16mb buffer hard drive in a laptop

In article ,
Shailesh Humbad wrote:
J. Clarke wrote:
David Chien wrote:


However, they won't operate for long. They have very limited number of
write cycles.

Tell that to my 800MB 2.5" flash drive I picked up cheap off ebay.com
that's running just fine in my notebook.

flash cells typically are rated in the 100,000 cycles per cell
lifespan, and with automatic write balancing, drives can last years w/o
any problems at all in most user environments.


In "most user environments" Windows is constantly updating the swap file,
which will kill a flash drive very quickly. If you're not running Windows
that's another story but then you're not running anything characteristic of
"most user environments".

What if we disable the swap file? I wonder if anyone has actually
tried running Windows on a flash disk, or if everyone has just been
scared off by the write-cycle limitation. I have an extra 256MB flash
card, maybe I will try running Win98 off it. A CF to IDE adapter
goes for less about $20.

WinXP embedded can run from flash disk:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/de...s/xpehelp/html
/xetbsCompactFlash.asp


H**l; Winxp/embedded can run in a cell phone! (I think that's what
Motorola uses)

I know the poeple that write Pebble, a linux tailored to run from a 64
or 128MB CF card on a small mobo that has 64mb RAM. That's all there
is. I've built a couple systems from the setup scripts.The Pebble
package is a WiFI AP and web server that's widely used for the Free
WiFi zones and local coffe shops. Neat stuff.

www.nycwireless.com/pebble

When Pebble Linux boots it makes some of RAM a memory-resident file
system for run-time data. It runs the binaries of the CF card, but
this file system is marked RO after booting is complete to protect the
life of the CF card. It required some magic to make the Linux kernel
happy running from a RO file system.

There are MAKERW and MAKERO commands so that I can edit configuration
files while the system is running and then make the system disk RO
afterwords.

Pebble is designed to run for years in remote locations. A couple
years ago the guys were conservative about CF card write cycle
lifetimes. I haven't heard that they have changed their mind(s).

--
Al Dykes
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adykes at p a n i x . c o m