Hi Matt,
Robert is right. These cards have a finite life, defined as 100,000
read/write cycles. In a PDA, this averages out to be about 10-20 years, but
in a router this might be 6 weeks. So, in any used flash card purchase, try
to find out what they were used for, and how extensively. Difficult to
quantify, but useful info. A good rule of thumb is to avoid router cards,
period, unless you unwrapped it and know exactly how much it was used.
At least part of the reason that linear flash is so expensive, particularly
recently, goes back to Supply and Demand (Capitalism 101).
When Flash cards were first introduced, they were ALL linear. They were
difficult to manufacture, the tooling was new and buggy (high reject ratio),
and the demand curve and volume levels, as perceived by the manufacturers,
was iffy.
Again, this was a brand-new technology. The first generation of these cards
had some problems in working with some machines, in that there was no
standard way to address them, which lead to compatibility issues. By the
time that the demand curve had gone up to the point where the tooling had
been debugged and in place, a newer standard had been created (ATA) which
dealt with a lot of the niggling issues and shortcomings of the linear
architecture.
So, by the time there was any significant production volume, the marketplace
had changed.
Intel (and others) continue to manufacture linear cards, both for sale under
their brand and OEMed to other vendors (Cisco Routers use Linear Flash cards
made by Intel), but the market is shrinking fast. Most manufacturers have
dropped out because the ATA market has so much more volume. Competition in a
market niche yeilds lower prices to the consumer. This is what has happened
in the ATA flash card field. And, conversely, a lessening of competition in
the linear flash market has kept prices artificially high, and it will get
more expensive as production of these cards ramp down.
Regards,
Gary
----Original Message Follows----
From: "Matthew Robinson" <matthew@crescent.org.uk>
To: <newtontalk@planetnewton.com>
Subject: Re: NTLK Excited!!!
Date: Tue, 1 Feb 2000 10:43:36 -0000
Thanks for this. Presumably this applies to all flash cards that have heavy
usage? thankfully I know the history of this card (used for about a day
before I got my sticky mits on it) so I should be OK, although I feel a
backup coming on...
Cheers
Matthew
----- Original Message -----
From: "Robert Benschop" <robertbenschop@bigfoot.com>
To: "NewtonTalk" <newtontalk@planetnewton.com>
Sent: Tuesday, February 01, 2000 10:31 AM
Subject: Re: NTLK Excited!!!
> on 01-02-2000 11:12, Matthew Robinson at matthew@crescent.org.uk wrote:
>
> > I can confirm that 20M flash cards work. Mine is 'borrowed' from one
our
> > Cisco's at work and works a treat. I've almost finished filling it with
> > useful(less) bits and bats!
>
> Matthew, I don't want to spoil your fun but in the past a lot of faulty
> cards for the Newton were around that came from Cisco Routers.
> Due to the massive amount of read/write cycles that these cards
experience
> in a Router (much more than you'll probably ever manage in a Newton) they
> tend to go bad.
> The way to check is by filling up your card to the brim, if it can't hold
> all the data at some point or starts returning errors it's faulty.
> BTW, people use Newtons with 32 MB cards in them without a problem.
>
> regards,
>
>
> Robert Benschop
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