On 23/8/09, M. Horvat wrote:
|
>flash [cards] reduce wear on interal flash chip
Even with heavy use, internal flash should last many years even if
its your main or only store. But once it's gone your machine probably
is, too. And without external flash there's no backup. Also, one
needs at least one additional flash card to backup external card(s)
(assuming one has more on card than free memory on internal; if not
one could use internal store for backup, but it generally won't last
as long as an external flash backup because some operations
exclusively write to internal store, e.g, owner and work site cards,
system preferences).
> Newton-compatible [linear] cards increasingly rare
Tima Scientific in Toronto lists many. Yes, they are a lot more
expensive than ATA. One can do better on eBay and also on this list
occasionally.
>2. Do flash cards use any extra power when they are not read or written to?
The best cards sleep when not being accessed, a state that only draws
a few mA if any. My inexpert observations of amp readings suggest
cards suck no more than a few mA when awake and idle, so the sleep
function is probably negligible benefit. (They also seem to go to
sleep in less than a minute.)
Far more significant to battery drain is how much Newt is on.
>3. How about heap?
Since no one else is responding: my inexpert understanding is soups
and non-frozen packages are the main consumers of heap, not the card
itself. I've certainly never noticed a difference whether using
internal or external store.
Enjoy!
B
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Received on Mon Aug 24 10:49:34 2009
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