[DuoList] Update on my PB2400c CompactFlash boot drive adventure(was Hard...

[Clark Martin]

At 10:35 AM -0500 12/15/05, COCCORP at aol.com wrote:
>In a message dated 12/15/2005 10:21:26 AM Eastern Standard Time, 
>victoria.duggan at ntlworld.com writes:
>
>This is very interesting that the flash memory has a finite life use, 
>as the new ipod nano's are flash memory so hows that working???. are 
>they going to die after 6 months of constant use or have apple found 
>a work around.
>
>Finite as to writing to the flash memory, and that finite number is 
>about 10,000 writes.
>
>Reading is limitless.
>

I know the earlier EEPROM was 10,000 writes but I think I'd heard 
some current stuff is 100,000 writes

But even at 10,000 writes and writing data to it once per day that's 
27 years of use.

Using flash for VM is more problematic as it may write to the same 
location a hundred or even thousand times a day. It depends on the 
ratio of physical RAM to virtual RAM and the activity level.



Years ago where I worked we had an NEC SilentWriter.  This was an LED 
printer as opposed to a laser printer.  It used a couple of EEPROM 
chips to, among other things, keep track of pages printed.  Well it 
didn't take too long before it stopped working.  We dug up some 
information (pre-google) that it was caused by the EEPROM being 
written too many times and that removing them would fix it (albeit 
without keeping track of the number of pages printed).
-- 
Clark Martin
Redwood City, CA, USA
Macintosh / Internet Consulting

"I'm a designated driver on the Information Super Highway"