Re: Which BSD - Flash Drive
Gayn Winters wrote: [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Malcolm Fitzgerald [ ... ] http://www.crucial.com/kb/answer.asp?qid=4088 Where they rate their own flash at 1,000,000 read/write cycles. The typical flash drive used to be rated for about 10,000 writes, but the better vendors do better. :-) They've also started doing things like "wear leveling" by rotating the sectors being written to, which help avoid hotspots forming which wear out earlier (ie, the directory entry for / or /tmp). But you need to look for that feature in your flash drives as the low-cost ones typically won't have it! You can help things out a lot by disabling file access time updating ("noatime" flag to mount), and by using RAMdisks and a no-swap config, as someone else had mentioned. But I'll repeat my caveat: if you want to run a general-purpose FreeBSD system, you're better off using a hard drive than flash. Save using flash for dedicated appliances where you've taken steps to control writes. -- -Chuck PS: I'm seeing a relatively significant number of 5-8 year old Cisco boxes starting to wear out their flash chips and fail (ie, 3 out of about a dozen or so I've had contact with over the years). ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
RE: Which BSD - Flash Drive
> [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of > Malcolm Fitzgerald > Sent: Thursday, April 06, 2006 8:28 PM > To: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG > Subject: Re: Which BSD - Flash Drive > > On 07/04/2006, at 12:53 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > > At 07:40 PM 4/6/2006, Malcolm Fitzgerald wrote: > >>>> I would like to run a BSD distribution off a 1GB USB > Flash drive... > >>> That's possible. You do understand that flash drives > only have very > >>> limited # of write cycles before they fail, and should be > operated > >>> in read-only mode most of the time? > >> I've only heard that on this list. > > > > I've read it on some linux lists too. Apparently there is > some truth > > to it. It's supposedly not so bad that it's gonna fail in > a week > > but don't put a swap slice on a flash device. > > 100,000 write cycles was the estimate > > > Also, Crucial / Micron (memory manufacturers) address it in > their FAQ > > at www.crucial.com and state that it is a real concern, but > if you buy > > their flash devices, they are covered by their lifetime > warranty, even > > if such a failure should occur. > > do you have a link - I couldn't find it > > Malcolm http://www.crucial.com/kb/answer.asp?qid=4088 Where they rate their own flash at 1,000,000 read/write cycles. -gayn Bristol Systems Inc. 714/532-6776 www.bristolsystems.com ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
Re: Which BSD - Flash Drive
On 07/04/2006, at 12:53 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: At 07:40 PM 4/6/2006, Malcolm Fitzgerald wrote: I would like to run a BSD distribution off a 1GB USB Flash drive... That's possible. You do understand that flash drives only have very limited # of write cycles before they fail, and should be operated in read-only mode most of the time? I've only heard that on this list. I've read it on some linux lists too. Apparently there is some truth to it. It's supposedly not so bad that it's gonna fail in a week but don't put a swap slice on a flash device. 100,000 write cycles was the estimate Also, Crucial / Micron (memory manufacturers) address it in their FAQ at www.crucial.com and state that it is a real concern, but if you buy their flash devices, they are covered by their lifetime warranty, even if such a failure should occur. do you have a link - I couldn't find it Malcolm ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
Re: Which BSD - Flash Drive
At 07:40 PM 4/6/2006, Malcolm Fitzgerald wrote: I would like to run a BSD distribution off a 1GB USB Flash drive... That's possible. You do understand that flash drives only have very limited # of write cycles before they fail, and should be operated in read-only mode most of the time? I've only heard that on this list. I've read it on some linux lists too. Apparently there is some truth to it. It's supposedly not so bad that it's gonna fail in a week but don't put a swap slice on a flash device. Also, Crucial / Micron (memory manufacturers) address it in their FAQ at www.crucial.com and state that it is a real concern, but if you buy their flash devices, they are covered by their lifetime warranty, even if such a failure should occur. -Wayne ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
Re: Which BSD - Flash Drive
On 07/04/2006, at 12:25 AM, Chuck Swiger wrote: orange_ wrote: I would like to run a BSD distribution off a 1GB USB Flash drive... What would be the most suitable - something like FreeSBIE? That's possible. You do understand that flash drives only have very limited # of write cycles before they fail, and should be operated in read-only mode most of the time? I've only heard that on this list. This is from wikipedia - search "flash drive" Recently there has been the increasing emergence of low cost "ROM-only" chips in USB drives, instead of regular flash memory that is rated for use up to 100,000 write cycles. ROM-only chips only last 5-10 cycles and are generally used for storing the Firmware in embedded devices. malcolm ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
Re: Which BSD - Flash Drive
orange_ wrote: I would like to run a BSD distribution off a 1GB USB Flash drive... What would be the most suitable - something like FreeSBIE? That's possible. You do understand that flash drives only have very limited # of write cycles before they fail, and should be operated in read-only mode most of the time? If you're planning to use this for a dedicated appliance-type role, ie, router, firewall, this is fine. If you want to do development or general-purpose interactive use, USB flash drives aren't a good choice. -- -Chuck ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"