Which Filesystem is Best for CompactFlash?
HungWeiLo asks: "We're currently using a Debian-based distribution for an embedded device where we're placing our primary kernel and filesystem on a 1GB CompactFlash card. The kernel will be placed in a read-only partition, while the other partition will be used for logging actions in the system and hosting a flatfile database. The concern here is the need to journalize the data (ext2 corrupts pretty badly since we power it on and off), and the need to minimize thrashing of the CompactFlash (we're using industrial-strength, million-write-cycle+ versions, but that can quickly get us into trouble if the filesystem constantly writes to the flash). Does anyone have any experience using filesystems in this situation? Which one should I look into for this type of application? Ext2? Ext3? Reiser? JFFS2? Help!"
Actually, rereading your original comment, I'm not sure my experiences actually are anything like yours.
While we update a couple files a few times a month, we're not writing a database to the cf over and over.
Still, we like the CF based solution-- if we have a hard ware failure, it's quick to swap out, and if the CF fails, we have archives of the file systems made automatically weekly so it's just a matter of untarring to a disk, re lilo'ing, and install.