ReiserFS or ext3 on USB flash drive?

[bassix-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org]

On 1/24/06, Christopher Browne <cbbrowne-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org> wrote:
> On 1/24/06, bassix-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org <bassix-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org> wrote:
> > Is this feasible? Does anyone know of any potential pitfalls from trying this?
>
> It may be feasible, but there is reason to disrecommend using a
> journalled filesystem on flash, namely that journalling introduces a
> "hot spot."
>
> Whether it's ReiserFS or ext3, you introduce a ~32MB section of the
> device that is being *continually* updated every time any changes are
> made on the filesystem.
>
> Flash devices can only cope with limited numbers of updates per
> "sector", which means that you'll be diminishing the lifespan.

That is a good point that I was interested in knowing. Will ext2 be
OK? Will "running" an OS from flash memory greatly reduce it's
lifespan due to this aforementioned limitation? Can someone illuminate
how flash memory counts each "access"? Does access to every sector
count as one access? Or, if I copy an 8MB file, does that count as one
access? What if I copy 100 512K files (how many "accesses" would that
be)?

Thanks for any help on this.

-Steve.
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