[H-GEN] Flash drives and wear levelling: user experiences?

[Russell Stuart]

On Thu, 2008-07-31 at 21:32 +1000, Murray McAllister wrote:
> This might not be what you are after:
> <http://www.bress.net/blog/archives/114-How-Long-Does-a-Flash-Drive-Last.html>
> 
> It is good if you are interested in how long USB flash drives might last.

The figures he got were remarkable.  Remarkably poor, that is. Flash is
meant to survive between 10K and 100K writes.  Do the sums.  His failed
after 87 writes.

He noticed some writes took longer.  He put it down to wear levelling.
Given the appalling performance I'd be surprised if any wear levelling
is being done.  Some writes took longer than others because a flash
block needs to be erased every so often.

Which is not to say his efforts were for nought.  Anything but.  It was
an eye-opener for me.  Its just that his conclusions awry.