ReiserFS or ext3 on USB flash drive?

[Lennart Sorensen]

On Tue, Jan 24, 2006 at 11:33:35AM -0500, Christopher Browne 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."

True.  If the flash device does not have hardware wear leveling, that
would be a problem.  So would the FAT table in general, so you would
really hope most devices are smart enough to have wear leveling.  If
they don't the filesystem they usually come with is bound to kill them
quickly too.

> 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.

Len Sorensen
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