[sf-lug] "Stick PC" and other SFF computers

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Ken Shaffer (kenshaffer80 at gmail.com):

> Thanks Rick, that was very informative.  The storage is definitely the weak
> point.  I booted off an USB stick for about a year before the stick wore
> out (then just switched back to the internal Ubuntu 14.04).  The 32GB (not
> 64GB after all), micro sd has been in the stick for four years, collected
> 300000+jpgs from a few security cams, and hasn't given me any problems. 

And I'd expect it wouldn't, with that usage model.

Flash storage generically has the problem that each cell can do only a
limited number of erase-rewrite cycles, and _server_ duty simply
involves a lot of those.  And on Unixes, even reading files normally
also involves a lot of writing, if only because of metadata needing to
be updated.

Laying down a long series of picture files, one after another, in a long
series, and then mostly doing nothing with them, does not involve a lot
of erase-write cycles.  Thus my point.

If you are not familiar with the important ways that flash media as a
general class differ greatly from hard drive, that is something worth
studying, and I'm not going to give a lecture on it here and now.

I
> also email the pics out, so the stick's just a local backup. 
> The wireless
> and bluetooth work just fine, and I mostly use a USB hub for kb and mouse.

The latter typifies the things for which USB is a win, relative to what
it replaced.  You mention USB hubs:  Man, one indicator of how much
troubles those (sometimes, not always) cause is that every single
troublshooting guide for USB problems starts with "First, does your
problem persist without any USB hubs?"