On 05/02/11 22:38, Simon Royal wrote:
Hi
How reliable and durable are SD Cards and Flash memory. Im thinking of getting an netbook, one of those little EeePC things but the earlier models have limited internal Flash memory.
So, extra storage would be in the shape of Flash drives or SD cards.
How reliable are they for storing stuff? I read somewhere about the 100,000 rewrite limitation, but how true is this.
I think modern and reputable make SD cards/flash memory are now durable to the point that unless you are using them in heavy write scenarios (swap or log files) then the lifetime will exceed the usefulness as technology advances.
I have had a few usb flash drives die in my time but most of them have been due to rough handling/water damage/connector damage. I can't remember having an SD/CF card fail on me.
Also bear in mind that these figures are talking about writes to a specific block. file allocation,fragmentation and wear levelling in the flash controller all have an effect on this so the real figure will be better.
If you are really concerned then making sure you mount with noatime and using a non journalling FS will help prolong life..and improve speed as with flash memory writes are usually slower than reads.