.4 and 3.2 arrived then this was fixed but they still didn't update the file system fully. I've changed all my partitions to PFS3 for my A1200 and using WB3.2, My A500+ with ACA500+ uses PFS3 already as default. So my A500+ with ACA500PLUS and with the ACA1221LC accelerator or 68k@42Mhz, on a Compact Flash HD. The drive speed I was getting was over 6MB/s. It would be interesting to see the mSATA drive with PFS3 installed.

Thanks. I like to leave my mistakes/errors in my videos so others can learn from them. This practice can have it's downsides, such as drawing harsh criticism from time to time, but it's worth it.

Me too. It shows users, that the Amiga OS uses T: as a temporary folder for storage during installations. It's such an easy fix when you know what it is and how to fix it. That caught me out a couple of times back in the 1980s when I first got an Amiga 2000 during a hard disk installation. A friend had to come over and fix it exactly with those two commands.

It is a great solution to the usual problems when trying to install the most modern Amiga OS's onto a new or existing devices. The install came as one of the options when I purchased my SDBox, I added the latest updates later on.

I'll try not to let another 4 months pass until my next video 😁

No problem 👍

Indeed. I plan on performing a series of proper comparison tests between mSATA and CF cards on the Amiga 1200, in a future Video. Thanks for watching!

CFcards have the advantage of being cheaper and easier to replace being external. But of course for higher performance mSATA is a better solution.

@@BillAnt The ease of swapping CF Cards is a definite advantage 👌

Maybe an adapter for CFexpress would be a best of both worlds solution.

I believe this switch enables the Voltage regulator when using 5 Volts to supply the mSATA with the required 3.3Volts. If this is the case, setting the switch to 3.3V may harm the mSATA device. I would need to perform some tests to confirm this. I added further clarification to the pinned comment at the top of this video forum. Thanks 😀

True. Mini-SATA ("mSATA") is the same connector as the PCIe Mini connector, but does not provide PCIe to the interface, SATA only. M.2 connector is narrower, but does provide PCIe, as well as SATA and USB 3. The 4 extra pins on an IDE44 connector are for power.

It does work with a USB interface that accepts 44-pin IDE drives. I tested this earlier yester day 😀

@@amigaretro4765 IMHO using WinUAE for setup and transfer would be a better solution. Its faster, you can backup the original drive along the way, then transfer its files onto the new device, pop some cheeky new files on there (VERY quickly) if needed and THEN put the Sata device in the real machine. Im a big fan of REAL hardware, but using WinUAE for drive setup and data transfer, is a bit of a killer feature of it...

A good idea. I am not sure why the case didn't come with a bottom cover. Currently the 90 Degree connectors I have cannot accommodate thew case the controller is mounted in. If removed, it will. As you suggested, if I did that I could always supply some insulation at the bottom of the card, as I have in the pas on the CF to IDE adapters.

For reasons unknown 😄Less popular brands can be cheaper still, though the trust factor may match the price.

@@amigaretro4765 i'd stick with known brands, worth the extra cost and peace of mind

I have tried different microphones in the past but haven't found anything that seemed to work as well as I expected. I will definitely give your suggestion a shot., probably in time for my next video, Thanks :)

@@amigaretro4765 I bought the pack, which has the receiver and two microphones. The receiver is not necassary, I mainly use a single microphone which can be setup to auto record when turned on. I have found it works very well. The 2nd mic has been useful for interviews, but other than that it COULD I suppose be put next to a noisy thing, a hard disk or fan to show it off in video. I have not tried a lavalier ext mic with it, but that might be on my list to buy, as the RODE is a little big and can hang awkwardly off some collars. But overall its been pretty epic. BTW, if you want, I think you CAN connect the receiver to your phone/camera and get the mic to record ONTO the video audio, replacing it. BUT I find the video audio is usefully sometimes as it picks up more background sound, which can be mixed into a video if i imroves it. Anway, try the RODE kit, you wont be disapointed :)

I shall, Thanks :)

Thanks for watching. The switch is for the Input Voltage, this enables the voltage regulator to power the mSATA drive at the correct voltage. Since the Amiga supplies 5 volts on the IDE header, the switch needs to be in the 5 volt position.

Thanks for watching. The switch is for the Input Voltage, this enables the voltage regulator to power the mSATA drive at the correct voltage. Since the Amiga supplies 5 volts on the IDE header, the switch needs to be in the 5 volt position.

Not at the moment, why don you ask?

Noted and added to the pinned comment.

No calculations were used. Amiga OS > 3.1 defaults t0 80 versus the usual 30 (for FFS). I guess they assume you would have more system memory available in this day and age. SFS recommends 200 buffers. This can eat a bit of memory if have multiple partitions that use this filesystem.

@@amigaretro4765 ok thanks, I'm trying to figure out best setting with A600 and 9.5MB ram (Furia) & 3x4gb partitions. I went with PFS as it seemed to work well on my A1200.

@@rossedwards6503 I found this on the internet of things, it may help since the author explains disk buffers in a bit more detail than the Amiga OS Manuals... www.jaruzel.com/amiga/amiga-os-command-reference-help/addbuffers.html#:~:text=The%20default%20buffer%20allocation%20is%205%20for%20floppy,by%20taking%20RAM%20away%20from%20other%20system%20functions.

There was a slight speed increase over the CF card, thought in real world practice it would not be very noticeable. in general mSATA drives can cost less than most CF Cards and you have a choice of larger capacities. Also, some CF cards do not play well with the Amiga, this may help resolve this issue. That being said, as with most things in life, use what you believe best suits your needs. It's always nice to have options.

Actually he wrote about sd2ide, not cf2ide. You can get sd2ide adapters quite cheap - and SD/ microSD cards also cost a lot less than cf or mSata. Also there are extension cables for SD and microSD, so you can make it exchangable without opening the case. So quite simple to setup in an emulator on PC and also quite easy to backup and restore. Anyway imho the best solution is using two ide2sata adapters (one master, one slave) in the A1200. One SATA inside to a Sata2mSATA or SATA2SD as internal harddrive, second SATA to an external eSATA connector. This allows to easaly connect a SATA CD/DVD drive externaly - or an IDE-CD/DVD-slim line drive, if you use an IDE slim drive adapter and a Sata to IDE-adapter. Last seems a bit silly on first glance, but actually is the best way to connect a cd drive to the internal ide of an Amiga. While the internal IDE is unbuffered, the IDE2SATA also acts as a buffer. So the SATA/eSata can be quite long without problem. The reason to use an IDE-CD/DVD drive externaly with Sata2ide and ide to slimline adapter and not a Sata cd: SATA CD/DVD do not have analoge audio out. So with SATA CD you only can read audio-cd's digitally, while many Amiga CD-player software just use the drive to play the audio. The IDE to slimeline adapter provides the analoge out... I do not have an A1200 but tested it on an A2000 with buddha IDE. Actually the reason for testing was less about adding a hd, but to reuse a CDTV (replacing the drive with a slim-line slot-in cd/dvd drive + using a pistorm or vampire)

@@oleurgast730 I have not had a good experience with SD Cards and the variety of adapters they can be paired with, usually compatibility issues, more so than CF Cards. That being said, the intent of my Video is to introduce another storage option for the Amiga, to those who have not explored that avenue. I should have made that more clear at the begging of the Video, for that I apologize.

​@@amigaretro4765You are totaly correct about the relibility of mSATA over SD. The two main advantages of SD are the price and the easy way to put it into a PC to do a backup. As flash storage isn't a reliable long-term storage, neither USB-storage sticks, nor SD, nor SATA drives nor mSATA, nor CF are realy optimal for a Retro Computer. So personaly I prefer to backup the final installation as an image. An SD with the slot easy acessible makes that much more easy. So for mSATA it might be a good idea to use an IDE2SATA-Adapter, a SATA cable and place an Sata2mSATA Adapter under the trepdoor, so you can access the hd without having to unscew the Amiga. You still need an mSata2usb to use it for connecting it to the PC. Of course, it very depends on the Amiga used and other extensions inside. Using mSATA definitly is the most compact solution. However, on bigbox Amigas I use normal SATA-Drives with IDE2SATA. It depends a lot what you already have. I have some normal SSDs with 128GB, barely used, as I swapped them for bigger ones after about 6 months. Quite nice to use in bigbox Amigas.

@@amigaretro4765 never had any problems with those cheap Chinese SD2IDE44 adapters. The overall cost is around 12USD for entire solution, yes the speed is probably slightly lower, but then again I use a thin flat SD adapter with cable to bring the SD card to back door on A1200 for easy card changes. And I can use the SD card in my PC with WinUAE...