chefren wrote: > On 3/28/08 1:20 AM, Rod Whitworth wrote: > >> The CF wearout meme needs to die. > > Specs, it's all about specs, it seems a fact to me that "standard" CF > cards, as used in camera's, often without any technical specification > other than "size", cannot be written as often as ordinary harddisks.
maybe, maybe not. Rod's right, though... I've never seen a flash media die from "write fatigue". I have seen and heard of a fair number die for other reasons. There are reasons to use flash media. Reliability is not one of them in my mind. They are small, they are quiet, they are low power, they are vibration resistant. They last a long time...usually. But they can fail. > The foreseeable future people need to be really careful while choosing > memory cards as hard disk replacements. I agree, but not for the reasons usually given. If you are using a flash drive to avoid worrying about failures, you are fooling yourself..even if the flash drives were PERFECT, there are other parts of the computer that fail, and there are user errors. SO, you still need the EXACT SAME recovery processes in place for flash drives as you do for disks. Using flash doesn't let you dodge recovery and backup needs. If you try to shoe-horn a big system into a small flash drive and make something you don't properly maintain (key issue is DO YOU maintain it, not COULD you maintain it. Doesn't matter what you could do if you don't), the system will be less reliable. If you have an app where you need or want low power, quiet or small, go ahead, use flash media, but for goodness sake, don't screw up a really good OS by trying to meet some goal that is completely bogus. Just use it as normal, and maintain it as normal. Odds are, something else will take your system down long before write fatigue does, most likely, it will be your butchery of a working solution. It's the unexpected downtime that counts, not the reason. Who the frick cares that you tried to avoid a one-in-five-year hypothetical failure if you caused several days of very non-hypothetical downtime as a result? A simple, standard install will out-perform your hacked up mess every time. Someone posted an article recently about people liking to use Linux because they like tweaking and adjusting and working with the system. I've worked with people like that -- they are smart and clever and will cause hours of downtime to avoid a totally non-problem (or on "really cool technology". This "don't write to flash" is a perfect example. If you wish to set a goal for yourself of "I don't wish to ever write to this disk", great. BUT don't tell yourself or anyone else this frankensystem is "better" than the normal installation. So, if your goal is a reliable system, keep it simple. If your goal is to have fun, do so. But don't confuse "having fun" with doing good work. Yes, you learn more by breaking things, but you impress people more if you break 'em off-line, and use that knowledge to keep your production stuff running and repaired quickly when it breaks. Nick.
