Baslinux mailing list

[James Miller <jamtat AT mailsnare.net>]

On Tue, 25 Jan 2005, sindi keesan wrote:

> CF cards come in 32MB and up (at least 256MB).  Might be a faster way to
> run linux and use less power on a laptop.  Has anyone tried this?

My router/firewall/ftp server uses a CF card for a hard drive. It runs
Freesco, which uses umsdos and boots easily from a 64MB card (runs mostly
in RAM thereafter). These cards are said to have a limited life--X number
of reads/writes and they're finished. I think they're supposed to have
shorter life expectancies than HD's, but don't know of any reliable
figures. They are definitely faster than HD's.  Older BIOSes seem to have
trouble with the wierd C/H/S configurations these disks have, but if you
can find info about their C/H/S configuration, you can enter those figures
manually into the BIOS. I've found the cheapest CF cards through
TigerDirect here in the US. I got a 128MB card for $7 and a 256MB for
something like $16. When you add shipping cost, it's of course a bit more
than that.

James