[maemo-developers] [maemo-developers] Doubts about flash memories and frequent writing

[From: Lorn Potter]

Israel Herraiz wrote:
> Hi everybody,
> 
> sorry if my question seems too evident.
> 
> As far as I know, the Nokia 770 contains a flash memory (128 MB), a RAM
> memory (64 MB) and the MMC card.
> 
> All the filesystem is stored in the flash memory, and the MMC is mounted
> in /media/mmc1. Even, you can make swapping with a file in the MMC, as
> appeared some days ago in Planet Maemo.
> 
> I am wondering if swapping and every day writing in the internal flash
> could damage these memories. Some people told me that flash memories
> should not be used for frequent disks writing (like swapping or every
> day usage of a computer). Is this relevant? I mean, could I damage the
> flash memory if I use the device very often and I make swap on the MMC
> or internal flash?
> 
> Regards,
> Israel Herraiz

Older NOR flash has a 100,000 write limitation (complete write), NAND 
flash has about one million write cycles. All flash memory these days is 
NAND.

I wouldn't recommend swap on flash, but you (if you must) probably want 
swap on a removable card.




-- 
Lorn 'ljp' Potter
Trolltech Qtopia Community Manager
Opie Core Developer
http://qtopia.net