> On 15/04/2008, Ingo Weinhold <ingo_weinhold@xxxxxx> wrote: > > Actually that's not true anymore. Current Flash controllers shuffle > > the > > blocks dynamically so that write accesses are distributed equally. > > The last > > hardware test I read about it mentioned, that even after running a > > test > > that permanently wrote to the same blocks for several weeks, no > > errors were > > encountered. > > > > I believe it was at least half a year or so ago, that I first > > heard that > > the controllers use such a strategy. So I guess all modern devices > > do that, > > now. > > > > CU, Ingo > > Depends, actually. That is true for some setups (more modern, I > guess?), however there are already plenty out there who have either > less advanced controllers or no controller at all. For example, NOR > FLASH can be directly mapped to memory (its interface is ROM-like: > address lines, data lines, control lines), and on many embedded > systems it is tied directly to the addressable memory space. That > doesn't have a controller and requires a good filesystem in order to > prolong its lifetime... Exactly. USB keys have that integrated because they must be formated with FAT by default. OTH, some SSD chips even require a proprietary (binary) driver under Linux. > > I have this older headless PC which actually has a 256MB NOR flash > chip (with no controller) where it stores Win CE and uses a > proprietary filesystem which apparently does this shuffling. > And some other use custom file systems as you said. François.