> My worry is this;
> Although flash memory has a lifespan of approx. 100,000 read/write cycles,
That should read "write/erase cycles" and depending on the chips used could
be
anywhere from 100K - 1M.
Now this is the min "average" life of a block ( a block being 64Kb or 64KW
depending on if you are talking 8bit or 16bit bus).
Simply reading data from the flash will not affect its' life (well not so
you will notice).
As a block "dies" it is marked defective and is ignored from that point on.
The flash
will continue to operate but with reduced capacity.
Not sure if the Newton OS has any kind of "wear-leveling" but this would
tend to
increase the flash life by even use of the blocks.
When you store a pkg on the Newton it is written to flash. But once it is
there, it
will stay there until it is erased. As you run a program, a copy of it is
put in dram
and it runs from there. The data you put in it, also gets put in dram. It
gets put in
Flash periodically.
I am not aware of the Flash being constantly written to and so it might not
get the kind
of wear you first thought.
Now I am a hardware Guy and you programmer types might shed some light on
the inner software workings of the Newton that I have misunderstood.
> Should I therefore store all new info. on a storage card, and use SBM
> utilities for a card to card backup,
It is always a good idea to backup your data regardless of the system you
are
running. If you keep regular full backups, you will be happier when your
flash card runs out of 1's and 0's.
Regards,
PCBman
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