On 03/10/2014 02:43 PM, Tomaso E wrote:
Hi All,
I'm considering using a Beagle Bone Black for a project that I am
working on. I have some basic experience working with a couple of
different microcontrollers/computers but I really like the specs of
the Beagle Bone Black. I love that it can run various Linux
distributions and the hardware profile matches my project requirements
pretty closely.
One concern that I have is regarding the Beagle Bone Black's ability
to tolerate a sudden loss of power. On many embedded Linux systems,
if power is lost abruptly, the file system can become corrupt, and the
device will not be able to boot, unless the file system is completely
rebuilt.
With rotating media, journaling file systems such as ext3/4 handle
sudden asynchronous power losses fine. The problem seems to be that
flash sub systems such as SSD/eMMC contain internal controllers which
handle wear leveling/bad-block management etc. Here the issue becomes
worse as the file system has no knowledge of these internal processes. I
have worked with native flash file systems such as UBIFS, but they also
suffer from phenomena such as "unstable-bits"
http://www.linux-mtd.infradead.org/doc/ubifs.html#L_unstable_bits.
For these reasons, I am in the process developing a cape which provides
short term battery backup and intelligence to perform an orderly
shutdown. Other features include an independent watchdog and POE supprt.
Can the Beagle Bone Black tolerate an abrupt loss of power and not be
bricked? Ideally, for my project, the device would be powered down
properly, but I can think of instances where the board might lose
power suddenly. I was wondering if I would have to worry about having
the device get bricked if this happened.
The BBB would not be "bricked", but any file systems on the eMMC/SD may
be corrupted.
Thanks in advance!
Tomaso
HTH,
Dave.
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