[luau] No hard drive, only compact flash card

Matthew John Darnell mdarnell at servpac.com
Sun Jul 6 19:32:01 PDT 2003


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Casey Roberts" <utexan01 at yahoo.com>
To: <luau at videl.ics.hawaii.edu>
Sent: Sunday, July 06, 2003 10:11 AM
Subject: Re: [luau] No hard drive, only compact flash card


> --- Matthew John Darnell <mdarnell at servpac.com> wrote:
> > Aloha,
> >
> > Does anyone have any experience with booting and
> > running an full Linux
> > server install from a 1.0GB CompactFlash Cardor
> > similar.
> >
> > By full server install I mean, apache, sendmail,
> > mysql, gc++, etc.  No X
> > needed, only command line.
> >
> > Seems like it would be possible, 500MB for the OS
> > and 50MB for the apps.
> >
> > I wonder how fast/slow they are for access compared
> > to a hard drive.
> >
> > I see 1.0GB card for $299 retail, they will only be
> > getting
> > cheaper/faster/higher density.
>
> Seeing as you are taking out what would be the largest
> and most memory intensive packages in a Linux install
> (XWin is great, but at a cost), you should be able to
> do this like any other install.  CompactFlash cards
> are faster on read/write, but the lifespan is only
> between 100,000-300,000 cycles. If you were to do a
> system using only flash cards, I would recommend that
> you place heavy read/write directories, such as /tmp,
> on a separate card, so that you don't have to reload
> the server every time that you need to replace the
> card.

Maybe even a hard drive for the /tmp.  If the hard drive crashes the system
will go down but it is realativly easy to recover from.


> Also, from looking around on the 'Net, CF card speeds
> are slower than ATA/100.  Lexar 32X 1GB CR car has a
> speed of just 4.7MB/s, versus 62 MB/s with ATA/100
> drives, after you get through the board.

That is a bit slower, I wonder how long a boot up would take.  From my very
un-scientific observations Linux has less disk thrashing on starup than a
Windows box.




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