[NTLK] Question about Apple branded 2mb linear flash cards

[Dan]

Thanks Victor and PCBman.  I had a hunch it was Intel Series II, but didn't have any hard evidence.  I did some figuring and on the good side I have a lot of write cycles left.  But now the question: would backing up/restoring the card with say SBM utilities improve the distribution of data and wear leveling (freeing up less used blocks)?  OR will it just place everything in the exact same position and not worth it?

-Dan

On 5/20/2022 11:31 AM, DXH wrote:
> I just read a card using my Elan systems card reader software and I can confirm that it is indeed Intel series 2 flash, specifically using 28F008SA chips.
> 
> These chips are specified for 100,000 block erase cycles.
> 
> Wear-leveling is done in software:
> 
> “ File management systems modify and store data files by allocating flash memory space intelligently. Wear leveling algorithms, employed to equally distribute the number of rewrite cycles, ensure that no particular block is cycled excessively relative to other blocks. This provides hundreds of thousands of hours of power on usage.”
> 
> I don’t know what is in the NewtonOS but I would be surprised if some sort of byte juggling was not going on in the storage layer.
> 
> These cards are also capable of XIP (eXecute In Place). Not sure if the OS takes advantage of this but that can help card wear too.
> 
> PCBman
> 
> 
> 
> Sent from my iPad
> 
>> On May 19, 2022, at 5:01 PM, Victor Rehorst <victor at chuma.org> wrote:
>>
>> It's very likely to be Intel Series II linear flash, which I don't believe have hardware-level wear leveling implementations.
>>
>> However, the Newton OS' storage layer does apparently attempt to batch and distribute card writes to improve performance and flash longevity.
>>
>> I found this information in the list archives, though I couldn't find a primary source for it in my seconds of searching.  If anyone knows where this is documented, please chime in.
>>
>> -V
>>
>>> On 2022-05-18 19:42, Dan wrote:
>>> Hi All,
>>> Anyone know what kind of flash was used in the Apple branded 2mb linear flash cards?  The number of write cycles and if it used wear leveling or not?  They might have been produced before wear leveling was implemented.
>>>
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