Zuluscsi Wide

[Amigaz]

I just wanted to share an exiting "upgrade" I have just done to my Amiga 4000D which has a Cyberstorm MKIII in it.
For storage I use to havea speedy but noisy 10k RPM SCSI hard drive, this maxed out the UW SCSI storage interface on the Cyberstorm MKIII but it also produced alot of heat in the cramped A4000D case. The I went to use an SSD with an Acard UW SCSI-> SATA adapter which was also quite a speedy solution but the Acard adapter got quite toasty.

Rabbit hole computers recently released the ZuluScsi Wide link

I bought one from studioservices.de since I am located in Europe.
I have used the ZuluScsi RP2040 and Compact in my other Amiga computers and in retro PC's which great results.

So why did I buy a ZuluScsi wide? Well ... for a couple of reasons: It is a speedy storage option, it produces less heat and it let's me switch OS very easy but switching SD card or active imagefile within the SD card. Let's me for example easily switch to running Amiga Game Selector for a while and then switch to running AmigaOS 3.2.x.x.

The only downgrade as I see it compared ro my previous storage options is a lower write speed.

Some pics and benchmark results:

 

[samaron]

Now someone just need to make an affordable accelerator card with UW-SCSI. Looking at the sales history, a CS MK3 is more than what I paid for my A4000 motherboard. Yikes.

 

[qz3fwd]

I am pretty sure there is an UW version of the BFG9060 being worked on.

 

[Amigaz]

Now someone just need to make an affordable accelerator card with UW-SCSI. Looking at the sales history, a CS MK3 is more than what I paid for my A4000 motherboard. Yikes.

Damn, are they really that expensive now?

 

[Amigaz]

I am pretty sure there is an UW version of the BFG9060 being worked on.

I highly doubt that. But it would be awesome if it could be done.

 

[samaron]

Damn, are they really that expensive now?

Looks like it. There is a sales thread from May last year for $<snip>. Doesn't look like the sale went through. Found another thread where one sold for the same amount in 2023. There are other threads for faulty cards and they are still several hundred dollars.

I have built a 4000 for less than that, and also recently bought an original board for a little under that amount.

I'm curious. What write speed did you have with the original hard drive, and what is it with the ZuluSCSI? From what I can tell by reading on both the ZuluSCSI and the equivalent BlueSCSI wide version, the write speed is around half of the read speed currently.

 

[Watson]

Remember guys, no prices are to be mentioned.

 

[qz3fwd]

I highly doubt that. But it would be awesome if it could be done.

Get ready for your doubts to be eliminated. Folks are working on it now.

 

[Amigaz]

Get ready for your doubts to be eliminated. Folks are working on it now.

 

[Amigaz]

Looks like it. There is a sales thread from May last year for $<snip>. Doesn't look like the sale went through. Found another thread where one sold for the same amount in 2023. There are other threads for faulty cards and they are still several hundred dollars.

I have built a 4000 for less than that, and also recently bought an original board for a little under that amount.

I'm curious. What write speed did you have with the original hard drive, and what is it with the ZuluSCSI? From what I can tell by reading on both the ZuluSCSI and the equivalent BlueSCSI wide version, the write speed is around half of the read speed currently.

Can you recommend a tool to measure write speed?

 

[samaron]

I recall using a program earlier that could generate files and test writing. I think it mainly was to test the file system, but could probably be used to test writing speed in various scenarios. Unfortunately I am completely lost on what the name was.

 

[Timtheloon]

Very interesting

I noticed this one too

ZuluSCSI Blaster

ZuluSCSI Blaster is an easy-to-use SCSI storage emulator, powered by the Raspberry Pi Foundation's RP2350B microcontroller. ZuluSCSI is easy to use: Simply place an appropriately-named disk image or CD-ROM ISO on your SD card in order to present it for use by your SCSI host system. Up to seven...

shop.rabbitholecomputing.com

anyone tried it with an Amiga? if so did you get close to the speed shown?

 

[Amigaz]

I doubt you will get the max speeds in that spec. On narrow SCSI controllers on Amiga's you rarely get speeds over 7-8MB/s.

But on the A3000 with the newly produced customs chips you can:

 

[Amigaz]

Looks like it. There is a sales thread from May last year for $<snip>. Doesn't look like the sale went through. Found another thread where one sold for the same amount in 2023. There are other threads for faulty cards and they are still several hundred dollars.

I have built a 4000 for less than that, and also recently bought an original board for a little under that amount.

I'm curious. What write speed did you have with the original hard drive, and what is it with the ZuluSCSI? From what I can tell by reading on both the ZuluSCSI and the equivalent BlueSCSI wide version, the write speed is around half of the read speed currently.

Here is a read/write speed test I just did with the devtest tool

 

[qz3fwd]

I was looking at the ZuluSCSI-UW tonight then noticed the write speeds. A little searching found this where a 20+ year old Seagate Cheetah has 4 x the write performance.
This made me pretty much stop considering the ZuluSCSI-UW

 

[Amigaz]

I was looking at the ZuluSCSI-UW tonight then noticed the write speeds. A little searching found this where a 20+ year old Seagate Cheetah has 4 x the write performance.
This made me pretty much stop considering the ZuluSCSI-UW

Yes, but is it worth the noise and high heat such a hdd produce? And when do you benifit from ultra high write speeds on a 68k Amiga?