From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Sun Mar 19 12:26:37 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 53CB416A400 for ; Sun, 19 Mar 2006 12:26:37 +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 7027643D64 for ; Sun, 19 Mar 2006 12:26:34 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from cswiger@mac.com) Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by pi.codefab.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id E5BBA5CE2; Sun, 19 Mar 2006 07:26:33 -0500 (EST) 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 88894-09; Sun, 19 Mar 2006 07:26:33 -0500 (EST) Received: from [192.168.1.3] (pool-68-160-194-11.ny325.east.verizon.net [68.160.194.11]) (using TLSv1 with cipher DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by pi.codefab.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 05EEE5CB5; Sun, 19 Mar 2006 07:26:32 -0500 (EST) Message-ID: <441D4DFB.8030600@mac.com> Date: Sun, 19 Mar 2006 07:26:35 -0500 From: Chuck Swiger Organization: The Courts of Chaos User-Agent: Thunderbird 1.5 (Windows/20051201) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Harlan Stenn References: <20060319120349.CA86E54821@minnie.everett.org> In-Reply-To: <20060319120349.CA86E54821@minnie.everett.org> X-Enigmail-Version: 0.94.0.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Virus-Scanned: amavisd-new at codefab.com Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: CF disk slices? 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: Sun, 19 Mar 2006 12:26:37 -0000 Harlan Stenn wrote: > Can one put multiple slices on a CF disk? Sure. Most BIOSes will treat a CF flash much like they would a USB device, and they'll be happy to see a MBR. > I ran fdisk on one machine > and was able to carve up a CF disk with 4 slices (I want to boot one of > 4 different OSes on a soekris system). There are other systems that > seem to indicate that a CF disk can only have 1 slice on it. Hmm. You are perhaps not aware that flash memory can only do a relatively limited number of writes before failing (10K to perhaps 50K, if you've got a fancy CF card with write leveling and/or spare sectors)...? Installing and updating multiple operating systems is contraindicated on such hardware not because it is not possible to do, but because the CF won't last very long under such a usage profile. You should configure a CF-based system to operate with the filesystems mounted read-only most of the time, or at least turn off updating atime information. -- -Chuck