From: Dan (dan_at_dbdigitalweb.com)
Date: Sun Feb 15 2004 - 08:30:48 PST
-----Original Message-----
From: Bret Feinblatt
Date: Sunday, February 15, 2004 10:37 AM
Subject: Re: [NTLK] Backups anyone?
I didn't know about this limited read/write thing until now.
Not having trouble with my Flash card, but I guess it can't hurt to be
ready... are Newt-compatible 20-30 meg cards still being made, or is
eBay the only recourse?
Also, why exactly is it that they're susceptible to breakdown after so
many read-writes?
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Well bascially there is a Oxide layer in the chips that hold a charge of
electrons when you store data, and after so many writes and rewrites this
layer starts to break down and no longer holds a charge. It is a lot of
cycles though, generally 100,000 or more. So years of daily use in a
Newton. However if the card was used in Cisco router, they can use up a
cards cycles in a week if it is on a busy network. If you want to read
further on flash memory check it out here:
http://computer.howstuffworks.com/flash-memory1.htm
As for flash cards still being made, yes last I knew Viking and Pretec still
make Linear flash cards, however they are not cheap and often double the
price of ebay in my experence. Of course then you know you are getting a
new card for sure, and on ebay even if they say it is new you have no way to
know if it is or not (unless the card really looks phyically abused).
Also there is usually no warning before cards fail, one day they are fine
then the next you are getting errors. And as soon as you start getting
hardware errors backup immeditely! Even better to backup on a regular basis
so if you can't backup due to card failure you won't loose much if any
data). If it is a brand new card, you know its past and how much use it
has. But of course you pay more for that. I have baought several cards and
not had any problem with them, just make sure you don't get a card that was
use in any routers.
-Dan
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