On Mon, Oct 16, 2006 at 01:57:55PM -0400, Lennart Sorensen wrote: > On Mon, Oct 16, 2006 at 01:50:15PM -0400, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > Different types of flash memory have different cycle counts. > > > I don't know how a memory chip gets translated into a 'drive'. Is it > > like a HDD with spare sectors? > > Depends on the firmware/controller in the device. Some are very dumb > and do essentially one to one mapping. Others are smart and do wear > leveling across the whole flash chip, so that anything that changes > often will be moved around, and stuff that never changes will be moved > to the more used sectors to let the less used sectors get some use. >
How do I tell smart from dumb before I buy? My store sells Kingston DataTraveler because Kinston makes good RAM too. It has a 5 year warranty. A 2 GB unit is $55 CDN. Does a badblocks check during a fs check work? Is there a filesystem that can compensate for dumb firmware? Is there a filesystem with integral sector-based error correction? Would partitioning a flash drive in two and raid1 together be useful, at least to preserve data when a sector dies so you can move the data to a new stick? Doug. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
