I'm running a laptop on a Compact flash disk
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=1012554&l=c3cbb2ff8c&id=1645041910
I chose to use the CF disk because is was cheaper than the smallest
laptop hard drive I could find to replace a dead dead hard drive. ( I
think it was about $28 around the time I uploaded that photo)
what precautions should I be taking (if any ) in addition to EXT2 and
"noatime" (so it doesn't update the access times for files ) should be
taking ?
The machine has no critical data on it. It's used only to run firefox,
ssh and vncviewer. I had Ubuntu on it but that didn't suspend/resume
properly and one day the drive failed in some way that it could not be
mounted by anything.
I reformatted the drive, installed FC13 a few months ago, has been fine
since. ( suspend/resume works )
--Russell
On 10/1/2010 12:27 AM, Chris Knadle wrote:
On Thu, September 30, 2010 11:01 pm, Delio M. DeMoura wrote:
I find that USB drives usually fail at the USB connector. The flash memory
itself almost never fails.
Wish it were so. You can read online how some people formatted their USB
flash stick using the Ext3 filesystem, and the flash stick failed very
soon afterward due to the journal for the filesystem overwriting the same
section of the flash memory too many times.
I had a customer that used Ext3 on a CF card used for an embedded computer
against my recommendation, and the CF card failed within a few months of
very light use. Probably for the same reason.
Flash memory has improved as to how many writes it can tolerate, but it's
hard to know when you buy one whether you get a version that can tolerate
a higher number of overwrites.
I have a couple of laptops with SSD's in them and beat them up pretty
good.
So far so good.
For USB flash and CF cards I recommend using the ext2 filesystem because
it's unjournaled. I've yet to have a CF card using ext2 fail, and I've
run some of them for 5 to 7 years.
LogFS is also a new filesystem that seems to be meant for USB and CF
cards, but it's not considered stable yet. I haven't tested it yet, but
I'm looking forward to trying it out when it's a little more mature so
that other machines can read it.
-- Chris
--
Chris Knadle
[email protected]
_______________________________________________
Mid-Hudson Valley Linux Users Group http://mhvlug.org
http://mhvlug.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mhvlug
Upcoming Meetings (6pm - 8pm) MHVLS Auditorium
Oct 6 - Creating Browser Extensions for Firefox and Chrome
Nov 3 - Open Source Hardware: Bugs, Beagles and Beyond
Dec 1 - IBM's Open Client Deployment
_______________________________________________
Mid-Hudson Valley Linux Users Group http://mhvlug.org
http://mhvlug.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mhvlug
Upcoming Meetings (6pm - 8pm) MHVLS Auditorium
Oct 6 - Creating Browser Extensions for Firefox and Chrome
Nov 3 - Open Source Hardware: Bugs, Beagles and Beyond
Dec 1 - IBM's Open Client Deployment
