[poll; updated] eMMC vs. uSD; modular eMMC

[vcoleiro1]

@ _Wej_  I'm not interested in playing games either, but you seem hell bent on trying to imply eMMC will fail before other components . Maybe thats not what you mean, but that's how its coming across to not just me, but to others who have replied to you.  

So your saying there could be dodgy makers of eMMC and robust eMMC out there - sure ok then , would have thought that's a given for everything. I assume ED will do the research and choose the robust one.

On the note of  card readers , I should point out since were talking failures, that a number of readers have failed on me.  All in all , I dont think the longevity of a SD reader will be better than the  longevity of eMMC. 

 

[Grench]

I like the SATA to uSD adapter idea.

Actually - that idea only has benefit if it's SATA to full sized SD using a SATA<-> UHS-II SD adapter.
That would require one of the SD slots to be moved 'inside' and be made non-removable. It would be a rather dramatic change in the configuration and workings of the device.

Would it be cool? Hell yes - for a successor machine 3+ years from now.

Those new UHS-II SDXC cards are essentially SD sized SSD drives. The only things that can keep up with them are SATA and USB 3.

 

[wej]

@ _Wej_ I'm not interested in playing games either, but you seem hell bent on trying to imply eMMC will fail before other components . Maybe thats not what you mean, but that's how its coming across to not just me, but to others who have replied to you.

You have been accusing me of that game playing crap, so if you are not interested in that either, I wonder why you started that in the first place. If you do not understand what I mean, that's perfectly fine, just ask and I'll try to explain myself better, but at least try to be a little polite.

In all my posts in this thread, I have been trying to explain stuff, because there seemed to be several misconceptions about flash memory. I did not even say if I would prefer eMMC or an internal SD card. The reason why I posted here in the first place was, so that people can make a more sensible choice in the poll. As I said earlier, quoting random numbers does not help, explaining how those number can be interpreted hopefully at least helps a little.

Ok, that's it for me in this thread. I hope my posts were at least somewhat helpful for some of you.

 

[Natsu]

Actually - that idea only has benefit if it's SATA to full sized SD using a SATA<-> UHS-II SD adapter.

That would require one of the SD slots to be moved 'inside' and be made non-removable. It would be a rather dramatic change in the configuration and workings of the device.

Would it be cool? Hell yes - for a successor machine 3+ years from now.

Those new UHS-II SDXC cards are essentially SD sized SSD drives. The only things that can keep up with them are SATA and USB 3.

So, something like this won't work? Link Having some trouble finding a smaller one.

 

[vcoleiro1]

@_wej_  .  I thought you were playing games - that's how it came across.   You have explained that's not the case and I accepted that - I apologise for the mistake.

As I've said, i've seen lots of data, and yes I understand you need to interpret it correctly.  But I have seen nothing that would say eMMC is not long lasting as a general comment for the products I have seen.  And that encompassed a large number of different stats on the longevity, from read/writes to failure , to all sorts of stats that all pointed to robustness - ie a lot of other stats I never posted.  That's all I was generally saying.  

 

[Grench]

Actually - that idea only has benefit if it's SATA to full sized SD using a SATA<-> UHS-II SD adapter.

That would require one of the SD slots to be moved 'inside' and be made non-removable. It would be a rather dramatic change in the configuration and workings of the device.

Would it be cool? Hell yes - for a successor machine 3+ years from now.

Those new UHS-II SDXC cards are essentially SD sized SSD drives. The only things that can keep up with them are SATA and USB 3.

So, something like this won't work? Link Having some trouble finding a smaller one.

No. That device does not support UHS-I, so despite being RAID, it would be far slower than any modern single card.

More like this: http://www.d-broad.com/db300_eg.html

That little tiny chip would, in theory, make it possible to use SDXC UHS-I/II media at ~250MB/s on the SATA controller.

It could also run 2 SDXC UHS-I/II slots in RAID0 and, theoretically hit 500MB/s or max out the SATA controller whichever comes first.

 

[_wb_]

@_wej_  .  I thought you were playing games - that's how it came across.   You have explained that's not the case and I accepted that - I apologise for the mistake.

As I've said, i've seen lots of data, and yes I understand you need to interpret it correctly.  But I have seen nothing that would say eMMC is not long lasting as a general comment for the products I have seen.  And that encompassed a large number of different stats on the longevity, from read/writes to failure , to all sorts of stats that all pointed to robustness - ie a lot of other stats I never posted.  That's all I was generally saying.  

eMMC and SD are both just NAND flash memory with a built-in controller. Their expected lifetime depends on the quality of the NAND (e.g. SLC or MLC/TLC), the kind of wear leveling algorithms the controller uses, and how they are used (what write patterns). There is a range of qualities and prices for both of them. If you want to have an eMMC that is very reliable and very fast and has enough capacity, it'll not be cheap. A µSD card of the same reliability, speed and capacity will be roughly the same price.

The longevity of the physical µSD slot could be an issue, but if we take one that is rated for thousands of insert/remove cycles and tell people to only remove the card when they're replacing it with a better one, I think it's an issue we can safely ignore.

 

[thatgui]

The longevity of the physical µSD slot could be an issue, but if we take one that is rated for thousands of insert/remove cycles and tell people to only remove the card when they're replacing it with a better one, I think it's an issue we can safely ignore.

Except "swappy" and clumsy people (like me)

 

[vcoleiro1]

@_wb_

The card reader slot fail didn't happen for me because of inserts/re-inserts.  It could have been corrosion on the contacts, becuase a card was left in there - not sure. It happened on more than one device for me  That was just my experience.

As for SD cards, I have had some pretty decent ones that died, my experience with SD cards is similiar to ED's.  I don't know why they failed, but they did.  My experience has been bad with them. I know plenty of others who have the same experience as myself and ED  .  My experience with eMMC products is similiar again to ED's - cheap , bad or ugly they live on. Maybe there are better SD cards in recent months - will have to get some more and see.

 

[_wb_]

The longevity of the physical µSD slot could be an issue, but if we take one that is rated for thousands of insert/remove cycles and tell people to only remove the card when they're replacing it with a better one, I think it's an issue we can safely ignore.

Except "swappy" and clumsy people (like me)

You can't have an open, hacker-friendly device and try to protect people from shooting themselves in the foot. If you know you're clumsy, don't constantly replace the µSD card.

 

[comradekingu]

I dont think users should be detrerred from using their devices. the pandorawiki is riddled with "you should probably/not use nand", and warnings.

This sends, albeit true, the wrong message. Use it till your arms fall off, and shoul anything happen, here is how to get back to square one → reinstall (download link)

this is how backups work, enjoy pyra.

 

[Natsu]

We going have like a 10 page digital manual pop up when you first turn on the device. :lol:

 

[thatgui]

You can't have an open, hacker-friendly device and try to protect people from shooting themselves in the foot. If you know you're clumsy, don't constantly replace the µSD card.

Does a µSD -Slot make a device hacker friendly, and how many 'hackers' will be drawn to the Pyra ? More then we already have for the Pandora ? The Pandora already draws most of it user base out of the "casual" audience, I doubt it will be much different with the Pyra. So I'm more worried about cases like "I put my Pandora into my school bag with a couple of books, and now my screen is broken, how is that possible" - types.

 

[comradekingu]

"Unix was not designed to stop its users from doing stupid things, as that would also stop them from doing clever things." – Doug Gwyn

 

[thatgui]

"Unix was not designed to stop its users from doing stupid things, as that would also stop them from doing clever things." – Doug Gwyn

Had "Doug Gwyn" to deal with "customers" that wanted a costly repair after they had done stupid things ?

 

[comradekingu]

As with every computer since the beginning of time, removing the OS storage does not warrant a RMA.

 

[klapse]

Would Android on the Pyra be instelled to internal NAND? Or could it reside on removeable SD?

My debian installs on PC almost never exceed 4GB, but if 32GB internal storage over 16GB only adds $22, I would prefer it.

 

[flinx0]

Why couldn't it have emmc and a sata to sd to give it a dual boot ability? Also then you would have the possibility to install the os from within the other os, giving you the ability to change your os without a computer. That is if you can boot off of both emmc and the sata.

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk

 

[Exophase]

Why couldn't it have emmc and a sata to sd to give it a dual boot ability? Also then you would have the possibility to install the os from within the other os, giving you the ability to change your os without a computer. That is if you can boot off of both emmc and the sata.

It already has dual boot ability, the bootloader will automatically scan one of the SD slots to see if it can boot from it. Same way you can boot off of a DVD or USB drive on a PC.

 

[flinx0]

I ment without taking up one of the sd card slots.

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