On Thu, Mar 12, 2009 at 01:27:34PM EDT, Dan Serban wrote: > Chris Jones wrote: > > I have been using a run-of-the-mill 8GB SanDisk Cruzer Micro for nightly > > backups for c. 6 months and I am curious as to wear and tear. > > > > The smartctl utility does not give me much information: "SMART Health > > Status: OK" + a cryptic "Read defect list: asked for grown list but > > didn't get it" - I don't get it either.. > > > > I thought I'd run an e2fsck with the -c "badblocks" option.. took two > > hours and returned zero errors. > > > > But come to think of it, I'm not sure whether running e2fsck makes any > > sense in the first place.. in other words, does some smart technology > > live on the USB stick way below filesystems that might "mask" such > > goings-on anyway? > > > > Just curious how fast my stick is deteriorating ... how soon will I have > > to consider budgeting another..
> By running the badblocks you're wearing your stick down. Naturally. Actually, this might be the beginning of an answer .. run e2fsck's until your stick dies.. :-) > I don't remember the particulars, but the technology does have a > specific amount of writes per block. Yes, flash based storage does have > an underlying "reallocation" technique, as well as an "even" writing > method, ie. tries to write to each block the same number of times the > other blocks have been written to on average. That's basically what I am (was.. see below) "curious" about. Couldn't find much documentation online that looked like somebody out there knew what they were talking about. Thanks anyway.. as s/o suggested previously.. looks like my superficial understanding of flash drives is adequate for the time being. CJ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
