Re: ext2 on flash memory

From: Tomasz Chmielewski
Date: Mon Jun 11 2007 - 07:53:36 EST


Eduard-Gabriel Munteanu wrote:

(...)

Your USB pendrive will wear faster if you use an inappropriate filesystem. Such filesystems require frequent writes and change their internal state often.

This could be alleviated by COWing the filesystem somehow and flushing writes when you're finished. But the modifications will be lost if crashes occur. The filesystem structures will still change a lot and require big writes to update it.

Really, why don't you try a more suitable fs for your pendrive, one that changes itself less than usual fs's?

Hmm, are there any fs (read+write) alternatives for pendrives?

jffs2 only works on mtd devices, and that excludes pendrives, which are block devices. I know LogFS will work with block devices one day, but currently, it doesn't (and is not in the kernel yet as well).


Also, ext2 provides a nice feature other filesystems lack: xip. Especially, if a pendrive is used as a rootfs for a small device.


--
Tomasz Chmielewski
http://wpkg.org
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