On 28 February 2011 10:12, m brandenberg <mcb...@panix.com> wrote: > On Sun, 27 Feb 2011, Jan Stary wrote: > >> I have been using www.pcengines.ch/alix2c1.htm >> as my home router for years. It is runnig current/i386. > > Have you been running from Compact Flash? I am interested in > hearing about your experiences getting maximum life from the > CF cards. I've started playing with one of these and they're > looking good. (I knocked mine to the floor twice while > compiling GENERIC and it didn't even notice.) > > -- > Monty Brandenberg
I've been running OpenBSD from CF coming on 6 years at my home and client sites, with Sun's, PC's and little Soekris and ALIX machines. http://www.mail-archive.com/misc@openbsd.org/msg11452.html Not a single failure yet. The limited writes issue is a non-issue, since write wear leveling algorithms serve to evenly distribute writes over the entire media. With typical endurance of 100,000 erase/writes per flash block, that's 400TB to kill a 4GB card. On a card that can write at 30MB/s, you would have to write to it in it's entirety, non-stop for 154 days before you killed it. Without even stopping to read from it. And some parts support 1,000,000 write cycle endurance, so that ridiculous constant flat-chat worst case scenario becomes over 4 years to part death. If you throw in 50/50 read/write duty cycle then now it's 8 years. In reality, what small device would have a really busy CF? Just use them, enjoy and don't worry. I use softdep and noatime mount options, to reduce writes just because I can, but they're not needed. Shane
