RE: Which BSD - Flash Drive

2006-04-07 Thread Gayn Winters
 [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 


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Re: Which BSD - Flash Drive

2006-04-07 Thread Chuck Swiger

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).

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Re: Which BSD - Flash Drive

2006-04-06 Thread Chuck Swiger

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
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Re: Which BSD - Flash Drive

2006-04-06 Thread Malcolm Fitzgerald


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

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Re: Which BSD - Flash Drive

2006-04-06 Thread wc_fbsd

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
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Re: Which BSD - Flash Drive

2006-04-06 Thread Malcolm Fitzgerald


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

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