From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Sun Oct 31 23:50:56 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 D724B16A4D0 for ; Sun, 31 Oct 2004 23:50:56 +0000 (GMT) Received: from out2.smtp.messagingengine.com (out2.smtp.messagingengine.com [66.111.4.26]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 6C57143D72 for ; Sun, 31 Oct 2004 23:50:56 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from list-freebsd-2004@morbius.sent.com) Received: from frontend2.messagingengine.com (frontend2.internal [10.202.2.151]) by frontend1.messagingengine.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id CF689C35BDC for ; Sun, 31 Oct 2004 18:50:54 -0500 (EST) X-Sasl-enc: lo9/fIA27zv6BmMWNl+psw 1099266651 Received: from [192.168.1.5] (unknown [80.41.103.37]) by frontend2.messagingengine.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 796DC56F504 for ; Sun, 31 Oct 2004 18:50:51 -0500 (EST) From: "R. W." To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Date: Sun, 31 Oct 2004 23:50:47 +0000 User-Agent: KMail/1.7 References: <41853BC3.7040505@nbritton.org> In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Message-Id: <200410312350.47732.list-freebsd-2004@morbius.sent.com> Subject: Re: Laptops as routers 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: Sun, 31 Oct 2004 23:50:57 -0000 On Sunday 31 October 2004 21:54, Luke wrote: > > If you are worry about power consumption or reliability when using > > old computers I have some general tips for you: > > 1. Don't use a storage device that has spinning disks, instead use > > a CF card, Zip Drive/Disk, etc. > > http://www.cfide.co.uk/compact_flash_ide_adapters.shtml > > To go off on a bit of a tangent here, I find the idea of replacing > hard drives with flash memory intriguing. When I first heard someone > talk about doing this several years ago, the idea was quickly shot > down by people saying that flash memory has a very short lifetime > when you write to it. Even a system as minimal as a firewall will > require frequent write operations if it does any logging at all. > > Has this limitation been overcome in recent years? > Google isn't turning up any recent articles on this subject for me. I know that embedded OSs, like VxWorks, have dedicated flash filesystems that do "wear-levelling". These filesystems avoid having special physical locations, and make sure all date is occasionally moved around to prevent the concentration of damage. I believe that some flash storage devices have this built in to the hardware nowdays.