From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Apr 7 17:29:10 2006 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4985F16A400 for ; Fri, 7 Apr 2006 17:29:10 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from cswiger@mac.com) Received: from pi.codefab.com (pi.codefab.com [199.103.21.227]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id DA1CD43D46 for ; Fri, 7 Apr 2006 17:29:09 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from cswiger@mac.com) Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by pi.codefab.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4AE045EFD; Fri, 7 Apr 2006 13:29:07 -0400 (EDT) Received: from pi.codefab.com ([127.0.0.1]) by localhost (pi.codefab.com [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10024) with ESMTP id 48739-01; Fri, 7 Apr 2006 13:29:06 -0400 (EDT) Received: from [192.168.1.3] (pool-68-161-112-80.ny325.east.verizon.net [68.161.112.80]) (using TLSv1 with cipher DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by pi.codefab.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 64E8C5C6B; Fri, 7 Apr 2006 13:29:05 -0400 (EDT) Message-ID: <4436A160.1050408@mac.com> Date: Fri, 07 Apr 2006 13:29:04 -0400 From: Chuck Swiger User-Agent: Thunderbird 1.5 (Windows/20051201) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: gayn.winters@bristolsystems.com References: <002701c65a1d$55b1e0b0$6501a8c0@workdog> In-Reply-To: <002701c65a1d$55b1e0b0$6501a8c0@workdog> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Virus-Scanned: amavisd-new at codefab.com Cc: 'Malcolm Fitzgerald' , "'freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG'" Subject: Re: Which BSD - Flash Drive X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 07 Apr 2006 17:29:10 -0000 Gayn Winters wrote: >> [mailto:owner-freebsd-questions@freebsd.org] On Behalf Of >> Malcolm Fitzgerald [ ... ] > http://www.crucial.com/kb/answer.asp?qid=4088 > > Where they rate their own flash at 1,000,000 read/write cycles. The typical flash drive used to be rated for about 10,000 writes, but the better vendors do better. :-) They've also started doing things like "wear leveling" by rotating the sectors being written to, which help avoid hotspots forming which wear out earlier (ie, the directory entry for / or /tmp). But you need to look for that feature in your flash drives as the low-cost ones typically won't have it! You can help things out a lot by disabling file access time updating ("noatime" flag to mount), and by using RAMdisks and a no-swap config, as someone else had mentioned. But I'll repeat my caveat: if you want to run a general-purpose FreeBSD system, you're better off using a hard drive than flash. Save using flash for dedicated appliances where you've taken steps to control writes. -- -Chuck PS: I'm seeing a relatively significant number of 5-8 year old Cisco boxes starting to wear out their flash chips and fail (ie, 3 out of about a dozen or so I've had contact with over the years).