Re: running from compact flash media?

Daniel Pittman <[email protected]>
Newsgroups gmane.org.user-groups.slug.chat
Organization I know I put it down here, somewhere.
Message-ID <[email protected]>
"Voytek Eymont" <[email protected]> writes:

> I just came across an IDE compact flash media adapter, and, I'm toying
> with the idea of installing a bootable operating system on such a
> media.
>
> has anyone used anything like that, what are the downsides?

Yes, including you, I bet, since you probably own some sort of little
appliance widget that runs Linux or similar.

The downsides are that low performance, limited write capacity and
storage capacity.[1]

Specifically, most CF cards have very low performance compared to hard
disks or high end dedicated IDE / SATA attached flash storage.  You can
expect mixed results, but anything read or write heavy will be a pain.


Also, flash has a limited number of write cycles for each block.  Good
CF cards will do wear leveling internally, so you can expect several
years of life from them no matter what file system you run.

Bad ones, expect to see them die in short order. ;)

Regards,
        Daniel

Footnotes: 
[1]  Though, these days, not so much an issue.

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