From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Oct 27 10:36:37 2004 Return-Path: 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 302E516A4CE for ; Wed, 27 Oct 2004 10:36:37 +0000 (GMT) Received: from pi.codefab.com (pi.codefab.com [199.103.21.227]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id D241E43D67 for ; Wed, 27 Oct 2004 10:36:36 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from cswiger@mac.com) Received: from [192.168.1.3] (pool-68-160-246-51.ny325.east.verizon.net [68.160.246.51]) by pi.codefab.com (8.12.11/8.12.11) with ESMTP id i9RAaTGU030671 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA bits=256 verify=NO); Wed, 27 Oct 2004 06:36:31 -0400 (EDT) Message-ID: <417F7A2D.7070104@mac.com> Date: Wed, 27 Oct 2004 06:36:29 -0400 From: Chuck Swiger Organization: The Courts of Chaos User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.3) Gecko/20040910 X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Graham Bentley References: <3.0.6.32.20041027084549.007d1100@mail.uk2.net> In-Reply-To: <3.0.6.32.20041027084549.007d1100@mail.uk2.net> X-Enigmail-Version: 0.86.1.0 X-Enigmail-Supports: pgp-inline, pgp-mime Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Spam-Status: No, hits=-3.0 required=5.5 tests=AWL,BAYES_00 autolearn=ham version=2.64 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 2.64 (2004-01-11) on pi.codefab.com cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Flash Drives Sanity Check X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 27 Oct 2004 10:36:37 -0000 Graham Bentley wrote: > I was wondering if anyone had any experience > of running FreeBSD out of Compact Flash ? I would consider using NetBSD instead, as that OS seems to support a stripped-down config somewhat easier than FreeBSD (or PicoBSD). I am using NetBSD on a Soekris 4801 box via CF: http://www.soekris.com/net4801.htm > The HDD to Flash adapters are around 15GBP > here and 1GB of Flash about 70GBP > > I know there are some projects around that use > Compact Flash (like Openbrick) but I was thinking > more in terms of running a stripped down desktop > workstation. > > Does CF stand lots of read / write operations ? Not really. You've identified a major concern. > I read somewhere that it has quite low life > expectancy ? Many CF cards are only rated for 10K or 20K writes, although I believe that some newer CF cards will handle 50K to 100K writes. It is highly recommended that you mount filesystems read-only or at least noatime, to avoid scribbing non-significant updates to the superblock and common directories. It's also a good idea to mount /var on a RAM disk. CF is better suited for embedded applications like firewalls and the like than it is for general-purpose use. -- -Chuck