[maemo-users] Limited life of flash memory

[From: Mark]

On Thu, Dec 4, 2008 at 1:24 AM, Frantisek Dufka <dufkaf at seznam.cz> wrote:
> Mark wrote:
>
>> ...by which you're admitting that no wear levelling algorithm is
>> perfect...
>
> Yes, sure, nothing is :-) Still I think anything is better than FAT
> filesystem with synchronous writes (FAT table updated after writing each
> cluster) which is typical usage for memory cards. Ext2 or even ext3 which
> asynchronous writes and noatime should be much better.
>
> Here are quite interesting links I found later
>
> http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/linux/kernel/984032#984032
> http://www.linuxconf.eu/2007/papers/Engel.pdf
> http://www.linux-mtd.infradead.org/doc/ubifs.html#L_raw_vs_ftl
>
>

But the OS filesystem is irrelevant on removable memory cards that
have their own controllers, such as SD and Compact Flash. The OS
doesn't have access to the low-level functions that direct specific
sector usage.

Theory and reality are often quite different.

Mark