Using a USB key instead of a hard drive

[leapinlew]

My next MAME machine I am considering using a 1gb USB key instead of a hard drive.

I see the USB key having a few benefits:

• Less heat
• Less space
• cheaper
• Faster boot and access

I'm not sure what kind of life expectancy they would have. Whats anyones thoughts on this?

[Kaytrim]

I've done that with a USB hub inside a portable CP.  It had MAME and some roms.  All I needed was a computer with monitor.  Worked out quite well until I mounted the CP on my FrankenMAME test cab.  I pulled the hub at that point because it was not needed.  They have the USB keys up to 8gb now for about $200.

I don't know if it would be faster though.  I think that the IDE and SATA bus are faster then the USB bus.  You could put a tiny Linx distro on the key and boot to it though if the MB supports USB boot up.

TTFN
Kaytrim

[ChadTower]

Fast access?  Not sure about that.  At least it would be easy to pop out and make changes.

My main concern would be how long it will hold up under the type of heavy usage this would need.  These things aren't usually primary devices.

[SavannahLion]

Go look up Hybrid Hard Drives (HHD) and Solid State Drives (SSD).

I say go ahead and knock yourself out. By the time you have to worry about the USB drive going rotten, HHD's or even SSD's will become large and economical enough to justify their use.

If you really want to be hinky and lower the write impact, a 1GB drive can easily fit inside the RAM space of a decent machine. Create a virtual drive and dump the contents there. Might take some tinkering for speed issues but it'll work.

[ChadTower]

Go look up Hybrid Hard Drives (HHD) and Solid State Drives (SSD).

Those are designed to carry the load of being a primary drive.  A 1g USB key is not.  Different types of construction and manufacture quality.  I mean hell, just look up the write lifespan of your average usb thumb drive.  A lot of them are only in the 5 figures. 

[SavannahLion]

I mean hell, just look up the write lifespan of your average usb thumb drive.  A lot of them are only in the 5 figures. 

Then he might want to keep a backup, just in case. 

[ChadTower]

He'll have to keep a lot of them.  There are thumb drive OS out there that do load from the key into RAM, as you've mentioned, but then you have to load your machine with enough RAM to do that... and now you're really moving away from the simple cost of having a $15 20g IDE drive in there.

A slightly more physically capable solution might be an older external IDE... you can get an USB IDE case for short money now, pop that cheap 20g drive in there, and then you have something actually suited to the task but still easily swappable.

[crzywolf]

Try a compact flash card in stead of a USB key . You can buy a hard drive IDE to compact flash adapter converter off Ebay for a few dollars .

[leapinlew]

Fast access?  Not sure about that.  At least it would be easy to pop out and make changes.

My main concern would be how long it will hold up under the type of heavy usage this would need.  These things aren't usually primary devices.

I was under the impression that a USB key is much faster than a hard disk. I've booted machines from a USB key and loaded an OS on the key and it is quite fast.

I guess the write cycles is the biggest concern. Lets say a usb key has a write cycle of 500,000 cycles before it dies. How quickly would I eat through those cycles?

My primary thought was if making the machine solid state would improve more reliable, it could be worthwhile. I'd really need to know if 500,000 write cycles would take 100's of years to hit or a few days.

[grundle]

It can last for some time, but make sure you turn off virtual memory (paging file).  And then you'll have to deal with the reduced performance of this.

Microcenter regularly has 1gig thumb drives for $10, and 2 gig for $13.  Certainly worth a try, even if you have to find a new solution a couple months down the road.

The flash hard drives have complex wear levelling algorithms implemented which change the physical location of each "sector" randomly.  Then they sense when they are going bad and mark them so that they aren't used again.  We're using a 16gig flash drive at work.  It runs about $1000, but it's awesome.  No heat, very low power draw (it's a battery operated system.)  I'm hoping for one to "fall off the truck", if you know what I mean.

If you're comfortable with Linux you can boot from the USB stick, but create a RAM Drive.  This eliminates all writes to the stick.  Basically it copies the contents of the drive to RAM.  Any edits that are made are just changed on the RAM.  If you want to keep the changes you enter a couple of commands and it gets written to flash.  USB stick would last for years.

Pretty complicated though.  If you don't do these things for a living or have already done it, probably best to just turn off virtual memory and cross your fingers.

[NightGod]

Fast access?  Not sure about that.  At least it would be easy to pop out and make changes.

My main concern would be how long it will hold up under the type of heavy usage this would need.  These things aren't usually primary devices.

I was under the impression that a USB key is much faster than a hard disk. I've booted machines from a USB key and loaded an OS on the key and it is quite fast.

As long as you are using USB 2.0, it should be. In fact, Vista has an option to use a USB 2.0 device as RAM for the system-it's not as fast as on-board RAM, but it's definately faster than hard drive access.

[blueznl]

Don't do writes. For example, create an image, load it at boot time fully into ram. Run it in ram. Just don't do writes.

This may not work with XP, but will work with Win98. Dunno if it would work with an embedded version of XP (it probably will, but I don't know if you need to run or can even run DirectX or something like that on embedded or PE).

USB's as well as many other flash ram based devices are good for repeated reads, just not for repeated writes. Even cheap sticks will work well. If you need an analogy think about a CD R/W...

[dmckean]

Use Linux and run everything in RAM like others have said. I'm doing this in my cab and it works great, it took a little while to set up because I hadn't messed with Linux much before but once I got it up and running it worked great. RAM is cheap and MAME only needs about 256 meg anyway. If you go with a hard drive it's going to fail every 3 to 5 years on average if you run your cabinets 24 hours a day.

[ChadTower]

I'm still not sure I believe that USB 2.0 is faster than an internal IDE directly on the system bus.  I just don't see that happening.  Too many factors against it, from latency due to distance, to number of conductors, to most basic design concepts.  Sure, it would be faster than an external hard drive, but internal vanilla IDE?  I'd have to see some very credible proof before believing that.


EDIT:  FWIW, Wikipedia puts a PATA (aka IDE) drive's practical transfer speed, under average conditions, at 50-60MB/second.  It also puts a full speed USB (all prior to 2.0 and many 2.0) device, not connected to a hub, at 12MB/second.  A hi-speed USB (many 2.0 but certainly not all) has a theoretical max of 60MB/second but a usual performance max of 30MB/second, again only if not attached via a hub.  USB devices attached via a hub all share the throughput max of the port to which the hub is attached, so if you have a 4 port hub each with a device, they would be sharing a usual 12MB/second throughput, and even then only ever achieving max individual performance if the USB hub in question has individual transaction translator for each hub port (not common in cheap hubs).

So, assuming he used a good hi-speed (make sure to check your specs, 2.0 is not hi-speed by spec) key, connected directly to its own motherboard port, he will get speeds of a third to half of internal IDE.  Given that USB keys are known to slow down as their write cycles are used up, it won't be long before he's looking at a more expensive device with less capacity, much slower speeds, and a very finite lifespan if he uses a USB key as his primary storage device.

A 10g PATA/IDE drive is almost free and suffers none of those limitations.

[hbm*rais]

No need to reinvent the wheel there, messing with ram disks and stuff yourself, or even learning the internals of linux. AdvanceCD can generate an ISO image that you can "burn" on a CD or pendrive.

Just download AdvanceCD. Put the roms in the right folder. Run the script that creates the image. Burn the image. You're done.

It's based on a Linux liveCD (like Knoppix), it will auto detect your hardware (hopefully) and boot into a frontend (AdvanceMenu. Granted not the greatest looking...).

It will run mostly from RAM, so it will limit the wear.

As for speed, it boots fast enough IIRC. If you're using a 1Gb pendrive, you probably don't intend to fill it with 60+Mb Neo Geo roms. For classics, load time should be a non-issue.

[ChadTower]

If I wanted to do a RAM operating, nonwriting boot, I'd probably use a DVD too.  You could put all of those MVS roms on a DVD without a problem.

[hbm*rais]

Chad,

You're probably right about that. If you want a nonwriting system, you'd be better off with a DVD (except if you have very limited space, like in a bartop).

The thing with AdvanceCD and pendrives is that it opens the possibility of having a write enabled partition in the pendrive to keep some files that can be chanced once in a while (like configuration files ou hi-scores).

Notice that I haven't done this myself and I'm not saying I know how to do it, but the possibility is there .

[ChadTower]

Yep, I wouldn't want to do a pure RAM based system either, for things like hi-scores especially.  It just seems like overengineering to do a RAM based boot when you can drop a cheapo IDE drive in.  Without the PC case, open inside a cabinet, an IDE drive is nearly as swappable as a pen drive.

[hbm*rais]

I think advantage of the pen drive is not exactly the ability to swap it. I personally don't care for it. What attracts me in that kind of solution is:

1. Less noise, heat, power consumption. The whole system is already running from RAM, if you can turn off your monitor, you can probably leave the CPU running 24/7, ready for action. No boot time at all, just turn on the monitor and play.

2. As the main part of the system is already write protected, there is no need to shut it down properly. It's also less prone to file system corruption. If the pen drive eventually goes bad, just plug another one on your main computer and "burn" another image.

Those two things would make my cabinet more like a consumer device (or a real ROM-based arcade) and less like a glorified computer, and that's definitively a plus for me.

[ChadTower]

1. Less noise, heat, power consumption. The whole system is already running from RAM, if you can turn off your monitor, you can probably leave the CPU running 24/7, ready for action. No boot time at all, just turn on the monitor and play.

The drive doesn't consume that much power.  If you took out the drive and then kept your machine running 24/7, you'd probably end up using more power than you started with.  Plus you're seriously shortening your machine lifespan.

2. As the main part of the system is already write protected, there is no need to shut it down properly. It's also less prone to file system corruption. If the pen drive eventually goes bad, just plug another one on your main computer and "burn" another image.

That one works for me depending on how often you need to swap out a dying pen drive.

Those two things would make my cabinet more like a consumer device (or a real ROM-based arcade) and less like a glorified computer, and that's definitively a plus for me.

One concern I'd have is that this setup may actually cost more, not less, since you need more RAM.  RAM is a lot more expensive than either a pen drive or IDE drive.

[vrf]

Here's something else to chew on:

http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/store/embedded_storage
http://www.logicsupply.com/index.php/cPath/47_67

This was something I'd considered for my cab, but in the end I decided to go with a regular hard disk.

Oh, and I have to agree with Chad. USB thumb drives (even 2.0) are nowhere near as fast as the slick new SSDs. But those also cost an arm and a leg.

[Kaytrim]

One thing about a pen drive vrs an IDE drive is that it is more durable physically wise.  If you drop a hard drive you chance crashing the heads on the platter.  With a pen drive there is no damage from dropping it as there are no moving parts.  This is a definite benefit for a portable system.

[Kaytrim]

Here's something else to chew on:

http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/store/embedded_storage
http://www.logicsupply.com/index.php/cPath/47_67

This was something I'd considered for my cab, but in the end I decided to go with a regular hard disk.

Oh, and I have to agree with Chad. USB thumb drives (even 2.0) are nowhere near as fast as the slick new SSDs. But those also cost an arm and a leg.

What you have linked there is a perfect example of a portable arcade machine.  All you need is a TV or PC monitor.  The mini itx boards from Via have TV out already built in.

[ChadTower]

Definitely good for use with cabs that do not have a built in monitor.  Monitors are more fragile than hard drives.

[vrf]

Agree about the no moving parts thing. Solid-state drives are the future, but they're not really in the mass market range yet if you need a large amount of storage. In the meantime, regular platter drives work pretty well in laptops, which shouldn't take any more of a beating than a portable cab.

Errmm... maybe...

So... about a solid state drive. How much would be enough? I know "all da romz" go well over 100 gigs, but lots of those games are crap. How much would "only the good stuff" take up?

I suppose that question depends on your game tastes...

[ChadTower]

It would end up costing way more in SSD storage than you'd probably be willing to pay, versus the "I had it in a drawer" cost of PATA.

[vrf]

True, but things are moving really quickly now. Prices are going to start falling once these things are put in laptops.

http://www.gearlog.com/2007/03/samsung_ssdanother_one.php

[hbm*rais]

1. Less noise, heat, power consumption. The whole system is already running from RAM, if you can turn off your monitor, you can probably leave the CPU running 24/7, ready for action. No boot time at all, just turn on the monitor and play.

The drive doesn't consume that much power.  If you took out the drive and then kept your machine running 24/7, you'd probably end up using more power than you started with.  Plus you're seriously shortening your machine lifespan.

I don't mean a pen drive based system running 24/7 would necessarily use less power than a HDD based one turned on on demand. I mean it would be a more practical one. Would you like to wait your DVD player or microwave oven to boot before you could use it  ?

As AdvanceCD is based on a very striped down version of linux, with no background processes using the CPU constantly, I'm pretty confident a solution based on a pen drive and a cool'n'quiet AMD processor would use *very* little power when just idleing on the frontend.

As for lifespan of the machine (as a whole), I would prefer to have a diskless machine running 24/7 than a HDD beeing turned on and off daily.

At the end of the day, this is more about turning your cabinet into a instant-on device, like a TV, than about saving power, producing less noise or heat.

[ChadTower]

Arcade machines weren't instant-on devices.  I see what you're saying, but for someone going for an original appearance, arcade games have boot times.  They always did once they went past pure TTL architectures.

[hbm*rais]

Oh, the boot times are there! You'll have one each time you load a rom, complete with an original boot screen  .

 

[dmckean]

If you guys are worried about USB being too slow you can always go with one of these:

http://www.pcconnection.com/ProductDetail?sku=5313604&SourceID=k40132

[ChadTower]

That's no faster than the hi-speed USB device directly connected to a 2.0 on board port.  It's actually slower with theoretical speeds of 12, 24 or 49MBytes per second (S100, S200, and S400 respectively).

Firewire does have the advantage of more consistent performance, though, since it is peer-to-peer rather than client-server like USB.

[vrf]

Another solid-state option:

http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/peripherals/addonics-compactflash-adapters-replace-notebook-hard-drives-249594.php

[Kaytrim]

Here is one that is even cheaper.  Made for a desktop PC.  Scroll down to the products list.
http://www.addonics.com/products/flash_memory_reader/ad44midecf.asp

[ChadTower]

The adapter is certainly priced right.

[Kaytrim]

And you can get a 8GB CF card for under $100 on eBay.

[vrf]

By the way, the CF card idea has been used in at least one cab already. First time I saw it was in this miniature cab:

http://www.yvan256.net/projects/micromame/


(This project partially inspired my cab.)

Seems like a CF drive would work especially well on a low-power system that just ran older games.

[ChadTower]

I would see it being mostly for space reasons... the disadvantages otherwise are too big to use it over a regular hard drive.

[vrf]

Here is one that is even cheaper.  Made for a desktop PC.  Scroll down to the products list.
http://www.addonics.com/products/flash_memory_reader/ad44midecf.asp

I think, actually, that you're looking at the notebook to desktop (2.5" to 3.5") connector that costs only 10 bucks. You still have to buy the whole CF to 2.5" adapter for $25.

I think.

[Kaytrim]

There has been a few other projects that have used this type of drive.  Bartop and Cocktail cabinets come to mind.  IIRC they used DOS and MAME .69 or some older version.

Here it is...
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=59941.msg592450#msg592450

[Kaytrim]

Here is one that is even cheaper.  Made for a desktop PC.  Scroll down to the products list.
http://www.addonics.com/products/flash_memory_reader/ad44midecf.asp

I think, actually, that you're looking at the notebook to desktop (2.5" to 3.5") connector that costs only 10 bucks. You still have to buy the whole CF to 2.5" adapter for $25.

I think.

Did a quick search on eBay and they have the IDE adapters for under $5

[Kaytrim]

I am going to play around with this.  I have an old PC lying around including 15" monitor.  Purchased these IDE adapters and these CF Cards.  I have received the CF cards already and hope to see the adapters today or Monday.  I'll start a project thread once I start the build.

TTFN
Kaytrim

[Yvan256]

By the way, the CF card idea has been used in at least one cab already. First time I saw it was in this miniature cab:

http://www.yvan256.net/projects/micromame/


(This project partially inspired my cab.)

Seems like a CF drive would work especially well on a low-power system that just ran older games.

At this point I'd rather suggest an IDE Flash Module instead. It will take a lot less room in extremely compact cabinets.

[danny_galaga]

If you go with a hard drive it's going to fail every 3 to 5 years on average if you run your cabinets 24 hours a day.

you keep your mame cab running 3 to 5 years at a time without turning it off?

[danny_galaga]

So... about a solid state drive. How much would be enough? I know "all da romz" go well over 100 gigs, but lots of those games are crap. How much would "only the good stuff" take up?

I suppose that question depends on your game tastes...

who can say? i recently tried using a USB drive as a hard drive on my cocktail. Didn't work because i didn't know what i was doing, but everything on the original drive only took up about 750mb. About 200 games, virtually none that are in the megabytes (a couple of the more modern shmups mostly), win98, and mame itself...

I've given up on that and now have a brand new 80Gb IDE drive (smallest i could find new). I reckon i should get more than 10 years out of that, considering the original 4gb drive still sometimes works and it was from my PC i built ten years ago...

[rusolinio]

Cheap PC internal memory card readers, using SD cards work well. They read perfectly fast enough for mame, and are MEGA cheap.

[IG-88]

Cheap PC internal memory card readers, using SD cards work well. They read perfectly fast enough for mame, and are MEGA cheap.

You can boot an O/S from one of those??