Nand Lifetime.

[prog_]

Hi all,

I've been looking into the gp2x for some time now, and I gotta say, I'm really amazed by this little thing, and I am strongly thinking of buying it.
( Emulation and Homebrew are my priorities )

I have some questions though..

Firstly, I came across a patch for firmware 1.1.0 that said it would shorten the lifetime of the NAND. And without it , the NAND would survive a typical use for around year or so.
My question is, can this really happen? I mean ,could the NAND just go dead after a period of time? I don't want to buy the gp2x and become useless a year later..

Also, I want to ask if there is a way to restore the gp2x into it's original factory condition? I mean, does it have any ROM with the linux in it and you can restore it from there or something ? ( like symbian phones )

Finally, I want to know, how well(or bad) things are in snes emulation? I know that someday in the far future it will be better, but what about now? Chrono Cross,FFVI or Seiken Densetsu 3? ( Yes I'm an RPG fan ). How many fps? with sound, no sound? you know. ( I so want to play chrono on it with sound! )

Ok, I am going to get it either way, but I would be more relieved if this NAND life thing doesn't apply.

Thanks for listening(reading).

PROG_

 

[craigix]

When I was in Korea gamepark told me the NAND would last forever due to the type used.

I did question this claim but they insisted.

I'd still be suspicious though based on their previous claims.

 

[DaveC]

If you read up on NAND the write cycles are from 100,000 to 1 million. If they used the 1 million type, even the 100,000 type it would basically be forever if all you do is install apps or FW upgrades to it. I wouldn't use it as a HDD for swapfiles though.

 

[sand_man]

Also, I want to ask if there is a way to restore the gp2x into it's original factory condition? I mean, does it have any ROM with the linux in it and you can restore it from there or something ? ( like symbian phones )

​

Yes I had to do it yesterday.
http://www.distant-earth.com/gp2x/2005/11/...cked-gp2xs.html

 

[Mr. Anderson]

When I was in Korea gamepark told me the NAND would last forever due to the type used.

I did question this claim but they insisted.

I'd still be suspicious though based on their previous claims.

​

I guess it's one of those new NANDs that are said to last 1 million read/write(like SD Cards) cycles.

 

[Tobriand]

Might it be worth attempting to kill one by writing to it at some stage, if only to quell potential customers? I.e. set up a program that writes to the nand as fast as the unit is capable of continually until it no longer can do so, and run it from a mains adapter until a read error from a periodic check routine shows up. Run for 3 months solid and see if the GP2x is still alive - if it is, then for all practical terms, I'd say GPH were right. If it's dead before then, then at least it'd be possible to work out how long at normal usage it would take before it died...

Of course, you lose one GP2x, but well... one or two with messed up screens or something that might have the ability to use their nand to death might exist... or something. You never know!

Better still, of course, would be to disconnect the nand chip, and hook it up to something else that could write to it even faster, but hey - that's unrealistic, I think.

 

[Alpha2]

I'm more curious about this Patch actually, It's not an official GPH patch, I dont think I've ever heard of the people responsible for it, The comments seem to say it's generally harmless but it worries me that someone felt the need to creat this patch for something GPH themselves claims won't happen.

With an open system like this it's great if someone intelligent comes along and creates an intelligent solution for something GPH dropped the ball on but who exactly is keeping a check on these patches to know if they're safer than the problems they claim to be fixing.

Not that I'm saying there's anything wrong with the patch but after the PSP bricker poped up it's become pretty neceesary to watch what you're installing nowadays.

 

[judge0]

Actually there are several files which are written to NAND on every boot (dmesg etc) as well as least one 'tracking' file for EbookViewer, bookmark.dat which is written to NAND constantly.

We all know nothing lasts forever, but GPH just keeps amazing me with the silly things they've done with this system.

Hopefully they've something with U-Boot to make it check NAND and relocate data from bad locations, to verified good locations.

Hopefully this patch won't spark another round of brickings

 

[Alpha2]

So there IS indeed a specific need for this patch NOT to be installed then right? Granted it's stopping something that's unnecessary but the fact that they built the system to do this at every boot means the patch could cause a problem later right?